On 14/04/2011 17:53, Darren New wrote:

> I think there's little (honest) argument that the climate is changing, a
> little more argument over whether it's caused sufficiently by humans
> that reduction of human pollution will noticeably help (hard to measure
> definitively), and finally the most controversial is simply *what* needs
> to get done to actually fix the problem without causing undue suffering.

This is the thing. I've heard a lot of environmental activists say "we 
should stop doing X" or "we should stop doing Y". I haven't heard much 
about "we should do Z instead".

Burning fossil fuels is obviously stupid for a number of reasons. And 
the alternative is...? What exactly?

Nuclear power works in theory. In practise, if you make even the tiniest 
mistake, just once, everything is ruined forever. (Or at least, for 
several centuries.) And there's nothing you can do to fix it.

Wind power is great. But... do you really want the whole country to go 
black every time the wind stops blowing? Similarly, solar power. You 
realise that the sun is below the horizon for hours at a time, right? 
And some days, it's just not very sunny. For either of these things to 
work, you seriously need high-efficiency power storage, so you can 
collect power when it's there, and store it for when it's not.

Waves are more constant. I remember my mum just the other day raving 
about how "wind farms are a horrible blot on the landscape. And it's so 
STUPID! What happens when the wind stops blowing? Much better to use 
waves, which are there all the time. Why don't they do that?" Um, 
because to do that you have to defile a beautiful beach somewhere? 
Because the area of the country exceeds its perimeter? Because of the 
ecological issues of using up a comparatively rare habitat for power 
production?

And that's the other thing. Harnessing the wind, the waves or the sun 
uses up large areas of land and/or sea. This stuff doesn't grow on trees.

People have tried to make cars that run on electricity rather than 
fossil fuels. But that just means that you burn the fuel at the power 
plant rather than in the car. And batteries don't yet have the capacity 
to store energy as effectively as petrol. Some people are looking at 
using the fuel to run an engine [at its optimal efficiency point] which 
drives an electric generator. This might quite possibly make cars very 
much more efficient, but still work "the same way". (I.e., you put 
normal fuel into it, and it goes.) That makes the problem better, but 
it's not fixed yet.

My best guess? Use existing organisms to trap the sun's energy. (Let's 
face it, they've been perfecting that for a little while now.) And then 
use some kind of technology to harness the energy that the plants have 
trapped. But that's going to take a little while to figure out.

Recently there was some wave of news articles about how normal lighting 
systems had been "banned" and everybody is supposed to use the newer 
energy-efficient bulbs. You know, the ones that contain highly toxic 
chemicals, take 20 minutes to actually light up, and aren't even very 
bright when they do. Yes, they're more efficient, but this really looks 
to me like people passing a law before the technology is ready.

My personal theory is that mankind will actually do nothing, and come to 
an abrupt end. Either we will poison ourselves to death, or there will 
be a global thermonuclear war as people fight over the last few drops of 
precious oil. Either way, everybody dies.

The only comfort is that I probably won't be alive to see it...

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