QATAR GET SOLAR: EXPERT

A particularly poignant item in light of breaking news about Halliburton moving to the neighborhood.

Expert calls for tapping solar energy
Bonnie James, March 6, 2007 (Gulf Times)

- Qatar, which gets abundant sunshine, should tap solar energy and reduce the use of fossil fuels, [keynote speaker at Tasmeem Doha 2007, the fourth annual international design conference], noted environmentalist and a world leader in sustainable ecology Dr David Suzuki has suggested…”The government ought to take the initiative to utilise solar power as it is an economic opportunity…It doesn’t make sense if you don’t use renewable energy for yourselves when you have more sunlight than you can use to fuel the economy,” observed the expert…
- Dr Suzuki believed that Qatar should increase the price of fuel so as to prompt people to reduce its consumption, leading to conservation of fossil fuel…“Right now, the hard part is getting people to change their behaviour,” he remarked…

- Quoting World Wildlife Fund, Dr Suzuki warned that the exploitation of the natural resources had gone past the sustainable limit.
- “Now it takes the earth 1.3 years to restore all those resources we take out in a year, which means we are drawing down steadily on the earth’s ability to replenish. If we continue at the rate we are going, by 2050 it would take two planets to restore what we remove in a year,” he said…
- Coming back to the fossil fuel scenario, Dr Suzuki, a recipient of Unesco’s Kalinga Prize for Science, and the UN Environment Programme Medal, cautioned about the ‘peak oil’ phase…“There is going to be a massive shift in everything. But nobody is planning for what you do once oil begins to decline. We have to find an alternative,” he added.