Monday 20 Jul 09

Think long and prosper

Are we being too short term in our thinking on green issues? 

Understandably, the environmental agenda is set by what can be achieved in our children or grandchildren's lifetimes, if not our own (say the next 100 years). 

There are plenty of scientists out there who'll tell us we're due another ice age .  This may not be in the next 100 years, but possibly the next few thousand.  So in the long-term our impact is puny, unless supposedly 'clean' nuclear power is counted.  Sure, it may well be clean in terms of emissions, but this guy, Alan Weisman, says that in the US, scientists are devising danger warnings near modern reactors that can be interpreted by whoever may stumble across them in tens of thousands of years.

It certainly puts the focus on carbon emissions in perspective.