It’s all your’s, readers. Post your vision in a comment.
Friday: A Vision for Our Future
Published by Josh Lynch, February 2nd, 2007 Week of Action 6 Comments6 Responses to “Friday: A Vision for Our Future”
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About Josh
Josh Lynch works to bring people together for clean energy and green jobs. As Co-Founder of Energy Action Coalition, he was instrumental in building a diverse youth-led alliance that has become a force in U.S. politics. Serving as Campaign Manager for Green For All in 2008, he coordinated Green Jobs Now, the first national day of action for green collar jobs. In 2009 he led the Green Recovery For All Initiative, empowering low-income people and people of color to leverage stimulus dollars for green collar jobs and training. Josh graduated from the College of Wooster with a major in Philosophy. He now lives and works in Boston.
I imagine a world where folks know where their energy comes from (maybe they can even see where it comes from) and feel empowered in decisions about their energy. I imagine a world where folks can turn the lights on and know they are supporting good jobs in a the local area and not contributing to global warming or pollution. I imagine elementary school classes taking field trips to wind and solar farms and learning about where their energy comes from.
That would be sweet.
The future is people power.
We will build a new economy integrated with the diverse world of global energy flows, and harnessing the power of the living world. Every person will be engaged in rising to the climate challenge through efforts in their homes and workplaces, and relationships with the friends and neighbors who produce their power. I see smart cities integrating work, home, service, and recreation into a vibrant urban matrix driven by bus, train, bike, and foot. I see a rural landscape of restored prairies feeding bison and growing bioenergy, with community-owned wind power revitalizing small farm culture. I see a global development framework built on the skill of locally-aware actors building healthy agricultural ecosystems, and green manufacturing providing livelihoods by cycling materials. I see citizenship becoming a mark of engagement in the world; a future where global decisions are made by you and I in intimate connection with the world.
Energy fuels life. Fossil power is a monolithic force screwing up the dynamic energy flows that run the world. In the future, we put our faith in diverse, integrated energy in which we partake. We become powerful.
And it is already coming.
I see a localized world where we use much less energy and resources in general and all of our energy and food are supplied locally. there are no coal plants, no nuclear plants, and no plants that produce any dirty emissions. we’re moving that way, but not fast enough. let’s get going. it’s our future.
I envision a world where communities create and control their own energy supply from renewable sources, and in making decisions about that energy supply, democracy is revitalised. Energy co-operatives can lead to local organic food co-operatives, and people will realise they have power over their own lives, and the ability to help shape the future of the world – not leaving it up to vested interests of industry and politicians any more. I envision a world where climate refugees (and all refugees) are welcomed and supported into new countries if they have to move, and where climate change adaptation measures are implemented and paid for by the Global North – the countries who are historically responsible for the problem and have a huge ecological debt to re-pay. I envision a world where Indigenous peoples’ culture is valued, where womens rights are respected, where there is no discrimination based on your sexuality, where racism doesn’t exist, and where our economy is controlled by ordinary people rather than corporations. And where crapitalism doesn’t exist!
Kudos to everyone for their involvement in the week of action! As an old fart (55 year-old), it feels odd to be commenting on It’s Getting Hot in Here. In fact I would be doing so if I couldn’t relate totally to your efforts. 30 years ago, we had similar energy but lacked the communications tools to make as much of a difference as I hope y’all will.
As I said in my blog post today (www.carbonneutraljournal.com) in reference to Timothy’s vision for the future: I, too, see citizenship becoming a mark of engagement in the world. And I see our future through the eyes of these students.
As an aging (41) engineer, I would imagine a world where people look at the world they want and understand the costs and benefits of the technologies needed to get there. Also I could imagine a world where people understand that changing technologies will not by itself create paradise.