An inconvenient conversation, the global warming talk. Today I sat down with my parents and we talked about global warming, questions about the ideas behind global warming, energy, and the solar panels we recently installed on our house.
We talked about what forms of energy are available, and the answers were: mainly fuel, solar, electric, nuclear, coal, wind, hydro, oil, gasses (natural, propane, etc.), hydro thermal, bio-diesel, and ocean waves.
Speaking about solar panels, my dad spoke about how much he loved them, and how he enjoys watching their intake online. When the solar panels were installed, we were told it would it would take 9 years to pay them off through savings, but at the rate theyre producing, it will take half the time. My dad thinks that more people should get solar panels, especially in southern California.
Next I asked what they thought about our solar panels effect on global warming. Here is what was said: We are just one little fish in the ocean, if everyone in the US did it would it have an effect of global warming. We are on the front end, you gotta start somewhere. Drop in the bucket, but there are benefits. I really like watching meter go backwards. Today, even with the dryer on- still goes backwards, meaning we are actually selling our electricity while using some of it. We get good readings even when its cloudy.
Later in the discussion, we talked about the positives and negatives of various energy sources. This got my dad fired up about nuclear power. Solar is not very efficient, but they’re working on it. Production of solar panels-all kinds of resources, and how great is the impact of production? Does it outweigh the act of using solar energy?
Nuclear is problematic, look at Japan- all of the environmental groups think they need to shut down all nuclear power plants. What do you do with the spent fuel rods? You can make it as safe as you want, and the plants have a decent history, but what happens to those things? They’re dirty for 10,000 years. More than man kind has been on the earth, effects all future generations. Yes, there is damage doing all kinds of things, fossil fuels, CO2, etc., but will it be 10000 years worth?? Is it cheap to do all of this? Where does this make sense?
All of the environmental groups are conflicting-nuclear vs oil, which is better?
How can we provide the energy we need while maintaining ecological balance?
My parents answered, Do whatever you can do, but it needs to be on a national level, you can just do it house or state, it needs to be in US. To do this, we first need to acknowledge that global warming exists and that IS a problem.
Is it bad the glaciers are receding? Polar bears need them,
who’s to say that the glaciers are needed? These are the questions that we have to evaluate.
6. Why is there a disconnect between what science is telling us and what the public and politicians are doing about climate change?
Because we are only told what they want us to know, its about scale, everyone is living in the idea what is good for me right now. You focus on right here, right now. The scientists look at the broad scale and try to explain these anomalies. The public cant comprehend this scale, 1 degree means nothing.
We wiped out the American west, it was thought as progress, but what does it mean now? Chopping down trees is bad, but it is what we did years ago to expand our nation. There have been benefits from progress, but there are also consequences. Maybe there wont be polar bears the oceans will rise, this is just a little sliver of time in the earths history. Look at the evolution.
No comments:
Post a Comment