Climate change versus other risks
I've posted about this in the past, but a recent cato daily podcast spells it out succinctly. I share the expert's opinion on this, and please note that it is not denying that climate changes exists and is most likely caused by human greenhouse gas emissions, it only draws comparisons to other dangers that threaten human life. Give the podcast a listen, it's only about 10 minutes long.
[audio:indurmgoklany_climatechangeversusotherrisks_20080130.mp3]
A few thoughts: Climate change is a red herring. The end result of a marketplace shift towards "green" tech would lower or eliminate reliance on foreign oil, subvert large corporate strangleholds on areas such as automobiles, power, lighting, utilities themselves, and force better manufacturing practices among companies. It is a smart idea to adopt green technology in your personal lives where it is economically feasible. Higher efficiency saves money. One major point brought up in the podcast is the human destruction of undeveloped lands for the purposes of agriculture. One of the proposed solutions to our need for a renewable portable fuel source is biofuels. Given our need for portable and easily distributable fuel ethanol and biodiesel are currently being pushed as green technologies. Not only does a huge market increase in these items put a strain on the current agricultural production of our currently developed lands, which in turn drive up prices for those who need these fundamental food sources, but it will lead to expanding the US agriculture industry as they need more and more land to fulfill not only our food needs but our portable fuel needs as well. This could be disastrous for local environments, not only in the razing of land, but the increased pesticide usage. GM crops could help solve these issues and the normal green mentality of not consuming GM crops would be avoided as we're not actually eating the crops.
Biodiesel from algae might be a decent short term solution but everyone is stuck on ethanol. I'd like to thank Iowa and the corn lobbyists for that.
[audio:indurmgoklany_climatechangeversusotherrisks_20080130.mp3]
A few thoughts: Climate change is a red herring. The end result of a marketplace shift towards "green" tech would lower or eliminate reliance on foreign oil, subvert large corporate strangleholds on areas such as automobiles, power, lighting, utilities themselves, and force better manufacturing practices among companies. It is a smart idea to adopt green technology in your personal lives where it is economically feasible. Higher efficiency saves money. One major point brought up in the podcast is the human destruction of undeveloped lands for the purposes of agriculture. One of the proposed solutions to our need for a renewable portable fuel source is biofuels. Given our need for portable and easily distributable fuel ethanol and biodiesel are currently being pushed as green technologies. Not only does a huge market increase in these items put a strain on the current agricultural production of our currently developed lands, which in turn drive up prices for those who need these fundamental food sources, but it will lead to expanding the US agriculture industry as they need more and more land to fulfill not only our food needs but our portable fuel needs as well. This could be disastrous for local environments, not only in the razing of land, but the increased pesticide usage. GM crops could help solve these issues and the normal green mentality of not consuming GM crops would be avoided as we're not actually eating the crops.
Biodiesel from algae might be a decent short term solution but everyone is stuck on ethanol. I'd like to thank Iowa and the corn lobbyists for that.
Heck yeah, go Iowa. I wish I could say it made sense for Iowa, but it doesn't. We had a chance to elect the state secretary of Agriculture for Iowa, one candidate wanted to diversify our farmers into crops that people wanted to pay a premium for, the other candidate wanted to find ever more markets for corn. Want to guess who won? I was against subsidies when I lived in places where they weren't used much, now that I live in Iowa, I am against them 100 times more.
ReplyDeleteGood point on the we destroy the world faster by using green fuels, I hadn't ever seen that interesting conundrum Save the world with pedal powered TVs, we'd end obesity and solve the energy crisis, not to mention get rid of commercials.
Electric or Hydrogen could be a viable solution for personal transport, but it will still take a vast overhaul of our energy infrastructure. I mentioned Algae. One interesting thing is that algae is already used for co2 processing in exhaust area of "clean" coal energy factories.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I forgot to mention about the podcast if you weren't able to give it a listen is the fact that the greatest threat of global warming is a large drop in worldwide biodiversity due to vast shifts in habitat because of the inconsistency of global climate. There's only one thing that can lower biodiversity and cause quicker elimination of a variety of species, agriculture, specifically the razing of wild habitats for the purposes of farming. My honest to goodness favorite solutions for global warming are currently any that allow individual energy independence for families. Personal solar power for households, full electric vehicles etc ...(although battery production and disposal may be pretty harsh problems if the entire country is running full electric cars. Funny thing that this is proposed as a solution when the popular green movement continues to vilify nuclear power due to historical green movement belief. The main issue for both is concentrated contamination from poisons in the case of batteries and radiation from nuclear waste.) I'm stuck on a tangent I'll save this for another post next week.