I’m Scott Ott, and here’s a thought.
Lost in the vitriolic effluent of recent political news, was a story of surpassing hope for peace on earth, and a better tomorrow.
It was news of a breakthrough agreement at a global climate change conference.
For the first time in history, all of the nations of the world agreed to agree on a plan to be agreed upon at a future date.
This will, of course, halt the deadly spread of climate change, or at least to slow it down enough to win a Nobel Peace Prize.
This historic agreement to agree to agree-upon didn’t just happen over night.
Initially, environmentalists, climate experts, great thinkers and Al Gore wanted the world to just agree on a plan to reduce man-made atmospheric carbon before we all burn up under the rising ocean.
This would be accomplished by rapidly substituting solar, wind and other clean energy sources, for dirty coal and petroleum.
Essentially, it means switching from underground to above-ground energy sources. And you don’t have to be a climate scientist to like the sound of that.
After all, underground is dark, filled with worms and probably where Hell would be, if it existed, which I’m pretty sure it does not, because I don’t want to go there.
Above-ground is sunny and windy and wet and wonderful, and probably like Heaven, which is where I’m going because, I don’t want to go to Hell, which doesn’t exist anyway.
Not only is above-ground renewable energy better for the planet, but it creates millions of jobs and ushers in a new era of renewable prosperity.
However, poor countries objected to that first plan.
Poor countries — or at least the handful of wealthy politicians and academics who came to the resort conference from poor countries — said they couldn’t survive under this new renewable prosperity, since their people still need to eat food, drink clean water and try to sleep indoors at night…and eat food.
The new renewable prosperity provides mostly research grants, charter jet flights to climate conferences at resort locations, and medals and trophies for Al Gore — most of which, with the possible exception of Al Gore himself — are not edible.
The rich countries said they understood the plight of the poor — which is why they worked so hard to stop being poor countries— and they recommended that the poor countries also stop being poor too, by investing billions of dollars in renewable energy which creates millions of jobs, and keeps poor people from burning up under the ocean.
But the poor countries said, “You became rich countries by burning coal and oil. We want to do that too, because even if we could eat Al Gore, most of us are vegetarians and Al Gore is made of meat.”
So, AT the climate conference in the South American resort town of Playa Sans Swimsuit — instead of a specific plan to reduce deadly atmospheric CO2, the nations agreed to let each nation come up with its own plan and then have another in conference in Paris next year.
This is a huge breakthrough. Previous conferences would dissolve with nothing but vague promises, and a plan to get together in a lovely vacation hotspot next year.
By the way, before the conference a couple of Google engineers recently announced that they had spent several years and lots of Google money to find a way to replace coal with renewable energy for power generation.
Their research showed, that even though renewables are expensive, inefficient, and difficult to transport, we COULD use them to reverse global climate change if…magic.
Of course, research like this will never hinder global climate agreements.
Because global agreements are based on the kind of science that reinforces the known facts that previous scientists predicted might exist, under certain theoretical computer simulated conditions…along with the proper mix of research grants, resort conferences and Al Gore back bacon.
I’m Scott Ott, and there’s a thought.
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