Carbon Stink

It appears that some legislators, who are strongly influenced by the Energy companies, who fund the university through their taxes paid to the state, are serious about cutting funding to the University of Wyoming. This really does smack of 1984 and Big Brother. Art and education are both poor and powerless and easy to whack on the head. But both art and education are about the power of communicating - knowledge, ideas, understanding. It is how we survive as a species we pass on wisdom down to the next generation who we hope will find better solutions than we have.

We are at a turning point here. There are protests going on throughout the world about building yet more coal fired power stations. The majority of our electric power comes from the burning of coal which is on the way to raising mean temperatures on the planet 2 degrees. This is, in itself unsustainable and puts all life at risk. But at the rate we are going temperatures will rise beyond this and the process of heating will accelerate: Floods, heatwaves, drought, famine, tornadoes, dying forests, loss of biodiversity etc etc. We can see it all happening now.

There are two things that need to happen;
1) More research into clean energy production and more (not less) funding for universities to do this research.
2) An ongoing debate on how we can give the people of the world the basics for a decent life, and
how we can consume less and take the strain off the biosphere. This is a conversation
that needs to happen at all levels of education and it needs to happen now.

No one is suggesting that we stop burning coal. That is not going to happen or the world as we know it, will grind to a halt. But we do need to find alternative clean energy solutions and fast.