Power

In the news, power is definitely the number one issue right now, whether it's political or electrical. I'm currently living in Japan and there have been many prime ministers here over the last year. The new Prime Minister, Aso, comes from a very political family and many people say that he's completely out of touch with what voters want. I'm teaching English here and one of my students said that Japan needs a revolutionary change but Aso will not deliver it.

Meanwhile, in Canada and the US, it's election season. In Canada, we certainly do not need 4 more years of Harper. If you live in the riding of Ottawa South, I urge you to vote for Hijal DeSarkar. I have known him for a long time and he's very trustworthy. He's running for the NDP and he recently told me that Jack Layton has a chance of becoming leader of the Opposition - I would be extremely proud of the NDP and of Canada if this happened. We definitely need changes in Canada so we don't become just a copy of the US.

I just watched the American presidential debate. You know the old adage that most communication is non-verbal - well, McCain said it all. Just the way he sits in his chair tells you how uncomfortable he is with normal people. Obama sat forward and really listened to what McCain and the audience said and I congratulate him on that. However, although I support Obama, he is in favour of offshore drilling and nuclear power. But, Obama was kind enough to point out that the US only has 3% of the world's oil reserves, but consumes 25% of the world's oil. Does this justify offshore drilling? Oil is expected to run out in my lifetime, so we really need to start thinking about driving less. Speaking of which, a small island in Denmark called Samso recently became completely carbon neutral. Everything is powered with wind turbines and solar panels and wood chip boilers are used for heat. If the world expects to achieve this someday, we have to think small. Today, most power plants are on a large scale and are hooked up to an enormous grid - the only way we can get out of this is to build smaller plants and to use renewable energy right where it is consumed.

There are many important people around the world today that support nuclear power while ignoring that merely digging the uranium out of the ground causes an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. This doesn't even recognize the fact that we have no idea what to do with the waste. If we are to tackle climate change, we have to decrease energy consumption for rich countries - it's as simple as that. Then, we won't need any new nuclear power plants.