WEEK 9 - ENERGY AND WORLD CHANGE

The debate on environmental concerns VS economic rational continues in this week's session on energy and world change. Firstly, we were introduced to the drivers of changes in global energy sources. The most obvious being increased consumption. Developed nations need more energy to sustain their growth and emerging economies need energy to grow. A key point in our discussion is the obvious, yet seemingly overlooked by giant corporations is the need to get our energy through sustainable means. Well, the good thing is new technologies has given us the opportunities to approach the use of consumption differently, but are we adopting and embracing these opportunities? How do we adopt or encourage the adoption of responsible energy consumption mindset at an individual and organizational level? One of the ways mentioned is through education, however, apparently education changes aren't especially helpful unless it is used in conjunction with other policies. In my opinion, education is definitely step one as it engages future generations and creates awareness of environmental crisis and instill values that stays with you for life.

The switch to renewable energy sources is not easy to implement. For example, communities stop the building of industrial wind turbines as it upsets property prices. The class agreed that society decides whether renewable energy sources will be actively pursued!

I suppose most agree that buring coal has a harmful impact however I think most do not really consider the true cost. We will always use whatever that's convenient or have always been using. We often need to find ourselves on top of a burning platform or creeping deadlines before we are forced into actions.

It was also mentioned in our discussion that we focus too much on the cost renewable energy!! The cost of non-renewable energy sources are often neglected in the economic equation. The current economic rationale seems to point to the fact that is 'cheaper' to invest in coal/gas etc, the true consequences are often not taken into consideration.

In addition, even if incentives were in place, as demonstrated in the example of  Germany, the success of these initiatives will still be dependent on how actively people adopt the technology to earn the incentives. Not everyone will see the final 'output'. Moreover, we mustn't neglect the fact that incentrives come from a government budget. More would need to be done to achieve the goal of relying at least 50% of our energy consumption from renewable sources. Our debate on topic led to the question of how reliable and cosnistent renewable energy sources are. I believe methods of harnessing renewable energy will evolve to accommodate our energy needs safely. Necessity being the strongest driver of innovation. Although history has shown that humans often tend to exploit others or rather Earth for our needs, the great thing about these sources is that they are renewable which brings us back to the concept of achieving sustainability.

I would rate this session 9/10. I found it really informative and loved the inputs Prof's guest gave in our discussion.