Uruguay, a Country with a Future

No matter how you cut it, our human life on planet earth has to change. How we live today, too many of us consuming too much, is unsustainable. There is now interest in the most unlikely of places, Uruguay, as an example of a place that at least in on the path toward a modern life without crippling planet earth.

Uruguay has a carbon footprint about average for developing nations. Thus, it has not arrived at the point countries need to be at in order to slow or stop global warming. One of the things it has going for it demographically is a stable and large middle class. This is contrary to trends elsewhere, including the U.S., where the middle class in declining. It has a low poverty rate. It ranks highest in Central and South Ameria in its voting rights.

How could it be, a small country plotted right there on the Catholic continents of Central and South American be 14% atheist/agnostic? Uruguay is the least religious country on the two continents. 

Uruguay is on a path toward renewable energy. Its plains are windy enough to accommodate thousands of wind and solar installations. These are being installed at a rapid pace with good public support. This seems, in theory at least, the country is on a path toward complete renewable energy. There will have to be, of course, a system to store some energy for period when sun and wind are insufficient. The desire and public support is there to make it over the finish line.    

Uruguay's history has not always been so promising. There have been periods of civil war, poverty and starvation. Since the 1980's, however, its majority has found its balance and is going forward.

 It is a small country so this makes it different. A good future is not guaranteed. Nevertheless, the entire world is looking for some workable political and economic model to way it way out of the carbon that is an enemy of global warming. Let's hope we have found one.