Energy: what we should NOT do vs. what some folks are trying to do
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Posted on February 10, 2008
Filed Under Global warming/Climate change, Greenhouse gas emissions, Ecological overshoot, Ecological hope, Fossil fuel dependency, Earth spirituality, Renewable fuels
Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:
Today, I just want to note a contrast in terms of how we might look at the energy challenges ahead of us.
That said, it was really nice to see my long-time hometown of Takoma Park, Maryland, and a group of ‘green citizens’ there, featured in the NY Times today, Don’t let the green grass fool you. The story is about the efforts of Mike Tidwell to start a corn collective in this Washington DC suburb — a group of folks that use corn as a source of fuel for stoves to heat their homes. It is one example presented in the story of various efforts among suburbanites around the country to lower their carbon footprints.
At the same time, the story comes with the caveat that far more essential steps will be needed to make suburban life less “heavy” footprint-wise. Suburban and exurban sprawl is devouring ecosystems all around the country. These communities also remain quite car-dependent, and way too many of these vehicles are not actually cars, as we all know.
How we begin to reorganize these sprawling human settlements into communities that live within the balance of nature, keeping intact the vitality and integrity of essential ecosystems, is one of the great challenges of this and subsequent generations. Some steps are beginning to be taken. We need to really commit ourselves in this direction. This will require more than personal and local decisions; it will also require national policies and a great deal of international cooperation and innovation-sharing. There are the makings here of a movement, if we can get the right kind of leadership and energy behind it.
Meanwhile, there is the dark side of the energy conumdrum. Today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has an opinion piece (Nuclear power’s costs far outweigh its benefits)responding to the alarming proposal from the Wisconsin State Assembly’s Energy and Ultilies Committee to repeal limits on the construction of nuclear reactors in the state. As the writer, Al Gedicks of the Univ. of WI-La Crosse, points out, uranium mining does not have a great reputation anywhere. It is energy intensive, pours large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as fossil fuels are required to mine and process uranium and to construct the power plants, and leaves lethal waste in its wake. It is one of the more tragic stories of racism in this country that the populations that have been most victimized in this process are Native American peoples.
Meanwhile, still another story this weekend points out once again that biofuels are not only not the answer to our need for clean renewable energy, but may themselves add to the greenhouse danger. This article again hails from the NY Times, Studies call biofuels a greenhouse gas threat, by Elisabeth Rosenthal. The amount of land and forest being bulldozed to make way for biofuels like corn, soy, and suger ethanol, as well as palm oil for biodiesel, is becoming one of our biggest carbon threats as this destruction releases vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that were being held within the land and forests.
Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these “green” fuels are taken into account…
Oops! That’s not what we had in mind, is it?
This is why I often say, we must be, as those famous words of the Gospel say, wise as serpents and innocent as doves as we approach our energy/climate/sustainability crises. We must be very smart about what we’re doing, learn all we can, make the right choices — and with the best motives and intentions at heart — the well-being of the planet and all its precious ecosystems in which we live and move and have our being.
So on the one hand, we have efforts on the part of some local communities and citizens to try to reduce their carbon footprint, and on the other we have powerful economic interests that are using the global warming scare to tap into profit-making energy ventures that will only make things worse.
We know where the hope is, don’t we…
Technorati Tags: Mike Tidwell, corn stoves, takoma park, carbon footprint, suburban exurban sprawl unsustainable, nuclear energy, biofuels and greenhouse gases, ethanol, biodiesel
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It appears that what Mahatma Gandhi used to say that, real civilization always is in the vilages and not in the towns or cities. So the democracy has to go to villages rather than confined to few individuals who have never had the life of a village. (I meant to say those who never lived with poor and deprived personal). For any economy or ecology or history it is important to account for people living in the villages. Since most of the artisants and peasants live there, providing food and alternatives for living gives the economy and strenthens democracy. This being the Indian rulers used to travel extensively during olden day to understand what the people wanted or collect information through other sources and confirm the information. Even the scientists during early periods have done only for the other people, but now a days as the showism increased the science is going further away from the ground realities. as everybody wants either fast buck or instant success.
There are enough number of ways to tap the renewable energy by other techniques or improve the effeciency or the process. I am not sure when the so called great leaders open their eyes, other wise they are blind with eyes working.