{"id":419,"date":"2008-06-06T11:31:56","date_gmt":"2008-06-06T11:31:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/astraea.net\/blog\/?p=419"},"modified":"2008-06-06T11:31:56","modified_gmt":"2008-06-06T11:31:56","slug":"another-giant-is-waking-up-to-the-urgency-of-biosphere-preservation-iea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/another-giant-is-waking-up-to-the-urgency-of-biosphere-preservation-iea\/","title":{"rendered":"Another giant is waking up to the urgency of biosphere preservation &#8211; IEA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iea.org\/\">International Energy Agency<\/a> is finally beginning to realise that consumption patterns and technology must change if we are to avoid a natural catastrophe.\u00a0 The<a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/business\/7439338.stm\"> IEA announced that $ 45,000,000,000,000 (trillion) must be spent to change the pattern of consumption of fossil fuels<\/a>.\u00a0 It is a long overdue public recognition only catalysed by the current high price of oil.<\/p>\n<p>A similar awakening happened in the 1970s with high oil prices but it was insufficient to change politics&#8217;, education&#8217;s and big business&#8217; <a href=\"http:\/\/times.discovery.com\/convergence\/friedman\/addictedtooil\/addictedtooil.html\">addiction to oil<\/a>.\u00a0 The IEA is still deluded by current thinking and has not recognised the need for system change.\u00a0 This is evident in their call for new technology.\u00a0 This is naive and wasteful.\u00a0 Certainly new technologies will be developed, but the reality is that most of the technologies for reducing fossil fuel consumption are already available and commercially viable &#8211; they have been reseached and developed for over 3 decades.\u00a0 We just need to start using them.<\/p>\n<p>This presents the other big change that is required\u00a0 &#8211; a system change that is reflected in changing patterns of consumption and lifestyle.\u00a0 These too have been prototyped, many since ancient times, and developed by leading thinkers over the past few decades.\u00a0 But they have been ignored by policy makers and the rich trend setters.\u00a0 The urgent solution is to educate people about the options, facilitate changing habits and help all humanity take responsibilty for nature.\u00a0 That is the challenge.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, reflection on the challenge soon leads to the conclusion that humanity&#8217;s growth must be reversed &#8211; our ecological footprint is simply too big for teh biosphere.\u00a0 We must reduce our population.\u00a0 In the meantime, take a step in the right direction &#8211; consume less, eat less.<\/p>\n<p>See\u00a0 &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iea.org\/w\/bookshop\/add.aspx?id=330\">IEA Energy  Technology Perspectives 2008 Towards  an Energy Revolution<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The International Energy Agency is finally beginning to realise that consumption patterns and technology must change if we are to avoid a natural catastrophe.\u00a0 The IEA announced that $ 45,000,000,000,000 (trillion) must be spent to change the pattern of consumption of fossil fuels.\u00a0 It is a long overdue public recognition only catalysed by the current &hellip;<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/another-giant-is-waking-up-to-the-urgency-of-biosphere-preservation-iea\/\" class=\"more-link pen_button pen_element_default pen_icon_arrow_double\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Another giant is waking up to the urgency of biosphere preservation &#8211; IEA<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,7,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy","category-climatechange","category-living"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4hwcd-6L","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}