Time to wake up

According to the WorldWatch Institute, the tremendous growth rate of India and China cannot be sustained by the planet. This goes into many things, like the need for energy for rapid urbanization, food for the growing population, and policies to handle environmental changes.

Energy is apparently the one single bottleneck that can throttle growth and be a cause of violent political upheavals in the future. 2006 is the year that marks a transition in the world population from mostly rural to mostly urban, and this is largely the result of growth in the developing countries. With increased urbanization however, comes the need for more energy to drive manufacturing, housing, transport, communication, and all other industries. Alternative forms of energy become not just relevant, but imperative. Fortunately, many great leaders realise this, and a number of efforts are underway, like Brazilian cars running on ethanol, 2.8 billion $ California solar initiative, Barefoot solar engineers in India, investments to set up new power plants, lower costs to set up wind energy farms, deals for setting up nuclear power plants and import of nuclear fuel, Sweden's aim to break oil dependancy by 2020, and the development of alternative forms of energy like ocean power. Everybody, and India and China most importantly, need to invest in research to make green-energy cheaper. Andrew Leonard is of the (optimistic) view that the need for cleaner energy in China will actually accelerate the growth of green-energy. This is why investment groups like the FE Clean Energy are funding renewable energy projects, and GE has changed its mission statement to "green is green".

However, things are not so rosy. India and China have mainly had coal based energy generation, which makes them immediate targets of Kyoto and other climate change protest organizations. The argument is that when USA, France, England, and other countries were allowed to use fossil fuels carelessly when they were developing, then why should India and China be prevented from doing so now? The only answer lies in cooperatively developing other sources of energy, otherwhile the doomsday is not far when geopolitics and oil crisis will escalate to an extent even beyond the present Iraq (and Iran) conflicts.

And finally to quote Thomas Friedman on sustainable energy:

"Enough of this Bush-Cheney nonsense that conservation, energy efficiency and environmentalism are some hobby we can't afford. I can't think of anything more cowardly or un-American. Real patriots, real advocates of spreading democracy around the world, live green. Green is the new red, white and blue."