The International scientific community concurs that earth’s ecological situation is in a far more perilous state that had been previously thought. Burning of fossil fuels has altered the composition of the atmosphere, pushing the concentration of carbon dioxide to levels unseen in the last 800,000 years. The resulting global warming has itself set in motion other planetary-scale changes: massive melting of parts of the Earth normally covered by ice and snow, and acidification of oceans. Many feel that we have entered the sixth mass extinction of the last half – billion years, in which 90% of life-forms will disappear.
Can there be reason for optimism and hope in the face of such grim projections? Can climate change wrought through human agency be reversed? If so, then by whom and inwhat manner?
In consultation with key environmental figures, Guardian compiled a list of 50 ‘green’ persons from diverse background whose efforts in this area have been commendable. Selected because they were driving forces behind decision makers of national policy or because they represented a significant grassroots technological or social movement for restoring ecological health, some of these ‘green’ people find mention below:
Terry Tamminen, climate policy adviser, firmly believes that 5% of the world population who live in the US are responsible not for 25% of the world’s climate emissions, but for at least 50%. In his calculation he factors in the energy needed to power the Chinese factories that are churning out plastic toys and other mass consumer goods for the voracious US market. Largely under Tamminen’s influence, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger passed a raft of groundbreaking environmental laws that put pressure on polluting industries. He is seen as the architect a de facto national climate change policy instrumental in the Government’s decision of bringing about a 25% cut in emissions by 2020.
Capt Paul Watson, marine activist is the ultimate direct action man. He co-founded Greenpeace in the 70s and now has two boats that patrol the world’s oceans and confront anyone he has evidence of acting criminally. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society founded by him has become an official law enforcement agency in Ecuador. Sea Shepherd partners the Ecuador police and can go on official patrols and make arrests in the Galapagos national maritime park. The idea of environmental activists becoming a new green police force may develop in years to come.
Elon Musk, Entrepreneur is the major investor and chair of the board at Tesla Motors, a Silicon Valley electric car start-up. The company plans to shake up the moribund US auto industry and dramatically curb CO2 emissions, ripping out the internal combustion engine and the petrol tank, and replacing both with a motor that boasts few moving parts and the sort of lithium batteries found in laptops.
Angela Merkel, German chancellor, is known as the politician who has forced climate change the hardest on to the world stage. A quantum chemistry researcher brought up by a Lutheran pastor in communist East Germany, she was made German environment minister in 1994. The country now leads the world in turning away from coal and oil, and setting the highest targets for renewables and emission cuts.
Bob Hertzberg, financier and founder of venture capital firm Renewable Capital, is one of a new breed of financier piling unprecedented amounts of money into renewable technologies. Renewable Capital has holdings in electric car companies, solar electric firms and wind-farms. He is also backing a company in Cardiff that produces solar cells that do not need direct sunlight to generate electricity. In a process similar to photosynthesis, it uses nano-sized titanium crystals to turn light into electricity.
Carlo Petrini, food activist is the founder of the international Slow Food movement, which has now expanded across 100 countries and is causing a re-think of the whole fast food culture and the multinational food producers that between them have wrecked so much of the environment.
Amory Lovins, physicist turned energy reduction pioneer has had a profound influence on the way people use energy. From a base in the Rockies, Lovins and his team of engineers and analysts show governments and large car, aviation and energy companies, as well as the likes of Wal-mart and Monsanto, how to profit from using less energy by applying knowledge of composite materials, engineering, design and energy storage.
Madhav Subrmanian, schoolboy, is the next generation’s face of conservation. He goes round Mumbai collecting money for tiger conservation and has set up Kids For Tigers which works in hundreds of schools. He writes poems, sings on the streets, and sells merchandise to support his cause.. Conservation awareness is growing in middle-class India, largely through young activists like him.
Marina Silva, politician is Brazil’s environment minister. In one of the great political journeys, she rose from being illiterate at 16 to become Brazil’s youngest senator, and is now the woman most able to prevent the Amazon’s wholesale ruin. Under her watch, deforestation has reduced by nearly 75% and millions of square miles of reserves have been given to traditional communities.
Robin Murray, Industrial economist, the author of three influential books, he came up with the phrase “zero waste” – the idea that people can mimic biology and produce, consume and recycle everything without throwing anything away. Zero waste is now the goal of hundreds of local authorities and is spreading around the world, backed by designers, planners and companies from San Francisco to Wellington in New Zealand.
Patriarch Bartholomew, Leader of the Orthodox Church, Archbishop of Constantinople and New Rome, is the spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians around the world. He has made the environment an increasingly powerful strand of Christian thinking in Britain and the US and is now heavily influencing the Pope.
Leonardo DiCaprio, Actor, has a parallel life as an environmental activist
In 1998 DiCaprio established the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, which has since collaborated with the likes of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, Oceana, the Natural Resources Defence Council and the Dian Fossey Foundation to raise awareness, particularly among children, of environmental issues.
Andrew Kimbrell, Lawyer in 2007, in US Supreme Court, defeated the Bush administration’s policy of refusing to regulate global warming. It was a defining moment in the American debate and forced Bush to regulate carbon dioxide pollution from motor vehicles under the Clean Air Act.
René Ngongo, Biologist, is the new face of environmentalism in the south. He is focusing the world’s attention to timber pillage in Congo DRC, home to the world’s second greatest stands of tropical forest after the Amazon. Stripping Congo of its valuable wood is an ecological and social disaster: as more than 20 million people, not least the Pygmies, depend on the forest for their living.
Zhengrong Shi, Scientist, is living proof of the cliché that every crisis presents an opportunity. China’s search for alternative energy has made the solar cell scientist and businessman one of the country’s richest men. He set up Suntech in 2001. This is one of the world’s 10 biggest manufacturers of solar panels and is partnering in building the world’s biggest solar generating facility in the Gobi desert.
The list of ‘green’ people is long, reflecting perhaps the great requirement of green people in our midst, who can inspire us to action. It contains the names of notables such as politician Alan Gore, geneticist Craig Venter, union leader and farmer Henry Saragih, bio-scientist Eric Rey, architect Ken Yeang, civil engineer Peter Head and many others. Such a list can never be definitive and neither can rankings be given. However it give a sense of the vast well of people spanning across all nationalities and disciplines, who represent the stirrings of a remarkable scientific and social revolution against anthropomorphic climate change.
