Time check, 10 seconds to midnight, 31 December 1999,countdown begins
with baited
breath and ends…..nothing happened…there is two ways to look at it …having heeded all
the warnings about the Y2K bug …forearmed we, together, took action and a
potential catastrophe was averted…or the whole thing was a hoax..fast forward
to 31,December,2050, global warming by all available,known measures is averted. Will
we be able to say for sure it took human
intervention to reverse the trend or was it part of a larger trend unaffected
by human intervention, that is to say, a part of life on a living planet?
Part of life in Uganda today is
incessant power cuts that can last at least 12 hours a day in response to this
more folks are turning to alternative sources of electricity and heat for their
daily needs such as cooking, lighting, phone charging, Barefoot Power Uganda offers
some affordable solutions to this end. The goal of 100% renewable energy by
2050 is of no consequence to ordinary folks looking to keep the lights on after
the latest delay in Bujjagali coinciding with the GoU falling behind on its
payments to electricity suppliers making load shedding necessary.
Inadvertently foil that
plan(100% renewable energy by 2050) or enable it…but then how can anyone claim credit or apportion blame? Its easy to
say that the developed nations, US&
Europe,the old world if you will and the developing nations, the BRIC
countries,Brazil,Russia,India and China failed to agree on what collective
action to take to combat climate change at the recent UN climate summit in Durban, South Africa, therefore impending disaster looms for all, as the news media
tells it.
In criminal law, intent
trumps motive in a murder case, in other words, what one's intentions are
determine guilt rather than why? This is why euthanasia is a crime, Dr JackKervokian pleaded in his defense that he
killed his patient to put him out of his misery for he was terminally ill
and in agony. The judge sentenced him to 10-25 years in prison for murder not
because the good doctor wanted to kill his patient's pain but because he killed him, on
purpose.
Idealism kills the deal,
in the words of Gordon Gekko, what has, my need to warm my food, boil water to
drink, turn the light on to do my homework at night;got to do with saving the
world? So I need charcoal for my stove, if it proves too expensive I will look
for a stove that doesn't use charcoal, maybe gas or invent one. I don't know
and don't care for the world except mine.