Environmentalism

Green technology and Global Warming

While I have spent many years in the oil industry, I have have a developed a passion for environmentalism. Although I am not a typical enviornmentalist. I am a pragmatist and not utopian. To me it is important to be honest about tradeoffs. You cannot simply state that you are in favor of everything good and don’t want to make any sacrifices. Thus let me list what I view as the most important problems to solve before talking about what I deem as less important.

  1. Global warming is the biggest challenge we face today and thus reducing CO₂ emissions is the most important thing to focus on.
  2. Biodiversity. Lost species can never be brought back. Thus biodiversity is quite high on my agenda.
  3. Pollution. Air and water polution endagering the health of humans, animals and plants.

Here are things which while important, we must be willing to tolerate to achieve the goals listed above.

  • Natural beauty. Yes wind mills, solar panels, hydro electric power plants etc may not look pretty, but for the most part they don’t significantly damage the environment. They don’t poison their surroundings.
  • Local environmental destruction. Things like mining, will destroy parts of the local environment. We cannot say no to all mining, but we can attempt to do it as clean as possible and limit the extraction of fossil fuels. Local destrouction of limited area is easier to fix later, than something like global warming or erradicated species.
  • Logging. As long as we make sure there is a net growth of forrest, I don’t see a problem with logging. But please not this is different from burning down rainforrest for farming. I think that should be avoided.

Nuclear Power

Hydrogen Economy

Discussion of use hydrogen fuel cell cars as well as using hydrogen in the economy at large.

Electric Cars (EVs)