Among the most magical memories of my childhood are those exploring the mysteries of the La Brea Tar Pits. These ancient black lakes in the middle of modern Los Angeles had trapped in their gooey muck mythical great mammals like the saber-toothed tiger and great mastodons depicted in enormous statues placed all around the park. I often wondered how these grand creatures could have been so foolish to fall into the trap. How did they confuse the liquefied fossilized forests bubbling to the surface with the sparkling life-giving clean waters certainly found nearby? Somehow they were unable to see past the top covering layers of dust and rotting vegetation.
So with a measure of time-shifting déjà vu I read recently of the great promise new fossil fuel extraction technology has brought to commercial viability the oozing Monterrey tar sands in Central California. Touted as a game changer for the US energy economy, I cannot but gasp at how foolish ("fuelish”) we may seem to some future dominant species. Perhaps a future child will read of our civilization’s demise due to the addiction that poisons our atmosphere with heat trapping CO2 emissions. He may marvel at our ingenuity in getting the stuff from the ground to power our globalized economy, laughing all the time at our hubris.
I say leave the ancient sunlight in the ground and rely on our current abundant flux of energy arriving everyday from the rising to the setting sun. If we were truly as ingenious as we imagine ourselves, with our ability to "Frack” the bowels of the Earth, we might just focus on innovating our way to a new sustainable energy economy. We all know that it is coming one day. Why not start now.
Extreme weather events in so many parts of the globe hint at what climate scientists have been reporting of late. Earlier predictions were too conservative and the pace of warming is more rapid than earlier evidence had led us to believe. While the local and regional disruptions from more severe storms, more intense heat or increased snowfall, are disturbing we somehow hide our heads in the sands that are being relentlessly covered by the rise in sea levels. Like a thin veneer of camouflage over the tar pits, we cling to the illusion that the future will be more or less like the past. So the urgent action called for is again and again postponed; slowly we are falling into a trap, the escape from which becomes more difficult and costly with each passing day of delay.
I take some comfort that after an election campaign in the United States where the issue of climate change was avoided like the plague, President Obama has finally promised action in his second term. The world needs leadership from the US, not only because it remains the heaviest emitter of greenhouse gases, but more importantly has the innovative and entrepreneurial capacity to demonstrate how a new energy economy will lead the world out of its economic morass towards a new era of sustainable prosperity.
All of us should subscribe to a "Photograph from the Future” that shows us clearly that we have achieved the promise of living in harmony with the abundance we are blessed with every sunny day.