It’s not easy trying to be green
It is a hell of a lot more difficult being green than it might appear.
With a bit of help from an article in the Independent Link , what some may think to be green choices are not necessarily the greenest and it may be very difficult to avert environmental disaster without some very tough and unpalatable choices.
Wind power – great thing – but kills rare birds who fly into the turbines on migration routes
Severn Barrage – wave power is renewable but the cost of losing the wetlands habitat for 65,000 birds when they flood theSevern Estuary for good is pretty high
Low carbon power – We can’t stop the lights going out while reducing our carbon emissions unless we build loads more nuclear power stations with all of the environmental problems they bring in terms of nuclear waste
Food miles – Watch it. Flying food in from the developing world may make a lot more sense than having to use indoor heated greenhouses and lots of fertiliser in the UK or Europe. And the developing world needs the income.
Hybrid cars – Not as environmentally friendly as some of the most efficient diesel engine cars when you take into account the emissions caused by producing the heavy battery that has to sit alongside the engine
Coal – Nasty and horrible or essential and potentially low carbon if combined with Carbon Capture and Storage?
Preservation of ancient forests? – Would you believe it – ancient forests do not suck up carbon as effectively as young and growing forests. So should we destroy ancient woodlands and replace them with new forests? To make it worse, burning wood produces less emissions than rotting wood, so should we burn the ancient forest that we cut down?
Organic is best – Well not if organic feedstuff causes organic livestock to produce more methane which is a highly dangerous greenhouse gas and not if yields from organic food are so much lower that they produce more emissions to produce the same amount of food
GM is a Frankenstein food – a lot of people don’t like GM food, but if GM crops can massively reduce nitrogen oxide, a major contributor to climate change, from pesticides.
Biofuels are the way forward – First generation biofuels contribute to deforestation (which causes climate change) and increases the price of food.
Is nothing easy in this life?