Ok, so I really have to push this one. Reading more of Lester Brown's book, Plan B 4.0, has me thinking about the side-effects of 'green' development. Let's take wind, for example. What thought is given to the large-scale effects of massive wind farm implementation? Isn't that adding more resistance to wind flow planet-wide? What will that do to global climate? Do we even know? What about solar panels? Doesn't the light/heat that the sun puts off normally go to the ground? What of the effects on things like soil arability? With geothermal, we're basically reducing the temperature of the lower crust of the earth in the process...
Here's the big problem I have. We're looking at mass implementation of green technologies, but do we really know what effect mass implementation will have? Though life may not be a zero-sum game, energy collection is! It's impossible to collect energy from the environment without affecting the environment, and much of what I see about the 'future green development' completely ignores the ecological impact of large-scale use of green technologies. Let's not forget the impact of laying all those power lines. Remember, large-scale electrification hasn't been around that long, less than 100 years.
Do we really know what we're doing, or are we just blazing ahead without really thinking about it?
*sigh*
- Jason
No comments:
Post a Comment