He’s a scientist, activist and Gandhi Peace Prize winner. A graduate of Harvard University, he holds honorary degrees from 19 colleges and universities. To put it simply, when it comes to the environment he really knows his stuff.

A few weeks ago a good friend of mine forwarded a tweet to me. An image Bill McKibbon had shared on Twitter. It’s a map of all the ships in the ocean.

Now, as a freight buff, I love anything cargo related. But Bill hadn’t shared this image just as a point of interest. He had a message to deliver. Each of the little coloured dots represented a specific type of vessel. Cargo vessels, tankers, passenger vessels, fishing boats, pleasure craft…

Bill said “If we switched to renewable energy, the number of ships crossing the ocean would fall almost in half. Because they’re just carrying coal and oil and gas” And that’s an interesting concept.

If we do – and I think we will – make the move to renewable energy in the future, the ripple effect will be huge. It won’t just impact the end-users, but an entire industry will have to adapt. Great for the environment, not so great for those employed within the petrol/crude oil industry.

This tweet was tweeted before the war in Europe broke out. Before the sanctions on Russian oil and the fuel price hikes that are impacting so many. The world was already moving towards renewable energy, and I think this will only speed it up.

What do you think? Can you see renewable energy taking over in the next 5, 10 or 20 years? What unseen impacts do you think it will have!