OPEC sees the light… but is it too late?

 

You tend to get suspicious when oil producers start talking green. But come to think about it, it is a milestone for the Organization of Pretroleum Exporting Countries to recognize the problem and suggest its solution in one blow by endorsing carbon capture technology in their latest draft declaration. This declaration was made amid the achievement of record highs for oil prices around the world, which called into question the ability of the OPEC to control oil prices (as opposed to merely providing propaganda for not stopping their own profits from skyrocketing) which was established before during the 1973 oil crisis.

 

OPEC now joins the ranks of a mish-mash of organizations promoting environmentalism. Initially a distinctly hippie movement, the move to go green is supported, at least in principle, by most people in the world. In the US, for example, 66% believe that something should be done about global warming. Global warming itself is a hotly contested issue, even being denied by some sectors, something I feel is imprudent at this point.

  

There are different schools of thought when it comes to protecting the environment. Some believe that going for renewable energy sources is important (even for kids!). As expected, it is the shift away from lucrative petroleum products that causes the greatest difficulty when it comes to public policy and thus the resistance from usual suspects. Petroleum companies and their oil lobbies spend millions of dollars to protect their interests in legislature, with a good deal of success, even with the World Bank. These companies, worried about consumer backlash on product usage, have launched riveting and provocative information campaigns about their own corporate social responsibility. That doesn’t prevent others from calling their bluff and accusing them of hypocrisy, human rights violations, among others. OPEC countries themselves are crucial to foreign interests, particularly that of the United States, in their reliability in providing for American energy needs. It comes as no surprise when a link is drawn between America’s forays into Middle East security issues and its own economic agenda.

 

Militancy is the tool of choice for other organizations, most notably that of Greenpeace. Using methods bordering (only?) on the violent, Greenpeace’s disregard for laws and surreptitious environmentalism has enraged many from an otherwise dormant civil society and sometimes elicited a rejection of their agenda altogether. Clearly, despite all the publicity, militancy may not be helpful.

We also have a variety of other solutions from an anti-global warming diet  (which blames cows) to promoting a carbon tax. The latter interests me in that there is now a more direct involvement by people on the grassroots in environmental protection, also with concrete benefits in protecting the environment (such as funds for research and development, and taking the strain of industries bearing the brunt of anti-pollution policies). Despite all the efforts since the conception of the environmental movement, and even in the face of its growing momentum in all the nooks and crannies of society, global warming is accelerating. Makes us ask what exactly we are doing wrong. The (alleged) consequences of global warming makes us fear it all the more, from freak storms in Bangladesh to security threats, to economic insecurity in countries rich and poor.

As world leaders rush to Bali to discuss new policies to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012, one is left to contemplate the individual’s role in all this. Personally, I’m left with desperation and fright.

Can one species save a dying earth?

This brings to mind Carl Sagan, and his moving reading from his book, Pale Blue Dot.