This article is taken from World Energy (WE) number 44, "Rethinking Energy". Read the magazine.
The time frequently comes when the whole world finds itself repeating that we need to “rethink energy.” While the choir goes looking for the right note—it almost never finds it, because everyone says something different on this topic—companies in the sector (re)think energy every day. The refrain can apply to the many who have never thought of it before, but it sounds paradoxical for those who do it naturally as their commitment, their career, their profession. Clean energy means a better life. Nobody wants a worse one. Emotions are always (un)predictable, the growth of “green” movements (with a varying scale and impact on public opinion) all over the world has provoked a revival of political attention (often instrumental), and in the end, the term “green deal” has been taken on as a mantra, a formula repeated many times as a meditative practice.
That is why this emotional tsunami needs rationality, it must be explained. It is vital to seek comparison, grasp the positive aspects and of course reject utopian plans, those that are unattainable and end up achieving the opposite of expectations. World Energy does this exacting and profound work of (re)viewing positions, extracting the truth and reproducing it in the form of analysis, visual design (excellent examples of which are in this issue), journalism—and not just isms. We think there is a great need for this. Let’s move on. Decarbonizing is good and proper, indeed a categorical imperative (Kantian, if you wish to look at it in terms of philosophy). How and with whom is a much more complicated operation than the environmental statement. It is a matter that must be removed from ideology and contemporary isms, and put into the urgent inbox of Homo Faber.