Put aside all the changes in weather patterns, floods and storms that are 300 year records, massive crop failures worldwide due to floods, droughts and other phenomena of nature. We can ignore the majority of climate scientists who agree that our actions are causing climate change. It is up to us what we want to believe or not. But industry, government and the military are making their own decisions based on the belief that climate change is real and it is happening.
Despite the official stance coming out of the hall of power, the US military has started to plan for the eventual global destabilization caused by global warming and you can almost bet that if the US military has started to plan so has the rest of NATO.
The UK cabinet has just reached a historic deal that will see massive reductions in carbon emissions. The deal that includes legal powers will see 40 percent of the United Kingdom’s power being generated by renewable energy sources like wind, solar and tidal. It will also see heat pumps becoming mandatory in 2.6 million homes and 31 percent of new cars becoming electric. Of course this is just a summary of what the legislation will hold, but nevertheless it will have a massive impact. The British politicians who hammered out this deal agree that they are entering uncharted territory. They also see this as an opportunity for Britain to create new industry and new revenue streams.
The surprise to many may be that the UK is not the first country to make strides towards becoming greener. Germany has already created hundreds of thousands of jobs in the green sector and plans to become the first country powered by renewable energy sources. Like the UK’s new plan, Germany has already set a goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent from their 1990 numbers.
Like I said before, it doesn’t matter if you believe in climate change. It doesn’t matter if you think that the global economy will crumble because of a green shift because it is already happening. Even China is moving to green its economy. At the end of the day, people in North America can remain sceptical and try to brush aside the whole idea of a green economy, but when all is said and done, we will be left in the dark as the rest of the world shifts towards new technologies and a new way of doing business. North America can embrace the change and become a leader in this new technology revolution and profit from it or it can sit back and wait until we are the ones using antiquated technology. This does not sound like the pioneer spirit that forged our continent, but maybe that spirit is gone.