Elon Musk just saved the world (in more ways than you think)
When I was finishing college, I remember I went to the cinema watch Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”. When I left the room I just froze. I was depressed. I didn’t know what to do. I was fearful. Humans aren’t very good at thinking about the future and trying to prevent things. And this worsens when the solution implies that your comfortable life based on waste disappears and that you will be labeled a “tree hugger” (not that I have anything against “tree huggers”). I lost a bit of hope there. Too many problems and not many solutions there, Mr Al Gore. Recycling is not the solution and renewable sources of energy weren’t evolved enough. But I still had hope. I trusted that humans have a good essence and that someone was going to find a solution.
Today I saw Elon Musk’s presentation of Tesla Energy Batteries. I learned that the area needed to supply enough energy that could power the United States of America is less than 0,2% (some rough estimate of the graphic). And there is no need to destroy forest doing that. We just need to use our building roofs. For $3.500 you can have a 10 kWh wall battery that can save the electricity generated by your solar panels. You can go off grid. In a fully urban integrated apartment or in a remote house where there aren’t any electric cables getting there.
You will be self sustainable. You will also be just sustainable. And you will look awesome doing that. But most of all, you will have peace of mind.
Owning a Prius is not the same as owning a Tesla. You feel great about the first, but you feel awesome about the latter. People are starting to crave to drive electric cars and produce their own energy just like they crave the next Apple products. And this feeling will rub on other green practices. Going green will be a reason to be proud. So proud people will want to show that to everyone else. A need was created and now many other companies will build and restructure their products in other to suit that need.
The Human species will incorporate eco-friendly practices into their daily lives faster. And we will live in this planet symbiotically, as we always should have.
But this isn’t just the only thing about this keynote.
Resuming a bit, this Elon Musk guy, came to a stage and talked about pollution and batteries. He took 18 minutes and 2 seconds. He spent less than two minutes in the problem and the rest of the time talking about a solution. This is a pretty boring and, specially if you are an environmentalist, delicate issue. He didn’t waste your time. He didn’t make you feel depressed. He gave you hope. And most of all, he made saving the world understandable and actionable. Anyone can do this.
Just keeping it simple for you: Elon Musk just showed humans how to maintain our lifestyle without damaging the world.
Please, don’t get me wrong. I know that the global warming problem will not be fixed solely by not using fossil fuels. There are other factors that contribute to this effect, but not using fossil fuels to produce energy, whether it’s for buildings or cars, can reduce drastically the amount of CO2 (and other gases) that we emit. Fossil fuel emissions account more than 65% of all the CO2 emissions. The other factors are agriculture, deforestation and waste.
Has Musk fixed this Global Warming thing totally? No. Can we help doing that too? Yes.
Please look at the big picture. Musk (and a bunch of awesome people) worked on a solution for a problem that we, as Human Species, have and cannot run away from it. We needed to fix this Global Warming thing. They didn’t freeze. They didn’t get depressed. They did something about it. Did they know all the answers? No. Did that stop them? Of course not, as you can see now.
Elon Musk empowered us, Humans, to do something about problems that we think that are too big to tackle. He inspired us to do more. He motivated us to act about things that matter. He made it stupid easy for a civilian (and politicians) to contribute in a positive and significant way to the future of planet Earth and the living beings that inhabit here.
Once again, Musk showed us that whether you are just a regular person working on a school or a company, — which is basically humans as an organized group with their pet devices, — can and should be doing things that matter. Things that matter to us, to others, to animals, to plants, to the world.
We have loads of problems that we need fixing. I know life is rough and that we need to earn enough money to live. But what is the legacy that we want to leave here? Hum, are we considering that we may not even leave a legacy because of global warming, for instance?
No, you don’t need to tackle CO2 emissions by designing batteries. You can contribute by working on waste reduction, or agriculture or deforestation. Even at your home, not on a professional level, you can save water and clean your house with non pollutant detergents. I don’t care if you are already working on the Ebola virus cure. Recycle.
Some years ago, my grandfather used to say to me that those environmental issues wouldn’t affect him. Now, he changed his mind. He and the rest of us can see the consequences of CO2 and pollution everyday. This isn’t a conspiracy theory. You know it.
Now it’s the time to act. If you were waiting for a sign, this is it. And you know what happens when everyone throws gum on the ground? You have a huge pile of gum. Replace those environmentally unfriendly actions for environmentally friendly actions. Multiply it by billions of actions from the billions of people. Every tiny action we do to make things better is augmented, because of that multiplier effect of other people acting in the same way. Still think acting good isn’t worth it? Be part of the solution.
Start contributing to the Human Species as a group of beings that care about the existence of each other. And other living beings too, by the way. You need Earth to exist as it is, with all its biological diversity. Earth doesn’t need you to exist. So be respectful and kind.
At the end of the day, we all know what matters. And when you watch Elon Musk’s keynote you know what matters.
Go do what matters. And support others that are doing things that matter. We are in this thing together.
Thank you for reading this. ☺
I would like to hear your thoughts about this. And if you think this post can contribute to make things better, please recommend (fill that heart with green love) or share it.
