Dr. Bill Keepin 1992

[these are Keepin's words from a speech
rearranged to look like a poem]

renewable technologies for a sustainable energy future

on the context of renewable energy development
Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh has said:
"What we most need to do is to hear within ourselves
the sounds of the earth crying"
it becomes clear
that what we label as a crisis in our environment
is equally as much a crisis within ourselves
a crisis of human consciousness and values
there are several dimensions to this that actually serve
as hidden driving forces for the ecological crisis:

one is the psychological pollution
continual bombardment of corporate advertising
and the consumer culture
another is the dominance by an hegemony
the masculine gender
& related problems of class and racial oppression
a third is the epistemological tyranny of western science
and market economics
finally
the spiritual bankruptcy of secular technological modernism

if we ignore these aspects of our current dilemma
then the solar technologies that I have outlined
could actually serve to hasten ecological collapse
because energy would be removed as a constraint
on a forward stampede
if we embrace these deeper dimensions
accounting for their physical
social
cultural
spiritual implications
then solar energy and renewable sources
can provide abundant energy for all human societies
on earth
and free us once and forever
from the ravages of fossil fuels and nuclear power