Message From The Editor

Deidre Loots

“The Stone Age didn’t end for lack of stone, and the fossil fuel age will end long before the world runs out of oil and coal.” – Unknown

As a natural born introvert, and a realist on top of that (my dearly beloved would swop ‘realist’ for ‘pessimist’), I do not read or listen to the news, so unless the news “finds me” – like Steve Jobs predicted it would, years ago – I tend to live happily in my blissful ignorance. That was until this past month when I simply could not escape the news of the dark and silent reality of load shedding. I was also not able to escape the vitriol on social media as the people took to the digital channels to express their frustration and anger, born from a sense of powerlessness and the anxiety that comes with that.

The reality is that no matter how angry we are, how many posts or tweets we fire off, we are indeed powerless to change the situation. That does not mean that we should stop reprimanding our elected officials, but it certainly calls for a healthy dose of realism. As a young democracy and developing nation on the southern tip of Africa, we are bound to experience these kinds of growing pains, no matter what causes them, whether it be corruption or incompetence. Complain we must, but more importantly, if we are to survive, and hopefully thrive in this environment, we need to adjust to – and plan according to this socio-economic environment in which we live and work.

Apparently the Chinese word for “crisis” is made up of two words – “danger” and “opportunity.'' And even if it’s not true, the reality is that every crisis presents both danger and opportunity. The danger in any crisis situation is to adopt a victim mentality, while the opportunity in any crisis situation can only be spotted with a calm and clear mind. And sometimes the only opportunity may be to accept that we have no control over a specific situation, except for our attitude, the one thing we can always control.

With this dark end to the previous year now confined to history, my hope is that our country will emerge from this with a renewed sense of urgency to adopt an energy solution that is both effective and sustainable. That is the one great opportunity that is there for all to see. If we can beat the rest of the world in everything from rugby to beauty pageants, we most certainly can become a world leader in the development and deployment of sustainable energy, and in such a way as to create more jobs while helping to save the planet from certain doom.

Now let us adopt that positive attitude that make us the world beaters that we are as we enter this new year and the third decade of the 21st century. We have a country to energise and a planet to save, so chin up and let’s get cracking!