A Greenvolution

The colour green has always fascinated me. It is the primordial colour of nature, present in many different forms; foliage, vegetation, algae, all seem to gravitate towards the tantalising emerald colour. In the Hindu vedantic system, the 4th or middle chakra  situated in the middle of the chest is represent the power of the heart, and symbolises health prosperity and abundance. In modern theology, ‘Greening’ something corresponds to the act of transitioning towards an environmentally friendly alternative to an otherwise polluting activity. It represents the 3 R’s, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, which have also recently been extended to 5, with the addition of Recalibrate and Repeat. Engineers have created the technologies capable of harnessing the power of the sun, which today have contributed with the help of significant investments to the growth of the ‘Big Solar’ industry. When prices start to rival those of oil and gas, green energy will finally have the chance to prove to the world that producing energy doesn’t have to produce any unwanted side effects. In reality, energy is pervasive and is all around us. Mathematicians and physicists calculate that every 15 minutes or so enough energy hits our planet from the sun to power all the energy needs of humanity for an entire year. If only we were able to capture it, store it, use it as it comes.

Yet when one comes to think deeply about this, one notices that the sun’s energy never was effectively wasted. As plants and trees, through photosynthesis, through millions of years of evolution have developed the biological technology able to transform solar energy into food for themselves, to grow. This evolutionary invention of solar capture has produces the amazon forest, great Boreal forests, Sumatran rainforest, and all the trees in the world today rely on this technology to continue to survive, constantly absorbing this latent energy source that pervades our atmosphere during day time. Photosynthesis converts minerals and vitamins into a green pigmentation called chlorophyl, which when consumed by a human, consists of one of the most nutritious sources of food that could possible be consumed. The enzymes and amino acids contained in dark leafy greens, like Kale or Spinach, have for long been revered for their significant health benefits. In effect,  this system that operates today in a passive way, is a gigantic waste management system. It is constantly recycling energy, so as not to waste it. Our planet is alive and Intelligent; every tree, plant, insect and bacteria is operating as part of a greater system that incorporates a huge matrix of inputs and outputs. By the observation of nature, one could assume that the cyclical patterns that emerge; the seasons, days and nights, all cycles big or small are contributing towards the minimisation of wasted energy in all environments.

As humans we are not immune to these cycle, quite on the contrary, we rather embody them more explicitly than any other animal. Our emotional fluctuations, that vary in different environments, our immune system that regulates countless defence mechanisms, antibodies, white blood cells that deploy strategic solutions in order to intervene when specific threats are detected, all exemplify the type of universal values that pervade our reality. Our modern technologies are magnifications of this intellect, solar cells that absorb sunlight and in turn accelerate the production of energy that we funnel into our daily activities. In the end, gratitude and respect towards these pervasive forces as practiced today in the form of meditation, mindfulness, journaling, create a state of mind that is in alignment with larger energies. This alignment is what we call ‘flow’, it is the razor edge between ability and potential, we have it always yet are constantly in doubt of its existence, creating a glitch, a faulty loop that repeats aimlessly to no avail.

A revolution, a green revolution, no a Greenvolution is what we need! A coalition of communities of all types, scientific, political, economic and biological, to merge as one under a roof built securely on the principles of natural sustainability. We must develop the tools to identify, collect, store and harness the energies that exist all around us in many different forms; solar, wind, tidal. We must understand that these energies exist in permanence, and our best chance of reaching a solution state with our species-specific interests, as well as our planetary interests is by using them. As the use of a finite material (oil and gas) is fundamentally unsustainable, the logical reverse and a sustainable solution is to use infinite resources that will produce exponentially greater returns per unit of investment towards them, inherent to their infinite presence.