ZEKE Magazine: Spring 2022

corporations, venture capital, and private
equity, instead flows to large-scale
centralized mega-projects frequently
focused on the “next big technological
fix” to the climate change problem.
A few days before I spoke with
Girmai, Leonardo DiCaprio, then serving
as the United Nations Messenger
of Peace, addressed a gathering of
world leaders at the Paris City Hall. He
shared a similar message to Girmai’s.
“Our future will hold greater prosperity
and justice when we are free from the
grip of fossil fuels,” he said.
He cited the work of Stanford
Professor Mark Jacobson who demonstrated
in 2009 that fossil fuels are obsolete.
“We can meet the world’s energy
demand with 100% clean renewable
energy using existing technologies by
2050,” DiCaprio explained, referring
to all forms of energy consumption
replaced with wind, water, and solar.
He urged the gathered elected officials
to do their part by quickly enacting
policies to support a transition to low
carbon transportation, energy efficient
buildings, better waste management,
and renewable energy.
Six years later, COP26 in Scotland
resulted in disappointment, but also
some important achievements, including
the launch of a “Beyond Oil and
Gas Alliance” by 12 governments to
“end all oil and gas production and
exploration” on their territories.
Professor Jacobson points to 10
countries (with four on their way)
with 97.5–100% electricity powered
exclusively by renewables and laws
on the books in 61 countries to meet
that target. Around the world, 180
cities, including in eight U.S. states,
have formalized plans to reach 100%
renewable energy for electricity and
over 100 already get at least 70%
exclusively from renewables.
A recent Oxford University study
finds that a rapid shift to wind, solar,
and other zero-carbon technologies
would save the world $26 trillion in
energy costs alone (including the cost
to adapt the electricity grid) while at
the same time meeting the Paris Climate
Accord targets. Solar, wind, and other
zero-carbon technologies have been
decreasing in cost overtime—with solar
2,000 times cheaper today than at its
first commercial use in 1958—while
fossil fuels are as expensive to produce
and consume today as they were 150
years ago.
Moving energy through renewables
is also more efficient than fossil fuels.
Merely electrifying the energy sector
reduces overall energy demand by
nearly 60%, Jacobson finds. And the
closer you place the user to the source
of energy — i.e. localized wind and
solar — the less energy is needed.
Investments in public transportation
should trump individual cars. To further
reduce overall resource extraction of
feedstocks such as lithium for batteries,
Jacobson stresses the ability and
necessity to increase both their recycling
and reuse.
There are innumerable human health
and climate benefits to be won when particularly
the heaviest users shed the shackles
of unsustainable energy demand.
Indigenous Communities
are Living the Alternative
“Indigenous communities are living the
alternatives to the climate crisis,” said
Andrea Isabel Ixchíu Hernández of
Journalist Andrea Isabel Ixchíu Hernández at work in
Guatemala. Photo: Federico Zuvire 2021.
the K’iche de Totonicapán Indigenous
community of Guatemala in October.
Hernández is a fierce human rights
activist, journalist, and community
leader. Forests, particularly old ones
such as the Amazon rainforest, provide
rich carbon sinks and the biodiversity
humans require to survive. Studies have
repeatedly confirmed what Indigenous
peoples have regularly repeated: they
are the best protectors of both forests
and the planet’s biodiversity — a task
they’ve perfected over millennia.
To survive the climate crisis requires
that we “stop consuming Indigenous territories
and defend the people defending
the land and water,” Hernández
explains. This means not only an end to
the racism which has habitually favored
resource extraction on the lands and
Mayan Q'eqchi' Indigenous leader, Maria Choc, speaks with women in El Estor, Izabal, Guatemala. From the
CuraDaTerra Documentary series by Andrea Isabel Ixchíu Hernández and Federico Zuvire, 2021.
40 / ZEKE SPRING 2022