Well, I’ve just read through the whole thread and my brain is addled.
I thought I was doing my bit for the planet in a myriad of ways, but it seems I needn’t have bothered.
There are a whole host of reasons why we seem to be in the position we are in; political (geo and domestic) greed, convenience, selfishness etc etc etc.
The first powered flight was in 1903, only 36 years later was the first real jet engined aircraft and only 30 years later men were walking on the moon. Surely it is not beyond the whit of man to develope better ways to produce power than using coal, gas or oil or at least a lot less.
I agree nuclear is the obvious answer, but the difference in consequences between an oil refinery or gas pipeline blowing up (or in Putin’s case being blown up) and a nuclear power plant going bang is massive. Actually, that is my worry, the likes of someone else coming along like Putin or Kim Jong-Un or any other despot who could target such installations. Power outage is one thing, nuclear fallout is a monster we cannot afford to let loose.
Sad to say, there will be no answer in my lifetime. We will continute to pollute the atmosphere, choke the seas with plastics, destroy th soil with pestacides, not because we cannot find ways to stop it, but because there is no real worldwide political will. For any government to make the real hard choices would mean massive price increases on virtually everything and that would mean political suicide. Also, countries like India will say when we berate them for burning fossil fuels ’Oh, now you’ve had your toast you want to p**s on the fire’… well tough!
I look around and we can’t even be bothered with the obvious always using ‘cost’ as an excuse. for example, driving around I often see new houses going up… houses with no solar panels on the roofs. OK, they may not completely negate the need for power from the grid, but they would help. Remember when every house had a water tank in the loft? When I got a combi I took mine out as there was no need for it. What about puutting those back in and making them for rain water collection and used to flush your toilet? We had that where I worked in a government building in York and it worked a treat. What about triple glazing on all new houses?…why not learn from other countries? I have a mate who lives in Sweden and I’ve been over there when the temperature was minus 20 degrees outside and yet I was able to walk around his house in me shorts and T shirt it was so cosey and there were no roaring fires. The houses were designed and built for the conditions.
The we need to look at ourselves. Whilst many of us say we will be happy to pay an extra few pence here and there if it means wrapping something in a biodegradeable material instead of plastic, in reality we moan at any price increase for whatever reason. It’s a catch 22 situation prices increase we need higher wages to pay for them… higher wages means price increases. The answer really is the fat cats being willing to take less profit. Now there’s a thought, the likes of Tesco or BP or any company with shareholders taking less and giving you the consumer the product cheaper… I think that’s called UTOPIA!
