CHANGING THE WORLD

The book entitled Cultural Creatives by Paul H Ray PhD and Ruth Anderson PhD created quite a stir late last year. Ray and Anderson, based on extensive surveys and research, are convinced that 50 million US Americans are, according to their subtitle “Changing the World”, (which appears to actually refer to the USA rather than the world). They argue that there are some 50 million US Americans whose views in relation to the environment, social issues, peace, spirituality and politics represent a dramatic positive change in thinking. They call these people ‘invisible’ and state that “they are astonished to find out how many others share both their values and way of life. Once they realise their numbers their impact on America promises to be enormous, shaping a new agenda for the twenty first century.” They present convincing survey data and examples in support of this theory.

Others of course doubt the figures. Could it be that rather than the Cultural Creatives being ‘invisible’ they have actually been incredibly successful in making a mouse look like a bear, that the relatively small number of them have been very vocal, have accepted leadership positions and been activists? As Albert Bates (from our GEN-Americas office) pointed out, surely such people would have voted for Ralph Nader in the recent US election? In fact Ralph Nader attracted only a lousy 3% or so of votes, and George W Bush is now in the high office. My own feeling is that if such people do exist, they are not acting on their beliefs.

Jill Jordan, an activist with a big ‘A’ and a ‘doer’ in our own bioregion, believes that awareness of the issues is growing but that the knowledge of how to act, how to make a difference, is still missing. People don’t know what they can do, how easy it is. They are scared to act.

Next Steps?
The students from the Pacific Lutheran University (PLU), who come here to Crystal Waters to study ecological issues each year, were challenged this year to name two issues in their lives where they would like to make a positive change. Naturally most chose the easy issues first — refusing plastic bags in supermarkets, reducing their unthinking waste of paper napkins. What becomes clear in such exercises is that if on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being completely unaware of ‘green’ issues and 10 being very enlightened — a ‘dark green greenie’), these students are below 5 even half way through a course designed to show them alternatives. Encouragingly, it is also clear that they are willing to move up the scale, that they want to be part of the change, they want to be part of the solution — indeed they feel that they have a moral obligation to do this.

Leading by Example
Those of us who are teachers or trying to lead by example have a responsibility to get the message out in a simple and attractive form, or those who are interested but uninformed will not be able to move forward, and will remain in the position of talking about sustainability without taking any active steps towards making their own lives more sustainable.

About leading by example — when it comes to the issue of reducing greenhouse gases Australia has a lousy track record. So far we, as a nation, have not even reached the target set at Kyoto of supplying 2% of the nation’s power needs from renewable sources. Other countries are doing much better. Six European countries have introduced fossil fuel or carbon taxes. Denmark has increased their percentage of power from renewable sources (they are mostly using wind) from 5% to nearly 10%. Germany has become the largest installer of wind turbines in the world, and the UK has reduced the consumption of coal by 31% since 1989. Japan has installed photovoltaic tiles on more than one million roofs.

The Federal Government in Australia, via the State Governments, is offering grants to encourage private households and community groups to install renewable energy technology. The Global Ecovillage Network Oceania/Asia (GENOA) office is based in a house which is equipped with 12 solar panels (PVs) and is exporting the energy to Energex, the local electricity provider. Unfortunately Energex have changed their billing method since installing the system. The current billing method where exported Kwh are deducted from imported Kwh is definitely less financially appealing than the previous method. In the previous billing period Energex had calculated the cost of imported kWh at the going rate, and then the exported kWh, calculated at 28c per kWh, were deducted from the total cost of the imported kWh. The end result was more attractive financially. It will be interesting to see how popular co-generation with the grant scheme will be under these new conditions.

Private power providers such as this office could be scattered throughout the State and, as they are producing energy during the sunny part of the day, provide most kWh during the middle of the day, where the demand for energy to run air conditioners is also high. If sufficient PV panels were installed in Australia, the peak demand could be supplied very cheaply. What an opportunity for a win-win situation!

Despite the slight financial disincentive at the moment, GENOA is going ahead with installing PV panels on our new Education Centre to export energy to the grid. We want to continue to show that today’s technology works. We will have to use innovative ideas to make it all stack up financially — our ‘wishing for watts’ fundraiser was encouraging, and our thanks go to our donors, but not sufficient to allow us to install all the panels we wished.

But how will the ‘average citizen’ make the move towards ‘dark green’ status? Are the Cultural Creatives just wishful dreamers or are they acting on their beliefs? Are governments and business ready to partner the necessary steps forward?