The Environment Needs YOU!
I picked this blog post up from Charles’ Stross’ Diary (which ironically, I’ve been about to de-list from my feeds). Charlie’s intro is a little vitriolic, but the The Top Ten Things Environmentalists Need to Learn at Depleted Cranium is a little gem of good-old fashioned common-sense.
a) don’t save the environment a little bit at a time
b) save it by having the biggest impact all the time
c) realize that people don’t change without a major cultural impact such as… the Spanish Inquisition or ethnic cleansing – both of which tend to have negative connotations for our happy insular lives
Here are a couple of snippets, on raising fuel prices:
The more likely outcome of higher energy prices is a move to alternative energy sources which offer a lower cost, even if doing so results in more pollution instead of less. An example would be the wood burning stove boom during the 1970s oil crisis or waste oil burners.
On “natural”:
Nature was not designed to provide mankind with food, energy and other needs in the most efficient, reliable and sustainable manner. Therefore, engineered or artificial approaches may have better overall outcomes.
And on an oblique reference to those fellows in Greenpeace (bless their cotton socks):
Simply attacking an environmentally damaging activity is not effective unless a better alternative of similar or better economics and usefulness is presented
There you are – go read the article now.
