Saturday, October 17, 2009

A Bright Future

Surely Graham is going for his interests, which typically amounts to more money and power to his supporters. Politics plays politics and we see how his interests come into the mix of the solutions that we are offered. This is the nature of politics and because of the dominance of economics in our political compromising discussions nearly every option we see supports money and power in the background. Actually that is the very heart of our political process and it is the crux of our inability to legislate options that further our universal common interests.

That said, nuclear power is by far our most insidious choice for generating electricity. As documented in the article it really only exists as an option for us because of the billions of dollars of subsidies that it has received. Though the actual dangers to the present environment from operating nuclear plants may appear rather low, (however, have you seen Chernobyl Heart ?), the legacy of deadly toxic radioactive wastes (some for more than 200,000 years), and the pollution of our water from extraction, processing and operations are passed off to future generations.

And isn’t it really our purpose in time and place to leave a better world for our children? Considering that human history has consisted of warring and fighting throughout, and our present world situation brings hate and warfare to entirely new more macabre levels, how can we reasonably leave deadly toxic materials (which we have no means of safe permanent storage and disposal –despite Graham’s efforts to legislate such) as a legacy for future generations to manage and safeguard? Judging from history, these wastes will be a toxic legacy that will feed new wars and conflicts seemingly forever (unless of course nuclear materials are used to deaden life on the planet).

The solution? Localized renewable energy sources supplemented with electricity from major renewable electricity generation plants situated in locations ideal for the energy source. One problem that comes to mind with such a plan is that it largely frees consumers from paying money to an energy company. I have generated 90% of my electricity from solar for the past 20 years and have not paid a single electricity bill. You can do it. We can do it. But the econ-politics (including Graham) must be removed to make way for a bright future.