OK, Kristen, a few things.
I hope you'll realize that every environmental decision is also a
political and an economic decision. And also recognize that, by
neccesity, all environmental decisions must be made in the context of a
constitutional democracy. You can't wish other people away, you can't
ignore the reality of their needs and wants. If you try, they are
going to run over you with bulldozers.
The advantage of a pluralistic democracy is that no one has all the
answers. Decisions can't be imposed on people, and that's a good
thing. You won't agree with every decision that is made under our
system, neither will I, in fact, no one will every be pleased by
everything that happens, there will always, always, always be things
that outrage and horrify you no matter how many people agree with you.
Take this Kyoto thing. Probably the best thing for the environment was
when Bush announced it was dead. Why? Because it WAS dead! It's just
that no one was willing to admit it! It was like the Kellog-Briand
pact that outlawed war in the 1920s. Bush did the environment and the
environmentalists a huge favor when he declared it wasn't going to be
signed.
Now, about fuel. I don't know why you hope that we run out of fuel
more quickly, since that's the only way we'll learn to conserve. That
makes no sense. It makes no sense to conserve something that is
abundant. People will only conserve things when they are rare.
Now, Michael. How about we wait until Dan is back, then we'll discuss
your proposal to spend trillions of dollars on solar panels. Let me
just say that you are neglecting the unintened consequences of your
proposal. How much pollution will the manufacture create? How much
energy will it require? How will we get enough pure silicon?
Personally, I agree with Dan that research into general pure physics is
likely to be orders of magnitude more effective in creating alternative
energy sources than implementation of current technology.
WHY aren't there solar panels on every roof? Don't give me stories
about fossil fuel companies suppressing research. Under a capitalist
system, if there were a money to be made selling solar panels then
there would be companies (not neccesarily the current energy companies)
that would be happy to provide them. No, the big problem is that solar
energy is many times more expensive than conventional energy. But what
does that mean, more expensive? I agree, that often externalities are
not factored into the cost of fossil fuels. Even John agrees that
taxes on fossil fuels should be imposed to bring their cost to the
consumer in line with their true cost, although of course there will be
endless argument over what those true costs should be. But in a very
real sense, cost means the resources, both natural and human, that are
consumed by the manufacture of a good.
I invite you to consider that perhaps ubiquitous solar energy could be
MORE damaging to the environment than our current system of ubiquitous
nuclear and fossil energy. Small scale solar leaves a small
environmental footprint, just like small scale fossil would. Large
scale energy production is going to leave a large footprint, regardless
of the type.
If we MUST spend trillions on energy, probably the absolute best way to
spend it would be on increasing energy efficiency. We already have
many good ideas on how to do that, while the alterative ideas for
energy production are very far away from being effective for
implementation.
=====
Darryl
Think Galactically -- Act Terrestrially
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail
http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
