Beholden to the Sea: the Orkneys’ Marine-Energy Revolution

The quaint old-fashioned town of Stromness may look like an open-air museum, but it is nonetheless the nexus of one of the most advanced and complex technologies providing some hope for the future of humanity. Stromness, namely, is host to the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), the globe's leading agency for wave and tidal power research.

The quaint old-fashioned town of Stromness may look like an open-air museum, but it is nonetheless the nexus of one of the most advanced and complex technologies providing some hope for the future of humanity. Stromness, namely, is host to the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), the globe's leading agency for wave and tidal power research.
The Orkney Islands are situated a mere fifteen kilometres from the north-western Scottish coast – yet they are geographically and meteorologically unique. Their location at the meeting point of the Atlantic ocean and the North Sea leaves the islands exposed to incessant heavy winds and exceptionally strong tides. The numerous coves between the twenty islands comprising this wondrous archipelago have perennially provided safe haven for both the local and global seafarers. This has been the case from the Neolithic on through the Viking age and all the way to the present ruled by the huge, savagely wasteful cruisers symbolising everything gone wrong with our species.
A life on the Orkney Islands is a life entirely beholden to the sea with its fierce winds, tall waves and bewilderingly potent tides. Small wonder then that the archipelago is populated by a special breed of tolerant and forward-looking men and women forming a community not at all hellbent on more and more and strangely content with enough.
Such peripheral places – where the comfort zone, to put it mildly, is something of a rarity – seem ideal for researching and shaping the future. In fact, the future has already arrived to the Orkney Islands – or at least a possible version of it, one responding to the demands of an all-out war on climate change.
Up here in the north, among the infinite hues of green, blue and grey, an energy revolution has been taking shape. The archipelago is strewn with wind turbines and the promising experimental technology for deriving electrical energy from the tidal cycles. For a number of years, the Orkney Islands have been energetically self-sufficient, producing approximately 120 percent of the power its inhabitants consume.
The long-distance pipeline supplying the islanders with electricity produced in Great Britain has grown outmoded. Since building a new one would be too costly, however, the Orcadians – as the locals call themselves – opted to invest into renewable-energy research. In consequence, the northern Scottish archipelago has been turned into the world's leading centre of sea power exploitation, as well as one of the world's hubs for hydrogen research and development.
Up here in Europe's north, far-reaching changes are taking place ... The sort of changes the rest of the world has so far only been murmuring about.
»I keep repeating that sea power is our Apollo space program!« beamed Neil Kermode, the EMEC's managing director and one of the pioneers of the local electric revolution. »The same goes for our hydrogen-production program. Both should enable us to sell our products all over the globe for years to come, while carving out a sustainable future for ourselves and for the world.«

The Fastest Track to Decarbonization

On board of the small and rather rusty ferry connecting the archipelago's capital Kirkwall to the nearby islet of Shapinsay, it felt like the wind was blowing in from all sides at once. The stormy sea, currently more black than blue, was splashing over the transported vehicles.
The ferry's staff, well used to such conditions and worse – even an occasional 20-meter-high wave – were stoically performing their duties. Between constant interruptions they managed to explain that, as soon as 2020, their vessel is to be among the first to be wholly powered by hydrogen.
During our voyage, the hydrogen tank below deck was still merely augmenting the stinky diesel engine, but this was about to change. The ferry was undergoing an ambitious plan of renovation.
»Over here, the locals were quick to grasp that it was not economically viable for them to export the surplus energy ... At least not in the short run. And so they reached a decision that may prove a historic one. They channelled all their excess power into hydrogen production. Here in the Orkneys, we are producing a wholly green type of hydrogen. I believe this is currently the only place in the world where it can be done with such efficiency and consistency,« nodded Catherine McDougall from the British ITM Power company, which is in charge of the Shapinsay island's hydrogen manufacture project.
McDougall commutes to the remote island from Sheffield to spend a few days out of every week. »In my opinion, hydrogen is our fastest track to decarbonisation. I'm of course referring to the green brand of hydrogen obtained through electrolysis from wind, ocean and solar power. This is the only correct way. Renewable energy sources shouldn't leave a black carbon trail, right? Our hydrogen will soon be powering three ferries. The island authorities are gearing up to remodel its entire fleet of buses so it can be hydrogen-powered as well. There are similar plans for the flight routes connecting the islands to Scotland. More and more hydrogen is about to become available ... And I sincerely hope we shall see a similar rise in political and financial backing as well. This type of innovation does not come cheap.«

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McDougall's 'hydrogen station', which has been granted its operating licence during the time of our visit, is located in the immediate vicinity of the giant wind turbine in operation throughout the year, twenty-four hours per day.
»It is so nice to feel the support of the whole island community. The people here were quick to embrace the switch to renewable energy. The key event was the setting up of the EMEC centre. With research, the investments started pouring it, which meant a number of new jobs. The people here were also quick to catch on to all the practical benefits of green energy. More than 800 wind turbines popped up all over the islands. By now, virtually every bigger farm has got one! The locals have become energetically self-sufficient, and they have also started making good money by selling the power to the local grid. This is a winning combination,« the young woman in charge of the hydrogen project went on, enjoying an afternoon cup of tea.
McDougall let on that, as recently as five years ago, the Orkneys were still racked by a decided power scarcity. The cost of heating alone was consuming up to 40 percent of household budgets.
Yet with the renewable-energy explosion, this started to change for the better as well. So much so that one of the recent BBC polls elected the islands as the UK's place with the highest quality of life. »Up here, more renewable-energy development is taking place than in the rest of Britain put together,« McDougall opined.
»The demand for hydrogen is about to soar,« she was quick to add. »Both locally and globally. A number of important projects are underway. It is imperative to bring down the cost of hydrogen production. This cost remains rather steep – not only due to the huge amounts of power needed to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen, but also on account of the catalysts expediting the process. Platinum is exceedingly pricey, and the same goes for iridium, given its scarcity. Perhaps it is just as well that things are not moving too quickly...«
McDougall, like her Sheffield-based employers, believes the future of hydrogen fuel cells is beholden to the transport business: ships, trucks, buses, trains and small planes. Due to the sheer volume taken up by the cells, hydrogen is not all that likely to have a huge impact on the personal-vehicle market. On the other hand, the hydrogen fuel cells could also make quite a splash in the industrial sector, given their capacity to retain energy for a number of months.

»Our First Album Was a Smash Hit!«

»Well, I can only hope that all the Brexit-related chaos will not seriously harm the Orkneys' projects. We have found ourselves in a rather strange position. All of us here seem to feel sort of frozen. It was bad enough that the Tory government cut a large chunk of the funding for renewable-energy development. Its bureaucracy has also proved less efficient than the previous ones. We're very thankful to the EMEC for sticking it out here with us. Mind you, the projects underway here are crucial for them, too!« smiled Mark Hull, head of innovation at the Community Energy Scotland organisation.
Hull has been involved with the local renewable-energy projects since their inception. He began on the island of Ramsey, where the community invested the money it earned through wind power into a development fund. The principle quickly spread throughout Scotland.
Like the others, Mark Hull was quick to realise constructing a new pipeline to Great Britain wouldn't make much sense. He believes that the Orkneys' decision to utilise their own surplus energy was a far-reaching one.
»You see, we embraced our renewable-energy sources out of something like desperation. Yet with the arrival of the European Marine Energy Centre, it all changed. The height of the research and experimental projects employed more than 600 locals. Since the total population of the islands is approximately 21 000 people, this was huge for us. Today, the enterprise provides about 350 jobs. Some of the projects have been halted, and some are eagerly awaiting investors. As they say in the music industry: our first album was a smash hit, and now we're waiting to see how the second one fares. Our common future depends on the outcome,« Mark Hull related on an especially wet day, while giving us a tour of the hydrogen filling stations at the Kirkwall port. These are available not only to the ferries, but also to the local authorities, who have at their disposal five hydrogen-powered personal vehicles.

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The question of how viable hydrogen-powered cars will turn out to be still looms large in the minds of the local visionaries. As things stand, such vehicles are being outpaced by their lithium-powered counterparts – both in the Orkneys and in the rest of the world.
Just how popular the electric car is around here could be felt on a Saturday in September, when an Englishman named Jonathan Porterfield organised a parade in downtown Kirkwall. The proud owners of Teslas, Nissan Leafs, BMWs, electric Volkswagens and numerous hybrids could be admired cruising the streets. Out of 10 000 personal vehicles currently registered in the Orkneys, as many as 350 are of the electric variety. And the number is dramatically rising.
As the owner of a company called Eco Cars and the proprietor of the UK's first used electric-car shop, Porterfield knows very well that business is booming. »In 2013, I came for a vacation and fell in love with these islands. At the same time, I could immediately sense the economic potential. The perfect location! They were producing their own green electricity! Even then, the people here were remarkably eco-friendly – every day, they were looking for solutions! My wife and I promptly decided to move here.«
Talking to us among the spit-shined electric vehicles on parade in Kirkwall, Porterfield related how he started selling hybrid cars and biofuel-powered vehicles some fifteen years back. In 2012, he became the official seller for the Nissan Leaf brand – thus far the most successful and beloved personal electric vehicle of them all.
»After I set up shop here, I had 66 test drives scheduled in the first week alone. Back then, the Orkneys had no more than seven electric cars. Now the number is multiplied by fifty, and it's only the beginning.« The successful businessman is very aware of the fact that his Kirkwall franchise is greatly helped by the local affluence. Kirkwall, after all, is home to Scotland's wealthiest population.
»Everyone knows everyone else around here!« Porterfield enthused. »Advertising is simply not required. Your reputation – both good or bad – automatically spreads out among the people. And as I already said, a lot of the owners here produce their own electricity. 80 percent of our filling is done at the customers' homes.«
The local infrastructure, it has to be said, is indeed admirably advanced. »Along with the low, almost non-existent cost of electric-car maintenance, this is yet another important factor for prospective buyers,« Porterfield ended the conversation on a decidedly optimistic note, venturing his move to Kirkwall was the best decision of his life.

Driving on Home-Made Electricity

The electric cars on parade certainly didn't lack for their share of admirers. The most openly feted was a brand-new Tesla (model 3), brought to Kirkwall from the (relatively) nearby Shetland Islands by a man whose magnificent beard recalled the time of the Viking raids. As his son kept polishing the already shining vehicle with a piece of cloth, a man in his late eighties – a former amateur race-car driver – approached and took a long hard look.
»Oh well, I guess it all checks out,« he shook his head. »But I still much prefer the noise of an eight-cylinder gas engine. Nothing quite makes such a wonderful racket,« he grinned nostalgically and gave the blue-tinted Tesla a friendly pat. »Nothing personal, you understand!«
Another proud Tesla owner to have driven his prize exhibit along the Kirkwall streets was Victor Fraser, a former officer in the British military. These days, he runs a spotlessly tidy bed-and-breakfast and a small farm in a town called St Margaret’s Hope on the south of the main island. The huge wind turbine gracing his homestead has turned him energetically self-sufficient. The money he makes from selling the excess power he creates has become an important source of revenue for him – ensuring between 13 000 and 17 000 extra pounds per year.
»Brexit has left us all in a state of uncertainty. As a Scotsman I hope we remain. This would no doubt prove better for business,« Fraser ventured while making bread dough at his residence. He proudly pointed out the large Tesla filling station in his parking lot. »For a time, this was the world's northernmost filling station!«

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Gareth Davies, an ocean biologist and the owner of the Aquatera company, which helped lay the foundations for the local ocean power development, moved to the Orkneys thirty years ago. Even then, Stromness boasted a strong and forward-looking university, which remains an important source of personnel for the innovative firms collaborating with the EMEC in further developing the technology.
Founded in 1999, Davies' company was among the very first in Britain to recognise strong action was needed to offset the wages of climate change. He had cut his teeth, he says, during the long years he spent collaborating with the oil and gas industry ... But the Orkneys were the first place where he came across a truly functional wind-power system. After all, even in the eighties, the islands were host to the world's largest wind-power plant.
»When me and a bunch of like-minded colleagues were setting up the company, we asked ourselves: 'Well, what can we do?'« Davies recalls his company's origins. »So we made a lot of research into the potential that could be extracted from the wind and the tides. In the end, we put together a concept for a project and offered it to the British government. At first the progress was rather slow ... But then things started to click. The company is still more or less filled with the people from three decades back. We're talking radical enthusiasm here!«
Gareth Davies, talking to us on a rare warm and sunny autumn day at the picnic site next to a picturesque lighthouse, seemed very proud of having helped push the wind turbines through into the broader commercial domain.
»First a number of private turbines started dotting the landscape, then the first collectively organised ones. We managed to translate our expertise into practical solutions as we went along, all to the great benefit of the local community. The timing was very good. The renewable-energy market was starting to climb, and we had been involved from the get-go. That's why we are still here, unlike a number of competitors. Mind you, we've been through several rough spots as well. But in the end, we survived. I am convinced our transparency proved a great boon for us over the years. Close ties to the local community have always been a huge priority for us. And the community chose to follow us throughout this great and successful experiment.«

'The Next-Big Thing'

2007 was the year when the local population first 'harvested' the income from wind power. It was a huge stimulus toward building further wind turbines – so many of them that they have since become almost a part of the natural environment. Potential investors started flocking to Kirkwall and Stromness, sensing a great opportunity in ocean power, and some of them even seeing it as 'the next big thing'.
They came in from all over the globe: from Silicon Valley, from the Chinese and Japanese tech giants, from Scandinavia and Canada. Some of them found it worthwhile to stay. Others did not – mainly those driven by the thirst for turning a quick profit. The development of the technology needed for optimising sea power extraction is a lengthy, extremely complex process, providing little scope for rashness and impetuosity. After sixteen years of operations, the European Marine Energy Centre is virtually still in its infancy.

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»We've developed a whole lot of new machinery,« Gareth Davies pointed out. »We've pushed the boundaries of what seems possible. Some of our endeavours also fell through, but that's just a part of the process. After all, we are inventors – pioneers, even! Our job is to learn from our mistakes. What we need is time and money to make the projects commercially viable. It is just like it used to be in the aviation industry, or in the field of mobile telecommunications. And so we need a lot of political support. To be frank, there hasn't been enough of that over the last few years. Which is something I just don't get. Humanity doesn't exactly have a lot of time, right? We're in a great hurry. It is imperative we devote all our energies to expanding the scope of our renewable-energy sources. The oceans are definitely offering a huge part of the solution. We must leave this transition stage behind as soon as possible!«
Davies also took pains to emphasise how the local community had already invested more than 200 million pounds of its own money into ocean power development. »This type of energy earned its place in the hearts and minds of the Orkneys community. It has become a part of the local identity. You can see it in the art currently produced – in books, films, theatre and music, and even in cartoons! Over here, we have decided to build our own future. We are driven by the urgency of climate change. All of us here realise that things will only get worse with each passing year.«

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Over the decades, one of Davies' closest collaborators was an electrical engineer named Jason Schofield, head of the Green Marine company. With its 35 employees, the firm is in charge of the logistics for pretty much all major projects connected to the waves and the tides.
Like the members of his staff, Schofield is used to performing under the worst possible conditions. The robust entrepreneur has spent twenty years manning fishing boats on some of the world's roughest stretches of the ocean. He had sailed and lived through everything imaginable. And then eight years ago, he and his crew dived headlong into the field of marine energy.
»I watched how the EMEC helped the local companies grow. Since I've spent a large chunk of my life at sea, I was quick to catch on to what could be done,« Schofield explained in his office high above Stromness with a spectacular view of the southern archipelago.
When the opportunity presented itself, he felt responsible to act, and also somewhat – guilty. As the best electrotechnics student of his generation, he had spent a good long while working for a company designing guided missiles. »My expertise was exploited for the purpose of killing. I wanted to put it to better use,« the born and raised Orkneyan admits freely. So he assembled a team to convert a number of fishing vessels and entered the green business.
His new course was subject to numerous ups and downs. He is very unsatisfied with the current level of political support ... But he is also convinced ocean power has already made too much of an impact to be simply scrapped. And the Orkney Islands have been turned into its global hub. »An awful lot of know-how has converged on this tiny patch of land.«
Over the past years, Schofield expanded his business to Japan, Singapore, France, Denmark and Canada. Things are looking a bit better for the tidal power industry, as the tides are generally more predictable than waves and less hazardous to all sorts of futuristic machinery visible above, beneath and next to the sea. According to Schofield, tidal power should become commercially viable within the next two or three years. The customers from Finland to the US are already lining up.
»In spite of all the setbacks, things are moving in the right direction. People have started to realise what's at stake. We can no longer go on fooling ourselves. This new awareness will soon dictate the demand in the markets,« Schofield is convinced.
But what about all the possible ramifications of Brexit? »Yes indeed – fucking Brexit! But you know what? Up here, we're well used to change, even the most unpleasant kind. At the same time, we have the positive experience of making a success of the wind-power technology. This raised our confidence and pointed us in the right direction for the future. My greatest hope is that we can make a similar advance in the field of ocean power.«

An Open-Air Lab

The EU-funded European Marine Energy Centre is behind practically all the Orkneyan ocean-energy projects of the last fifteen years. From 2003 on, the Stromness-seated Centre has helped coordinate dozens and dozens of projects.
EMEC has been described as the NASA of the marine power industry. Europe is still very much interested in marine power development, having glimpsed all its potentials for future energy self-sufficiency. But that future still seems a long way off.
»Right now, a lot of opportunities are opening up with regard to hydrogen. A number of companies have decided to bank on that. This, it would seem, has already solved the question of what to do with our surplus electricity. I believe we will soon transform ourselves into the centre of hydrogen fuel cell production as well,« believes Lisa MacKenzie, the EMEC's marketing and communications manager, talking to us near the wonderful cliffs surrounded by special stony structures dating back to the Neolithic.
The important archaeological zone of Billia Croo is a place where the past and the future are closely intertwined. It is where the EMEC had decided to locate its wave test site. At the time of our visit, five devices for ocean-energy extraction were being put to the test.
»What you can see is sort of an open-air lab,« MacKenzie explained with an expansive gesture. »We are working hard and hoping that, at the end of the day, it will all be worth it. Constantly moving forward, we are picking things up as we go along. We're currently waiting for the next wave of investments. We have set out to push the boundaries of what is thought possible. No, I do not believe Brexit can seriously harm us. Even should the public finances collapse as expected. We are confident the EU will continue to stand by our side,« MacKenzie nodded and pointed at the sea. Her finger was trained towards a spot some 400 meters from the shore, where last year Microsoft constructed a huge underwater data centre requiring enormous amounts of energy – mostly for cooling purposes. Here, on the bottom of the sea, the energy is available almost for free.
»The solutions are ready,« MacKenzie assured us. »Only the world needs to wake up first. Over here, we have the full support of the local community. A number of the local companies have undergone tremendous growth. A lot of new jobs have been created. People are well aware of all the ways we can be of benefit. That is extremely important.«

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If the EMEC is the NASA of marine energy, then the Pentland Firth strait is the Saudi Arabia of wave and tidal power development. According to the experts' projections, the strait's tides alone could yield 2 GW of energy each year.
Most of the devices employed for harvesting electricity from the ocean look like something out of the wildest science fiction. Their very shapes seem to defy logic. There is the huge red-yellow snake winding through the water (Pelamis), the futuristic turbine in the middle of the ocean (OpenHydro) and the 72-meters-long O2 turbines (Orbital Marine Power) ... Not to mention a number of humongous yellow buoys which look like they are about to attack the planet. And then there is the giant many-hued 'penguin' anchored at one of the Kirkwell docks.

In the Belly of the Beast

»It's like the belly of a whale, isn't it?« Baptiste Mathie-Claverie mused inside the gargantuan device for harvesting energy from the power of the waves.
Mathie-Claverie, a passionate ocean energy specialist from Bordeaux, is in charge of the penguin's operation. The penguin is what the device is actually called, and it was about to replace its predecessor which, in March, had found itself unequal to a savage storm.
The first penguin was one of the Orkneys' most promising functional marine-energy projects. Its premature demise meant a dire blow both for the EMEC and the entire island community. But the much-improved replacement, manufactured in Estonia by the Finnish company Wello Oy, is now ready to start 'translating' the waves into power. The penguin and its 500-kilowatt generator have already stirred up great interest in China, Canada and the Caribbean.
»The installation of this big boy takes twenty days. It is an impressive logistical feat. Everything, absolutely everything has to go according to plan. In these parts, the appropriate metheorological window opens up about once per year. We're now all hoping it happens as soon as possible. The great advantage of this current version is its lack of a single external element, which makes it much safer and more reliable than the predecessor. It is now ready to be deployed, and so are we!« Mathie-Claverie enthused inside the engineering wonder.
The experts predict that the Orkney Islands should derive 4,2 to 8 GW of electric power from the waves alone – which is the amount produced by the Western Europe's largest power plants. Mathie-Claverie's specialty is anticipating – or forecasting – the behaviour of the waves.
»They are very hard to predict,« the Frenchman explained. »The tides are pretty much fixed, so there is no great mystery there... But the waves are highly dependent on the winds and the overall weather conditions. Which means they are also subject to the workings of climate change. The trouble is, the penguin's operation is heavily reliant on as precise a prediction as we can come up with. The device is functional when the height of the waves is between 1,5 and 3,5 meters. At the same time, it has to be able to withstand even 20-meter waves. The old model clearly wasn't up to the challenge. This one here will be, I dare say with something pretty close to certainty!«
The 43-meter monsters could soon become a staple of the world's oceans. A lot is riding on the life expectancy of the latest penguin, whose construction was largely funded by the European Union. »We have set out to demonstrate that it can be done. Then the politicians will have to make the call,« Mathie-Claverie ventured with a curt militant nod.

An Open and Progressive Place

In an old Stromness house crammed with thousands of books, many of them his own, we found another distinctive Orcadian. Tom Muir, a 56-year-old writer, is the island's foremost raconteur and a walking encyclopaedia to boot – an old-school erudite reminiscent of the times of Charles Darwin and Charles Dickens. Greeting us, he was nursing a cup of tea with Sex Pistols written on it, just to make sure we knew in advance who we would be talking to.
The words came pouring out in a flood. The history. The Neolithic. The Vikings. The Celts. The naval dramas. World War I and II. The collective (self)sinking of the almost entire German navy in 1919. The floundering of the prominent British military battleship Royal Oak in 1939. The Churchill-inspired embankments. The uranium. The oil. The books and the songs. The quips and the anecdotes and an occasional salacious joke for good measure – and, of course, cup after cup of good strong tea.
Our sojourn with this man was an ethnological and archaeological fast-forward marathon. The associations were flying all over the place – but, it has to be said, in an at least somewhat controlled fashion. It was like listening to Slavoj Žižek if the great modern philosopher had been distilled down into a pure algorithm.
»The world is in a state of profound crisis,« he imparted. »The consequences of climate change are only compounding the disaster. Everyone with the tiniest amount of brains should be crystal clear on what we should be doing. Yet the political will is lacking. The natural resources will continue to be gobbled up right until our bitter end. The only recourse left to humanity is to immediately come together and embark upon the path of renewable energy. But this is only one of the many necessary steps ...«
According to Muir, the Orkneys have always been an open and progressive place. The islands were a meeting spot for many different cultures competing with and supplementing each other. »Our progressiveness is also down to the natural conditions ever urging us onward in our struggle to survive,« the island's best-known writer mused. »This is our foremost driving force. Back in the thirties, we already had regular air routes to the mainland, even though the people were driving to the airfields with horse-drawn carriages!«
Muir also recalled his joy at the arrival of the European Marine Energy Centre to Stromness. The EMEC brought jobs, growth, goodwill and of course much-needed money.
»Somebody has finally got down to the business of harvesting all the boundless energy offered by the sea!« Muir expounded. »And in a correct and clean fashion to boot!« Throughout history, the sea had controlled and shaped the life on the archipelago. This is why Muir feels it needs to be treated with the utmost respect on every step of the way.
Our effusive host seemed quite a bit less pleased with »all these wind turbines sprouting up like mushrooms after the rain and already marring the landscape.«
He was more than a little bit afraid of the islands turning into one huge power plant. »That would not be a good thing. We have to nurture and protect our identity. Ever since we began developing marine energy, the life around here changed quite a bit. Kirkwall, for example, has been turned into an entirely different town than it used to be. A lot of new construction is underway, while the beauty of our landscape is of a frail, special kind. We're already producing more energy than we consume. Our decision to hold on to it and employ it to make hydrogen strikes me as a brilliant one. The whole thing is mind-expandingly inspiring,« Tom Muir went on, adding how in the past few years the islands saw a marked change in their climate. The basic four distinct seasons barely exist anymore. The extremes have simply disappeared.

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»The whole deal is being rewritten in front of our eyes. The changes can be tracked in real time. The time is fast arriving when the melted glaciers will cause the sea to start flooding the islands. We need to prepare for that, and we need to assume full responsibility – there is no planet B, as the saying goes! We also should really stop forgetting to remember that we are not the only species living here. I believe we should take a few lessons from our young. We've had our chance and blown it. Our guilt should be used as motivation to help the next generation. What we could all do with is more empathy and less greed and envy. Though it does seem kind of late ... My sincere fear is that in the coming years we will only be talking a great deal more about the weather than we already are. Even though we are already talking about it almost all the time!« the renowned raconteur summed up with an acrid smile.