At 09:00 11-7-01 -0500, Dan Minette wrote:
> > Dan's remarks about how come that ecological sane solutions didn't
> > catch on until now (especially if you take into account that they have
> > been around for some thirty odd years) has been bogging me for a while
> > now.
> >
> > I think I have one of the more simple answers to this question: It
> > wasn't fashionable until now. As far as I got it, the sentiment until
> > just a few years ago was that ecologically sound techniques and green
> > products were seen as something exclusively for eco nerds.
>
>Sorry. I remember it being very fashionable 25 years ago in Madison WI.
>Indeed, there was a big push for wind power.
Back then, only a small percentage of our population realized what we were
doing to the environment, and realized the benefits of green power. For
many years they were ridiculed, and considered a fringe group, treehuggers
who didn't know what they were talking about. Politicians didn't care about
the environment, so nothing pro-environment was done. It took till the late
eighties before politicians noticed that those "crazy treehuggers" got more
and more public support. Then, suddenly, all political parties made changes
to their party programs, trying to look as "green" as possible.
It's sad, really. Politicians turning pro-environment, not for the
environment but to look good in the eyes of the public when it's election
time...
<snip>
>So, its not as though nothing has happened. But, except for nuclear, green
>power sources are just not practical, so all we get for those is advertising
>and high price pilot projects that are "the wave of the future" every few
>years.
These projects have been around for a few decades now, so obviously people
have thought it to be a good idea for a few decades as well. (If nobody
would like the idea, nobody would have poored money into R&D.)
Yet, despite that enthusiasm, green power still isn't as big as it could
have been. Now why do I get the feeling that there are forces at work here
that try to slow things down? Forces that would have a lot to lose, should
green power get a large market share. Forces like, say, the oil business?
The oil business measures its profits in billions of dollars -- profits
that can go down bigtime if a large percentage of the world's needed energy
would come from green sources. So, how many reasons does the oil business
have to slow down the development of green power? Billions of reasons...
Jeroen
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