Why Environmentalism Scares Me

This morning I was listening to NPR as I drove into town and there were two reports that really underscored the problems I have with the current state of the environmental movement. First, I want to make it clear that I support doing things that lessen the impact that I have on the environment, but some of the draconian measures being considered will hit me and others very hard in the wallet, and with everything else going on to remove money from my wallet, I have a real concern that I will be able to afford to live, much less retire.

The first report was from the Copenhagen summit of the UN Climate Council. Thousands of protesters, most of whom have been given "lines to recite" and don't have a good, base understanding of just how complex climate is, what to do to really impact climate change, the nature of unintended consequences, etc. For the most part, these are educated people who are largely uneducated. It concerns me that they whip issues into a frenzy, idiot politicians who are also technically illiterate jump on the frenzy (to keep getting elected) and enact oppressive and expensive legislation to "fix" the problem. That is also fairly arrogant to think we can totally fix the problem, but that is for another post. Of course, there is the national posturing of different countries to make sure that they are not "unfairly" treated. I had to laugh when the Chinese representative said that the rich countries (read US and Europe) are the only ones that have to sign binding written agreements. China, as a developing country (certainly they could not be rich) was exempt from such written documents.

But then I got more worried with the follow-up story:

http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=121498033&m=121498057

This is a two-part story. Part one deals with the eco-brainwashing of elementary schools in Britain. An "inspector" from an NGO (Eco-schools) "teaches" kids the 7 steps to eco-friendliness. Next, we hear the kids recite the verse in lock step. The school has eco-reps, and eco-council and classroom monitors. Kind of reminds me of Hitler youth. On the positive side, the school has adopted some engineering controls that make sense. Sky-lighting, more efficient heaters, motion-sensing lighting, etc. These are great and sane. But the school kids are buying into the whole story. Moving on to the high school kids, this has translated into laws that prohibit anyone within 3 km (about 2 miles) from driving to school (this would include driving in an electric car or hybrid) and promote protests (organized by another NGO - People and Planet) which seem to be geared to music and partying as part of the protests, and "carbon dating" (no - not to determine something is 200,000,000 years old). The latter is part of what scares me. Carbon dating is a low-carbon version of going on a date. Examples include taking a bike ride instead of a car ride (of course, in many places you have to drive the car with the bikes aboard to get to a safe riding place) - this seems ok. Next suggestion - eat vegetarian instead of meat for a dinner date. No one can convince me that vegetarian farming, as it is practiced, has less of an impact on the environment than a non-vegetarian scenario. Next suggestion - candlelight dinner instead of standard lights. So, now, instead of electric power from a central location with a known footprint, we have folks burning chemical fats at the dinner table and emitting carbon from a much less efficient source than hydroelectric, nuclear, or even natural gas.

This kind of thinking kills me. The idea is that if we all go back to a Walden Pond kind of existence, that all will be well. The truth is that we cannot go back to a lifestyle that was, in many ways, more polluting and clearly not sustainable for a world population approaching 6 billion or city populations, like Sao Paulo and Tokyo of around 20 million.

The story moves to the second part, eco-engineering. This is great. The British Institute of Mechanical Engineers has proposed three "great" ideas to combat global warming. First, acres of artificial trees. WHAT??? I bet the artificial trees have significant components of plastics and a manufacturing footprint that more than offsets the ability to absorb carbon dioxide. Why not plant real trees? Second, grow algae on surfaces of buildings to absorb heat and carbon dioxide. Let's not forget the bacteria and molds that will feast on such systems. Not much of a health risk there, especially in densely populated regions. Third, let's put reflective surfaces on buildings to lower the heat footprint of cities. Great, let's reflect all of that light back into the atmosphere where I am sure there will be no impact on weather or temperature or ozone or the like. People seem to forget that cities replaced forests and fields. Neither of these reflected light to a great extent. They absorbed light and put it to use to grow, converting EM radiation into chemicals and some heat.

So, for this section, I worry about poorly thought out concepts that have unintended consequences.

I just don't know how we can approach such an emotional topic with such far-reaching consequences, both environmental and economic (on the federal and personal level) in an intelligent way. Eco-brainwashing, technically illiterate masses, mis-informed activists, and greedy politicians do not bode well for a sensible outcome.