Now, I've always been an environmental conservationist ever since I was brainwashed at a young age (Earth Day, 1999). I've always grown up with a passion for being as good as I could to the earth, under the impression that if I ever wanted to have kids, I didn't want to be part of the problem that others helped create (I didn't want to be blamed. Selfish, I know).
I follow lots of green news and, last week, the U.S congress approved the passage of a $6 billion plan to erect the largest solar farm in the Mojave desert. It would have the capacity to power 2 million homes. I'm actually pretty stoked about this initiative because it shows that we can actually get serious about prepping the U.S for a more environmentally-friendly driven populous in the future and can accommodate the demand of more green technology. This is a huge step in the right direction. [source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/25/biggest-solar-project-in-_n_773655.html]
So, this thread is, essentially, the place to discuss all things "green" and environmentally friendly (if you give a fuck, anyway). And please, don't turn this into a "hippie-Liberal" thread.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence
I'm actually pretty stoked about this initiative because it shows that we can actually get serious about prepping the U.S for a more environmentally-friendly driven populous in the future and can accommodate the demand of more green technology. This is a huge step in the right direction. [source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/25/biggest-solar-project-in-_n_773655.html]
Recently I've just felt like this whole debate is so weird. It's like EVERYONE agrees that we shouldn't use coal power, oil or anything else that spews out CO2, but EVERYONE also agrees that we shouldn't use nuclear power, which is as clean as you can possibly get. And I just wonder, what the fuck are we going to use then?
Solar power is great, but you still have some 98 million households left, plus industry, to support. What are we going to do? Because in the debates it seems like everything is bad, and the only acceptable solutions are wind and sun, and eventually wave power. Made hydropower as well, but you have to take care not to destroy any form of natural environments in the process. And it's like, what the fuck is left? We need some kind of massive energy production, so where are we gonna get it from if everything is bad?
First of all, the nature will prevail. Even if we radiated every cubic mile of sea and square mile of land, robbed every natural resource empty and ate the last endangered animal alive nature itself would prevail. Life on Earth would just take a new form. It would take perhaps millions, tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of years, but nature would live on in a new form.
I don't think anyone doubts that all kinds of life would survive, even thrive, in whatever destruction we cause. It's more that we want to preserve nature as it is and not "lose" any form of life that already exists because of human actions.
Therefore I see conserving the environment not about green values, but ensuring that the human race has livable conditions. This includes all aspects of life, not just the environment. There's little point conserving the environment itself vigorously if mankind would have to regress into stone age (which would starve 99% of humans to death, as hunter-gatherers require a lot more resources and land than the modern pecking order).
Which should reasonably include a lot of evnironmental actions in any case: making sure that we don't overfish the oceans certainly seems like it would benefit humans overall.
PlugY for Diablo II allows you to reset skills and stats, transfer items between characters in singleplayer, obtain all ladder runewords and do all Uberquests while offline. It is the only way to do all of the above. Please use it.
Supporting big shoulderpads and flashy armor since 2004.
Dunno, nature progresses onwards. 99% of species that have existed have gone extinct. Humanity didn't kill sabertooth tigers or dinosaurs. "Any" species is a strong statement. Environmental changes caused by humans is not so much different from environmental changes caused by random events such as meteorite strikes, changes in atmosphere, ice ages or etc.
True. Then again you can't blame the meteors, while you can blame humans. I think a lot of people feel we have responsibility not to destroy other species if we can avoid it, due to our intellect and ability to choose what to do with nature. People feel bad when they hear that polar bears, pandas, tigers and whatever else are dying because of deforestation, melting ice caps and whatnot.
Then again that's based on the belief that the life of an animal should be valued quite high, and if you don't share that sentiment then of course it makes little sense to try and turn society around in order save animals. (Obviously animal is a very broad term here.)
PlugY for Diablo II allows you to reset skills and stats, transfer items between characters in singleplayer, obtain all ladder runewords and do all Uberquests while offline. It is the only way to do all of the above. Please use it.
Supporting big shoulderpads and flashy armor since 2004.
In one second, our sun produces enough energy for almost 500,000 years of the current needs of our so-called civilization.
I think we need to learn to harvest the energy of the sun better. Obviously there isn't enough room on the surface of the planet for the solar panels required to take in all that energy. PLUS you can't always rely on the sun to be visable. So lets eliminate the atmosphere and build orbital platforms which can collect the energy.
Now we need some way to get the energy back to earth. I was thinking we could drag water into space and convert it into Oxygen and Hydrogen, then bring the gases back to earth and use it produce electricity but just to get into space we'd need to burn a significant amount of both so in the end will it be worth it? If there was a way to get payloads to space cheaper and using less hydrogen then it could be feasible. It wouldn't even have to be that far up. Could be low-earth orbit.
Now we need some way to get the energy back to earth. I was thinking we could drag water into space and convert it into Oxygen and Hydrogen, then bring the gases back to earth and use it produce electricity but just to get into space we'd need to burn a significant amount of both so in the end will it be worth it? If there was a way to get payloads to space cheaper and using less hydrogen then it could be feasible. It wouldn't even have to be that far up. Could be low-earth orbit.
Woah, 1,000 $ per pound? That still ridiculously expensive. How is that going to help power the world?
Sure the sun produces a lot of energy, but I don't see how this is any realistic alternative to large-scale power production in coal/water/nuclear.
PlugY for Diablo II allows you to reset skills and stats, transfer items between characters in singleplayer, obtain all ladder runewords and do all Uberquests while offline. It is the only way to do all of the above. Please use it.
Supporting big shoulderpads and flashy armor since 2004.
Nono I agree. Obviously the technology is not available yet. Which is why we need to develop it. Ideally it'd be best to eliminate the need to go to space at all (except for maintenance) and just create some sort of dish to focus the energy into a beam and send it down to a reciever on earth.
We won't get any proper alternative energy until we got proper alternative energy...
The progress in the direction of alt energy is extremely slow because it's currently, short-term, not cost effective. There's little money going into it. Coal will be cheaper. Research is expensive. Unless the gov't supports alt energy research, it won't get anywhere. And the gov't doesn't have that money. We are still without electric cars even though they're cheaper and better in pretty much every way than non-electric cars, but because they're not immediately financially effective they have not been progressing for the past few decades.
Side effect of capitalism...
So, whenever someone sticks a solar plant somewhere, I'm happy. However slowly maybe we'll get somewhere...
Nono I agree. Obviously the technology is not available yet. Which is why we need to develop it. Ideally it'd be best to eliminate the need to go to space at all (except for maintenance) and just create some sort of dish to focus the energy into a beam and send it down to a reciever on earth.
That would imply sending energy that would've gone into space, onto Earth. In the long term, the surface of the Earth would overheat. The idea is to harvest energy that already stikes the surface, but is wasted (which is more than enough.)
I like the idea of pocket communities, like little towns spread over states, but can expand to allow room for inter-community population growth. These communities could have their own direct source of alt energy (depending on the climate of the area), making them neutral with the environment as a result.
Sounds a lot like "The Giver", I know, but I've always liked the idea.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I follow lots of green news and, last week, the U.S congress approved the passage of a $6 billion plan to erect the largest solar farm in the Mojave desert. It would have the capacity to power 2 million homes. I'm actually pretty stoked about this initiative because it shows that we can actually get serious about prepping the U.S for a more environmentally-friendly driven populous in the future and can accommodate the demand of more green technology. This is a huge step in the right direction. [source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/25/biggest-solar-project-in-_n_773655.html]
So, this thread is, essentially, the place to discuss all things "green" and environmentally friendly (if you give a fuck, anyway). And please, don't turn this into a "hippie-Liberal" thread.
I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence
Solar power is great, but you still have some 98 million households left, plus industry, to support. What are we going to do? Because in the debates it seems like everything is bad, and the only acceptable solutions are wind and sun, and eventually wave power. Made hydropower as well, but you have to take care not to destroy any form of natural environments in the process. And it's like, what the fuck is left? We need some kind of massive energy production, so where are we gonna get it from if everything is bad?
I don't think anyone doubts that all kinds of life would survive, even thrive, in whatever destruction we cause. It's more that we want to preserve nature as it is and not "lose" any form of life that already exists because of human actions.
Which should reasonably include a lot of evnironmental actions in any case: making sure that we don't overfish the oceans certainly seems like it would benefit humans overall.
Then again that's based on the belief that the life of an animal should be valued quite high, and if you don't share that sentiment then of course it makes little sense to try and turn society around in order save animals. (Obviously animal is a very broad term here.)
I think we need to learn to harvest the energy of the sun better. Obviously there isn't enough room on the surface of the planet for the solar panels required to take in all that energy. PLUS you can't always rely on the sun to be visable. So lets eliminate the atmosphere and build orbital platforms which can collect the energy.
Now we need some way to get the energy back to earth. I was thinking we could drag water into space and convert it into Oxygen and Hydrogen, then bring the gases back to earth and use it produce electricity but just to get into space we'd need to burn a significant amount of both so in the end will it be worth it? If there was a way to get payloads to space cheaper and using less hydrogen then it could be feasible. It wouldn't even have to be that far up. Could be low-earth orbit.
Here's an interesting read on getting shit to space cheaper:
http://www.universetoday.com/51532/hydrogen-gas-cannons-could-launch-payloads-to-orbit-wvideo/
Sure the sun produces a lot of energy, but I don't see how this is any realistic alternative to large-scale power production in coal/water/nuclear.
The progress in the direction of alt energy is extremely slow because it's currently, short-term, not cost effective. There's little money going into it. Coal will be cheaper. Research is expensive. Unless the gov't supports alt energy research, it won't get anywhere. And the gov't doesn't have that money. We are still without electric cars even though they're cheaper and better in pretty much every way than non-electric cars, but because they're not immediately financially effective they have not been progressing for the past few decades.
Side effect of capitalism...
So, whenever someone sticks a solar plant somewhere, I'm happy. However slowly maybe we'll get somewhere...
That would imply sending energy that would've gone into space, onto Earth. In the long term, the surface of the Earth would overheat. The idea is to harvest energy that already stikes the surface, but is wasted (which is more than enough.)
Sounds a lot like "The Giver", I know, but I've always liked the idea.
I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence