Sigh. I really do wonder about our collective mentality when I read that not only is Britain going to commit to building more nuclear power stations, but that Indian car manufacturer Tata intends churning out one million £1200 cars a year.
We’re consuming diminishing resources at an every increasing rate, while simultaneously pouring huge volumes of pollutants into the environment and what do we do?
Build even more of the same.If we were dodos, we’d not only vote for extinction but beg for the process to speed up.
On the nuclear energy side, there are many valid reasons for not building nuclear power plants—radioactive waste, lack of permanent, safe storage of waste, diversion of funding from renewables, vast consumption of concrete, metals and energy in the construction and deconstruction phases, etc—that will be well put by others.
But one thing I will say.
The government admits natural gas-generated electricity is becoming ever more marginal due to diminishing domestic supplies, increasing global demand for natural gas, and prices rising on the back of oil price rises.
But the reason Britain is over-reliant on gas-fired generating plant is because of the dash for gas in the 1980s, when gas was perceived as being cleaner and cheaper than goal while also removing the power of the coal mining unions.
Before that, Britain had relied heavily on coal for electricity generation, with the added benefit that it kept hundreds of thousands of people in work.
Today, the Government has decided the future is nuclear, because it’s cleaner, cheaper and greener. Does the emphasis on one, non-renewable energy resource sound familiar? (And have no doubts about it, uranium is not renewable and is a finite resource.)
Instead of seeking an solution that delivers energy security, sustainability, a decline in consumption and demand, and a real reduction in pollutants (short, mid and very long-term), the Government has decided to focus on one quick “fix”.
It’s not surprising in many ways, but it is completely daft.
And so too is Tata’s plan to produce one million cheap cars a year for the Indian market first, and then for the world.
Never mind that oil demand is already surging even as stocks decline, never mind that oil prices have hit the $100 a barrel mark and will continue to rise, never mind that Indian cities are already heavily polluted, never mind these cars are going to replace not only scooters but also cycles, walking and train journeys, and never mind that the £1,200 price tag is unlikely to last long as minerals prices are also soaring.
No. The expanding middle-classes of India and other developing countries are now firmly enamoured of the shoddy, greedy, over-consumptive Western nightmare, sorry dream, that sees ever increasing personal consumption as the human ideal.
Part of that dream is to have your own personal transport cocoon to isolate you from all the irritations of travelling to and from your place of work, which in turn provides you with the means to increase your consumption.
I think I’ll change my earlier dodo analogy, and instead vote for retrospective extinction.
It would be a lot cleaner, simpler and less destructive — and much less stupid.
At this point it is very tempting, as an OAP, when they talk of things ‘coming online by 2020, to say… “Well, I won’t still be here by then….”, but that is far too simplistic.
The trouble is, that with a few exceptions, we find around here that it is the older generation who are concerned for the environment, who recycle as a matter of course, who combine all the outings needed into one jaunt to save unnecessary emissions, who give to charity shops, and also buy from them.
(I know a lady who was amazed to find that people actually buy things from charity shops…. !)
I know from the Blogosphere that there are many younger folk who do care and do raise their voices, but in reality, on the whole, Joe Bloggs Jnr isn’t interested.
In reality, Joe Bloggs Jnr *is* interested in the environment.
Well. In the bits he has to do a project for anyway.
Or the cute whale saving bits.
Not litter picking, that’s grubby, but saving tigers, that would be cool!
What we (yes as teacher I mean me as well!) need to do is make it a fact of life to recycle. The AC knows that plastics go in the big green bin. Ok, sometimes the wrong plastics go in there by accident, and I’ve lost some spoons in the process of a 4yr old dropping a yoghurt pot in, but it’s a fact of life for him, it’s not a big deal.
Does that make sense? Not to force them to be interested in it, but just to make it part of the way their lives are.