Ever wonder what the world would be like today if Al Gore won the election in 2000 instead of Bush? Not to get into politics but Gore had a very different view on the environment than Bush did.  What would this mean for the environment? Would consumers and companies have a different view of the earth? Would there be more legal implications facing companies who didn’t help the environment? These are all questions that can sadly only be speculated on.

Well Gore didn’t stop there.  We all remember the famous Inconvenient Truth documentary.  It had a very powerful effect on many people.  And around that time environmental issues were very prominent in the media and people’s mind.  But where did all of this environmental “buzz” go?

Today I feel as if environmental concerns have taken a back seat in people’s priorities. Sure there are always some people and companies who find this a main priority, but people aren’t talking about these issues as much as they used to. It’s almost as if caring about the environment is old news.  This is unfortunate because there are an increasing number of natural disasters happening every year. Yet, this being said, people are starting to become accustomed to these disasters.  It as if all of these big disasters are now an environmental norm, and with the familiarity of them, there is less motivation to do anything about it.  Maybe I’m wrong and environmental awareness and action is stronger than ever. For everybody sake, I hope I am wrong.

As we discussed in class, the debate between switch or cut to help our environment is a heated debate between some. Before this argument was brought to my attention I had always thought cut was the only way to do it.  But with many opinions flying around the room it made me realize that cut is still important, but so is switch.  I thought that by switching, people were just trying to put a Band-Aid over a much larger problem.  Now I realize that both are crucial to the evolution of our world.  We need to learn to cut down how we spend and consume things.  If we don’t do this eventually we will run into a problem where switching will not help us. We also need to switch to a different way of thinking.   We need to start thinking of ways that innovative technology can help us move forward.  In the past we have been focused solely on the industrial revolution and the economy. This quote by Smil just about sums it up;

“Modern civilization has engineered a veritable explosion of energy use and has extended human control over inanimate energies to previously unthinkable levels.  These gains made it fabulously liberating and admirably constructive—but also uncomfortably constraining and horribly destructive.”

Smil, Energy in World History, 224.

Therefore we need to move forward in a manner that is not as destructive. We must advance in a way that helps both the economy and the environment.  As the picture below states: we are running out of time, act now before it’s too late.