Null utslipp - drøm eller virkelighet?

Idag hadde jeg en liten elektronisk samtale med en av mine gode venner i USA. Emnet var bloggen No Impact Man. Dette er en meget god blogg, og kan anbefales. Jeg er imidlertid av den mening at mye av interessen blant miljøvernere flest er basert på feil logikk. Det er greit å minimere private utslipp, men i prinsippet løser en da ingen av de grunnleggende problemstillingene, og initiativet og tidsbruken vil på sikt føre til dårligere forhold for miljøet - fordi det tar oppmerksomheten bort fra de virkelige løsningene - uansett om tanken er god eller ikke.

Følgende er et utdrag av mitt svar til min venn, som hadde No Impact Man som sin "helt":

The point is that individual environmentalism is still dependent on a society where most of the energy is still from fossil sources. This is obviously madness. Chances are that we allready have had such an impact on the global climate that it can't be undone this century nor the next.

So the solution is obviously to stop using more fossil fuels, because that will only worsen things. But the solution cannot be NOT to use energy. Because per capita even stoneage people used more energy than we do today for cooking (burning wood in open fires is highly inefficient). Using energy is a prerequisite for human existence. So there is really only one solution. And that is to use electricity made in environmental friendly ways. And, mind you, if there is no impact on the environment in the ways we make electricity - there is really no point in using less of it.

Plants use more energy than we do - even today in our power-hungry society. So energy USE is not a problem per se. It is the way we create that energy-potential.

Electrical energy made by hydroelectric dams and mantle-temperature geothermic powerplants create no pollution. Abundant and cheap non-polluting electrical energy is the choice for powering anything - including cars. Hydrogen as an energy-carrier is perfect. But it does have one prerequisite - the energy to make hydrogen must be there to begin with.

So, contrary to conventional wisdom - I do not advocate using less energy. Because it does not work. In Norway we have so heavy taxes on energy use that if taxation worked - we would hardly use any energy at all. But we do. We use exactly as much energy as we did before the taxes. And the reason is that there are no alternatives. And the only thing that really happens is that the cost of living goes up, and that is reflected in our wages. We are running in circles...

I advocate that we must consider that we NEED to make an imprint - but we have a choice between an imprint that is polluting the environment with poison and CO2 - and an imprint that hardly pollutes at all. It is possible. Plants as you know, have a POSITIVE imprint, even though they grow for "egoistic" purposes only.

Baking bread - doing stuff more hands on - that is a prerequisite for better living and is certainly worthwhile - but it is not environmentalism.

Using LESS polluting energy does help the environment - but it is still based on pollution - and in the end it will kill us all, it will only take a little longer.