It’s clear that there isn’t any real debate when it comes to climate change so rather than trade looks of incomprehesion or question sincerity why not look to something which should be beyond dispute or ideology.
Coal, solar, wind, hydrogen, fracking, hydro/electric – what percentage of our daily needs come via these utilities. I don’t know and very few people would have these figures at their fingertips.
Put it up on a chalk board for all to see and get agreement from political parties that these figures are fairly accurate. Put it up on billboards, advertise the figures without comment, let it sink in, provoke thought and then bring the political parties to a National Conference where the plans to replace one fuel with another can be scrutinised and, if found wanting, discarded.
Forget ideological stances. If your plan reduces us to shivering in the dark while we fight over a turnip, you won’t convince me of its merits.
When ‘natural gas’ came through our suburbs I was happy to sign up and pay a premium for ‘clean green energy.’ I was much dismayed later to find that there’s nothing clean or green about using chemically laden ‘waste water’ to extract gas by smashing the very ground we stand on and by provoking the real risk of contaminating our aquifers with no way back and no apology sufficient.
A quick flight over the West Coast of America via google Earth will show masses of white dots which resolve into fracking pads. There aren’t a few, there aren’t tens of thousands, there are hundreds of thousands stretching from county to county and State to State - from the mountains to the sea. You could start looking around the L.A. area and – there they are, even in the middle of orchards, and once fracking gets a foothold it will not stop. A junkie with a needle in the arm is an exact parallel.
Greed knows no bounds. I’m not in favour of fracking. I did think, perhaps wistfully, that there exist big bubbles of ‘natural gas’ beneath the ocean just waiting to be tapped. I have no idea if this is the case and it’s not helpful to knee jerk react with – they’re all fossil fuels and must be ‘got rid of.’
To be replaced by what?
Thoughts in motion with a constructive idea thrown in.