From the Heart of the Energy (R)evolution

Energy Revolution Now

Climate change is an issue that needs to gain ever more weighty ground in finding its place among governmental priorities around the world. The incalculable consequences facing human prosperity with any further rise of Earth’s temperature is becoming harder to ignore, as the effects of global warming are making their mark on our lives with an ever increasing intensity. To sum it up, the climate domino pieces start falling with the rising temperatures influencing rainfall patterns and generating extreme weather including tornados, floods and droughts. Meanwhile the glaciers’ melting, results in increasing sea levels threatening island nations and coastal populations everywhere.

As the European Commission puts it, “These changes pose a serious threat to human lives, to economic development and to the natural world on which much of our prosperity depends.”

A key factor in preventing the worst, is investing in green energy in order to limit the harmful CO2 emissions coming from traditional energy resources. In her passionate TEDx talk below, Tzeporah Berman, co-head of the climate and energy campaign at Greenpeace International, informs us that the Energy (R)evolution, the rise of investment in renewable energy resources instead of fossil fuel and nuclear, has been increasingly evolving since the beginning of our century and it is finally bringing home some hope in what often seems like “running against the clock; because there’s bad news all the time and we know that emissions are still rising”. Addressing a Canadian audience, yet, bearing an international message, Berman is cautiously optimistic, stating that “for the first time after the Industrial Revolution, new investment in wind, in solar, in renewables, has exceeded new investment in oil, in coal, and nuclear.” She stresses, ultimately, the essential role of  private and civil society initiative to the fight for a better future – a future that interests every one of us. Explaining how citizens can help drive the message home to their leaders, she proposes a number of options, enabling individuals and groups alike, to engage and take action in the rise against climatic disaster.

In her own words, “we are living the energy revolution tipping point right now (…) But we have to be able to grab hold of it and move it forward.”