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Bevan Jones's avatar

Great video and insights Charles. Jimi's work is awesome!

It's really very simple why carbon became the bogey-man. It was the easiest to monetise and the EU carbon market in the early 90's was the start of it all. Unfortunately, late stage global capitalism and its several money-making sops to Nature (such as ESG etc.) are all about monetising Nature wherever possible. Now that we have monetised the air my greatest fear is that water and earth are next.

So, if you really want Conservation, Regeneration and Detoxification to succeed then you need to figure out how the 1% can monetise them for their own gain. Of course I'm joking but sadly I'm probably not too far from the truth either. At the end of the day we (as a collective global society) will eventually realise our mistakes and start seeing things holistically. Or we will die.

I'm reminded of being an apprentice, which etymology ultimately comes from the PIE root *ghend- "to seize, take hold of." Ultimately an apprentice must observe in order to understand and seize the knowledge. Far too many are pretending to be masters already without doing the work of observing. And for me OBSERVING IS THE WORK, as it leads to the correct understanding, which results in the correct actions. Indeed, the word "observe" itself comes from "ob + servare" meaning "to watch, keep safe, protect."

At the end of the day, I think the old monastic orders understood our symbiotic role with Nature best. Laborare et Orare - To work is to pray. For it is only in doing the work, that we will save our planet, and maybe even save ourselves in the process.

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Josh Mitteldorf's avatar

Charles, I hope you might get a chance to mention the work of Amory Lovins at Rocky Mountain Institute. He promotes what he calls the "soft energy path". It is actually cheaper to improve energy efficiency than to build new power plants, whether they be solar or coal or nuclear. RMI has demonstrated 200-MPG cars and their HQ is a building that uses no fuel or electricity for heating -- just super-insulation, heat exchanged ventilation, and passive solar. This in Snowmass, CO where temperatures go to minus 30 every year.

Using energy more efficiently is a viable alternative to cutting down forests for "solar farms", and even competes favorably with rooftop solar.

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