Andrew Brown, commenting in The Guardian, UK, states “only faith can solve the energy crisis.” To support his contention he writes:
Scandinavia is one of the most secularised corners of the world and by reputation one of the most rational. So I was astonished last week to hear the Finnish chairman of Royal Dutch Shell (and of Nokia) Jorma Ollila, say that the world’s energy crisis would not be solved unless everyone turned off the lights when they left an empty room.
Brown sees this statement as calling for an act of faith that will develop the world’s will to solve the energy crisis:
The answer he gave, which was either extremely Finnish or extremely religious, is that it has to come from a genuine, bottom-up commitment. That’s why turning off lightbulbs is important. To turn off the light when you leave a room is an act of piety just as much as lighting a candle in church. It has no measurable effect on the crisis at all in itself. It doesn’t even have a notable effect on your own electricity bill, and if it ever does, the world economy will be in a dreadful mess. But it is a token of seriousness. It is, if you like, a gesture of faith.
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