Thomas,
Those who speak for the use of fossil fuels talk of CO2 not being a problem, while the scientific community says it is, but let's ignore CO2 alone and look at the results of using fossil fuels beyond CO2. Can anyone deny the increase of smog in places that largely use coal to generate power. I don't know about you, but I grew up in L.A. where smog was far worse when I was a kid than it is today, it's still a problem, and I avoid it as much as possible by living near the beach. Clearly smog is caused by much more than CO2.
Trump may say he'll push coal mining, oil production, etc. to energize the economy. I would suggest if you really wanted to energize the economy you'd spend money on a deteriorating infrastructure that characterizes our country, as well as investing in green energy. I'm frankly sickened by all the discussions of oil pipelines, while zero discussions exist in pipelines to carry water. How in a country as rich as we are can you have floods routinely in certain parts of the country, and drought in other parts, and not consider piping water from one place to the other. How can we have major bridges collapse without the slightest of seismic events. How do we permit water that's deadly to be provided to consumers.
It's easy to say we simply don't have the money to fix everything, but that's not the truth. We have all the money we need, if we determine we need it. We could take the attitude that lets not tax anyone at all, just print money, and we'd have all the money we need. On the other hand, taxes, especially on the wealthiest of us could go up dramatically, and I doubt they'd even miss one glass of Champaign or one dollop of caviar, and we'd have the money needed to fix the infrastructure. In reality, it will prove far more expensive to let it all go to hell, but the expense is somewhere in the future, so we can ignore it today. G-D knows we waste a fortune on band aid repairs on all sorts of things. I cannot tell you how many times I've seen major streets resurfaced only to have chunks of pavement coming loose within months. Within weeks of streets being properly repaved I've seen new pipe or wire going in, tearing up the properly repaved streets. In short, the expression "We never have the time to do things right, we always have the time to do things over" applies completely.
We recently had wheelchair access provided on all the corner sidewalks in our area. We can call that progress, but the sidewalks themselves are generally impassable by wheelchair due to the types of trees the city planted when the area was originally developed. I suspect that anyone with a wheelchair would end up on the ground if attempting to go past areas of the sidewalks that tilt, or have large gaps up, or down, cause by the roots pushing on the structure. We could afford to put in the paved corners, which in some cases were within feet of a driveway that could have been used for the same purpose, but we couldn't afford the cost of leveling the sidewalk so wheelchairs, or people walking, don't stumble over the cracks. In short, money is designated to perform certain tasks, but we don't have the money to do what's necessary.
Decades ago shale oil was discussed much in the same manner as coal is, i.e. you'd have to mine it. Now with fracking, we've found a way to do the job without mining it, but just a few problems have been a result. Earthquakes in areas that routinely never had them, but they're small by comparison to what we've seen elsewhere, thus far. Polluted drinking water appears to frequently occur. In short, Big Oil wouldn't steer us wrong, forget doing what's green, at least until they've wrung out all they can harvest from the earth. Think of the earthquakes like they're a thrill ride at Disneyland, and the polluted water like it's a small inconvenience that we all should be willing to pay for progress. As for the smog, Big Oil's scientists will no doubt say it reduces sunburn, disregard what it does to your lungs, etc.
I know the U.S. alone can't fix everything, but if we work on developing how to fix it, in the end we can sell that technology all over the world. Yes, it could be expensive, it just could be far more expensive not to do it and truly have the problems scientists are telling us will occur if we do nothing.
Gary |
