Chapter Sixty
The second day of the conference brought together many industry professionals. Peng Kun was the third to last speaker in the afternoon. The speakers' content was all very similar: interpreting industry development trends, introducing company information, showcasing products and technological achievements... So the further it went, the less patience everyone had left.
When Peng Kun walked onto the stage, most of the people below had their heads down. Some were scrolling through their phones, some were dozing off, and some were whispering to their neighbors. The whole venue was deathly quiet.
"Distinguished guests and colleagues, good afternoon." Peng Kun held the microphone in his left hand and spoke calmly, "Two years ago, I was also invited to attend this conference. At that time, the venue was packed. Today, in a venue of the same size, one-third of the seats are empty. In the past two years, our industry has undergone a deep adjustment. Some companies have continued to lose money, some companies have shrunk in size, and some companies have completely withdrawn from this field."
Upon hearing this, some people raised their heads.
Peng Kun continued, "Previously, a long-time employee who had been with me for seven years suddenly resigned. I never expected that there would be a seven-year itch in the workplace. Later, I found out that he had been cheating on me for a long time."
After Peng Kun finished speaking, a burst of laughter rang out in the hall, waking up those who were dozing off, and more people looked up.
"Before he left, he sent me a resignation letter, in which he explained his reason for changing jobs in one sentence: 'I don't want to mess around in an industry with an uncertain future.'"
At this moment, everyone raised their heads, looking at the speaker on the stage with mixed expressions. Their eyes showed sympathy, understanding, and above all, a shared sense of kinship.
"Today, I stand here not to introduce my company, nor to promote our products. I only want to answer one question: Faced with such a severe survival situation, why are we still here?"
At this point, Peng Kun put down the microphone, picked up the wireless presenter on the podium, flipped through a slide of the PPT, and then put the presenter down again... His actions were quite puzzling, as if his right arm was just for show. However, before everyone could figure it out, they were drawn to the picture on the big screen. The picture he showed was neither a hydrogen-powered car nor a fuel cell-related product, but a huge white object.
Peng Kun picked up the microphone and continued, "What you see is not a white velvet carpet, but a polar bear that has starved to death. As we all know, polar bears need to use sea ice to hunt. Now, global warming is causing large-scale melting of Arctic glaciers, and the sea ice on which polar bears depend for survival is disappearing rapidly, bringing them annihilation."
This is a female polar bear, whom a Danish photographer tracked and filmed for six months. Originally, she had a very small cub with her, but she abandoned her child before starving to death. She first walked ahead, looking back every few steps, then sprinted at top speed, leaving her cub, only a few months old, behind. The poor little bear cried incessantly and desperately chased after her until the mother bear completely disappeared from its sight.
Two weeks later, the mother bear starved to death; this was her last moment in the world. An autopsy revealed her stomach was full of seaweed and garbage. To fill her stomach, she even ate discarded styrofoam boxes. A normal adult female polar bear weighs two to three hundred kilograms, but this mother bear weighed only about eighty kilograms when she died.
Later, the photographer posted the documentary about the polar bears online, immediately causing a huge uproar. People condemned him for lacking compassion, just as they had condemned the photographer who filmed "Vultures and Girls." He, however, defiantly retorted in a video: "Even if I could afford to feed this behemoth, I wouldn't do it! Because if I did, you wouldn't know what they're going through, you'd continue traveling in your RVs, continue creating garbage recklessly, continue wasting food and squandering resources, and continue contributing greenhouse gases to the atmosphere with a clear conscience."
Polar bears typically live for 20 to 30 years, but due to climate change, many are dying in their infancy. Scientists once predicted that this massive species would be on the verge of extinction by the end of this century. Now, with sea ice disappearing at an accelerated rate, we may witness polar bears completely vanish from the earth in our lifetime.
Peng Kun said with a solemn expression, "We can ignore the extinction of polar bears, the bleaching of coral reefs, the large-scale disappearance of pollinating bees, and the fact that albatrosses' stomachs are filled with plastic, but we cannot ignore the reduced grain production and livestock deaths caused by drought, the destruction of homes and urban flooding caused by the intensification of hurricanes, and the expansion of dengue fever due to rising temperatures..."
The screen switches to the next picture, showing a dark-skinned, emaciated middle-aged man sitting on the muddy ground in a tent made of plastic and rags, his expression numb and his eyes vacant.
"This man, named Hassan, lived in a slum in Pakistan. A year ago, he had his own house and a happy family of four. However, a record-breaking flood destroyed his village, breaching the riverbanks and collapsing his house. He survived only because his clothes caught on a thick tree branch. After the flood receded, he found the bodies of his daughter and wife in the ruins, but his four-year-old son has not been found to this day."
The floods submerged nearly a third of Pakistan's land, leaving countless "Hassans" homeless, displaced, and separated from their loved ones. Many might consider Hassan's survival a stroke of luck, but in reality, he is the most unfortunate, for he will spend the rest of his life living with the trauma of the floods and the pain of losing his family.
Next, Peng Kun switched to the third picture, which showed an elderly man with gray hair, a beautiful villa behind him, and lush palm trees growing next to the villa.
"This is an island nation in the Pacific Ocean, with a maximum elevation of only two meters. As global warming causes sea levels to rise, the entire country will be covered by seawater in the near future."
During the interview, the elderly man, with tears in his eyes, said, "I've worked hard for decades, using all my savings to build this house and give my family a comfortable life. But now, this country is about to be submerged by the sea, and we have to leave. I don't know what the meaning of my life's struggles is anymore."
Humans believe they can dominate all things and change the world, but in reality, we are nothing. Humans have never conquered nature; before nature, we are as fragile, insignificant, and utterly vulnerable as a polar bear.
The last picture is a world map with many markings and symbols, including red flames, rain clouds, and water droplets marked with an "X"...
"Let's take a look at what has happened in the world in recent years. The United States, Southeast Asia, and South Asia have experienced unprecedented catastrophic floods due to extreme rainfall; glaciers in the Arctic and the Tibetan Plateau are melting rapidly; bushfires in Australia have burned for more than 200 days, claiming the lives of over 1 billion animals; the Amazon rainforest has transformed from the 'lungs of the Earth' into the 'chimney of the Earth'; Pacific island nations such as Tuvalu and Kiribati are preparing for mass migrations; it is estimated that in the near future, the number of climate refugees worldwide will reach 200 million; the Mediterranean coast and the Horn of Africa are experiencing severe droughts, plunging tens of millions into famine and threatening them with death..."
Our planet is already completely ravaged.
Ladies and gentlemen, the climate system is leaving humanity with little time. We are standing on a battlefield without gunfire. To limit global warming to within 1.5°C, greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by 45% by 2030. Therefore, my country proposed the "dual carbon" target in 2020, and Europe has enshrined emission reduction targets in law.
I know that many people are worried about the future of the hydrogen energy industry. High hydrogen costs, lagging construction of hydrogen refueling stations, low market acceptance, and lack of investor confidence mean that the industry is facing unprecedented pressure and challenges.
However, every energy revolution and technological revolution in history has not been a smooth road. Electricity replaced steam, machines replaced manual labor, and automobiles replaced horse-drawn carriages. These changes, which were initially thought to be impossible, have now become part of human daily life.
If everyone chose the easy path, the Industrial Revolution would not have succeeded, Columbus would not have discovered the New World, and human society would not have achieved its current glory and accomplishments.
Sometimes, what defeats us is not the difficulty, but the fear.
China's photovoltaic industry has risen to become the world's number one in just twenty years. I believe that in the future, we can also establish another industrial milestone in the field of hydrogen energy, enabling humanity to completely break free from its dependence on fossil fuels and restore the Earth's green mountains, clear waters, and blue skies.
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