Let it Burn

So the shit, it seems, has hit the fan once again. The shit being hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil, and the fan being everywhere remotely near the Gulf of Mexico. Now, this little disaster is beginning to fade out of our minds once again, and so we fall back to our favourite environmental issue: Global Warming. After all, we have to care about something, right? So, we sit back, and say "Oh, isn't it terrible?" without really specifying what "it" is, and then we all turn and nod sagely. Oh yes. Yes it's terrible. The environment, it's terrible, isn't it? But I care, we say. We turn the lights off when we leave the room and we only boil one cup, safe in the knowledge that we're doing our bit. Hooray!

Well, no. Un-hooray. This "every little helps" attitude towards the global warming isn't really helping anyone. You can screw in that energy-saving light-bulb if you like, but I'm afraid that's pissing in the ocean. It makes us think we are doing something, but really we are not. I admire the efforts of the 10:10 crew, but ultimately even this is misguided. Attempts to reduce energy consumption are often hopeless or insignificant, and are merely a distraction from far larger issues.

There is no point in simply attempting to use less energy. It won't get us anywhere. At best, it is forestalling the inevitable; we will burn our last drop of oil in 2056 rather than 2050, the end result is the same. Forty years from now, the oil will be gone, more or less. So will the gas. If we keep on like this, this lifestyle will simply be used up, burned and belched out of the smokestacks and tailpipes. And believe me: the oil is there, it will be used.

I may be an environmental chemist by degree, but I'm no hippy. I'm not doing it because I “luurve” mother nature ever so much; I'm not doing this because I have a burning desire to right the evils of man. Frankly, do what you want, let it burn. It doesn't matter. By the time our grandchildren are around our age, the oil will be gone - most of it burned - so one way or another we will be forced to stop putting it into the atmosphere (and onto our seabirds).

Let the scientists and engineers work on making things work more efficiently and using less energy, and in the meantime if you want to make a difference, it needs to be made at a national level. The only hope is to change the way we generate electricity. The problem with this is that it requires significant political clout.

Nuclear power would provide a good “baseload” for maybe half of our energy needs. It's got a bit of bad press surrounding it, though. I'm all for it, but it's resoundingly unpopular.

Let's look at wind power; the UK is the windiest country in the world and by far the most suited to use wind energy, but the problem is nobody wants it. It looks “ugly”. It takes up land, unless it's offshore, where it takes up... water.

Doubtless nuclear, wind, hydroelectric and most importantly solar are some of the key technologies we need to stem the gap, but in order to go ahead they need the political clout. We need to demand the construction of a wind farm, preferably one Right In My Backyard (RIMBY). We need to campaign to dam and flood a hundred acres of forest. We need to push for economic incentives to construct solar power stations and install solar panels. If you want to do something, give the politicians the support they deserve and the push they require. Just don't tell me I need to Save the PlanetTM, because that's not the way this is going to go down.

Change will happen, not because we want it, but simply because that's the way it has to be - we might as well get on it now, rather than acting all surprised when the inevitable happens.

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