The experts keep reminding us that all sources of energy are dangerous, but society's needs outweigh the risks. As the narrative goes, nuclear energy has a great safety record and does not increase atmospheric carbon. Fracking is necessary to access our most abundance source of energy - natural gas. The U.S. is the Saudi Arabia of coal. Solar and wind are impractical. The era of advanced science and high tech insures all these methods are as safe as possible.
Environmentalists appear to be nuclear energy's strongest advocates in the age of global warning. I would rebut that when accidents do occur, they are devastating and have wide-scale impact. I would add that safe storage of nuclear waste is an oxymoron. "Fixing" nuclear accidents requires incredible sacrifice from the workers assigned to do it.
Fracking endangers water supplies. Water - vital to life itself.
Oil drilling and transportation accidents have devastated large areas of our oceans and the chain of life they nurture.
Coal mining accidents frequently result in huge loss of life. Mountaintop removal destroys habitats, pollutes water supplies and the fuel adds to atmospheric carbon.
Few experts are heard questioning the foundation of our energy addiction. Not since President Carter have we made any attempt to decrease our energy dependence. When such a voice is heard, the speaker is viciously attacked. The least acceptable method of controlling the depredations caused by our thirst for ever more energy is SACRIFICE. The design of energy efficient communities is considered at best socialism, at worst communism. Those few persons who attempt to live their lives "off the grid" are categorized as eccentrics.
And yet, our highly industrialized society is continuously sacrificing. It is sacrificing bits and pieces, chunks and slabs of our life-support systems to our apparently insatiable appetite for consumables and the energy and resources they require.
Perhaps it is time to recalculate our risk/reward ratios? Perhaps it is time for a new paradigm?
Here's what I think...
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