Gaia Vince, Anthropocene & more

An American friend of mine suggested I read Gaia Vince and her latest book Anthropocene a journey through our Planet. I’m normally into spy thrillers and the like so getting into something substantial like this is quite a challenge if like me you read at bedtime and the eyes close ever more quickly.

So I got started and the first chapter was all about the high villages of Nepal and the problems that they are experiencing. Pollution , lack of water, lack of education and modern technology. Frankly the sheer physicality of the lives people in Nepal are leading and their resilience was inspiring within only a few paragraphs.

Then the earthquake struck and thousands of deaths, people made homeless, lack of food and water etc etc

My adventure into Gaia’s book was warning of the dangers. If you dry out the Mountains, lose the Glaciers the earth becomes unstable. Soon the tectonic plates begin to re-act and the inevitable result is earthquakes and many of them.

Today people are living outside because daily quakes are happening and the people are afraid to go inside even if their homes have survived.

You could despair, wring your hands and send off another cheque to Oxfam or invest in a copy of Gaia’s book. It will inspire you with what individual people are doing. One man is creating Glaciers to replace the ones lost by global warming and its effects. Another group are creating internet networks almost out of tin cans. Renewable energy is being developed but they must be careful not to overuse Hydro as water is such a scarce commodity. Parallel this with Chile and its plan to destroy parts of the wilderness in Patagonia with huge hydro schemes to fuel growth thousands of miles away in its cities. This for a country that has huge seaboard boundaries that could create networks of on-shore wind turbines, tidal and wave power projects and save Patagonia.

Anyway I hope I have given you a starter for ten and a reason to buy the book.

If you want to know more from the people of Nepal whats happening on the ground take this link to:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.846010735435291.1073741904.177160615653643&type=1

Of this I shall write more very soon but here`s another thumbnail from the US.

My friend sent me the following latest report from the USA which in part is positive in part what we expect. But with knowledge and communication we can better tackle the future together.

” Although our leaders here in the US are far behind other leaders around the world there is a lot of activity. Solar installations on homes and businesses as well as major power plants are rapidly on the rise, wind farms have proven to be especially profitable and are become common in most US states and our rapid development of natural gas has at least made a dent in the coal fired power plants (I like to see the natural gas become a thing of the past as well but that seems unlikely in the near future). Unfortunately fracking for oil has been so successful that gasoline prices have dropped and Americans with very short memories have begun buying SUV’s again at a record pace. I wonder if the oil companies have offered lower gas prices because hybrids and EV’s were starting to catch hold of the public. Gas has started to rise again and will likely pass $4 a US gallon this summer. The new SUV owners will wail and complain that the President is to blame while oil companies will for the nth year in a row see record profits. So it goes”