25% of the world’s population consumes 58% of the energy, 45% of the meat and fish, 84% of the paper, and 87% of the vehicles

 ©Chris Jordan

People in the Highly Developed Countries start to embrace a type of consumption, known as voluntary simplicity, which recognize that individual happiness and quality of life are not necessary linked to the accumulation of material goods. People who embrace voluntary simplicity recognize that a person’s values and character define that individual more than how many things he or she owns. Little commitment at an individual level can lead to a big step to save the planet for future generations.    

 The United States, Europe and Japan must live within the planet’s limits by controlling their use of natural resources, for obvious ethical reasons a decent civilization with human value must tolerate that "10 million die every year of hunger and hunger-related diseases." A rich family in the United States or Europe must not waste food at dinner table while one sixth of the world population is malnourished.We are today 6.6 billion people living on the planet and several millions people would be added to the world in the 21st century. 

The United Nations states that "nine planet Earths would be required to absorb the world's carbon if every person had the same energy-rich lifestyle as people in developed countries." Not only overpopulation, and the unbalanced global demography is at blame when one-third of the world’s population, approximately 2 billion people, live in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia and, they account for less than 4% of the total worldwide consumption expenditures. 

The solution; a green economy in developed and developing countries that would encompasses many sectors, such as local small scale agriculture, green building, new innovative technologies and sustainable business opportunities that will  boost a new job market economy while reducing the carbon footprints of the wealthiest, preventing it to consume the world’s limited resources.

References:

State of the World 2004, Worldwatch Institute. http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1043

United Nation. Millennium Development Goals http://www.mdgmonitor.org/goal1.cfm

Micropower; smaller, cleaner and cheaper

 Yann Arthus Bertrand

Micropower, also known as distributed generation (DG), is a growing sector of the energy market that holds great promises for locally decentralized generation. This clean technology creates power with fuel cells, solar panels, microturbines, generating electricity from many small energy sources and help avoiding economical, logistical, safety, health, and environmental problems of large power plant. Additionally, a centralized power source can substantially reduces the economic and environmental cost of electrical services and lead to a new economical system based on improving human health against global warming.

In addition, our increasingly digital dependence, decreasing quality of infrastructures and the intensification of storms make us vulnerable to disruptions of power, a more distributed and decentralized network of small systems can reduce the problem. Furthermore, micropower systems can make a huge difference in the developing world, where “power poverty” is an important economical and political unsustainable problem, nearly one third of humanity, have been left utterly powerless by the centralized model. In developing countries micropower has the potential to allow people to develop “stand-alone village systems” with no more need for expensive grid extension.

Micropower is challenging the “bigger-is-cheaper” concept and is an available and accessible solution to global warming and the global economical crisis. The promising sector of small new electric clean source companies in both the developed and developing world, venture capital and microcredit models are being used to finance micropower, helping [startup] companies "survive their revenue-losing early years and enabling potential customers to surmount the high first cost of the new technologies”.

A radical societal shifts can occur when the large scale electricity model struggle to find economic and ecological solution. Historians remind us that technical systems are formed at the intersection of technologies and values.

The video shows an independent solar house with the option to sell the exceed energy back to the company…

References:
Worldwatch Institute. Micropower: The Next Electrical Era. Seth Dunn, July 2000. From http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/EWP151.pdf
Micropower Council. Promoting the small-scale generation of sustainable energy.  http://www.micropower.co.uk/welcome.html