Progress Against Climate Change

Posted by Laurence O'Sullivan Aug 19, 2008

In reading about the environment, I am struck by the fact that the battle against climate change seems to be “two steps forward, one step back”. The scientists tell us that the main task is to curb carbon dioxide emissions, but in doing so we can cause other environmental problems. But when I researched the article Biofuels for Green Energy it quickly became apparent that substituting alcohol for gasoline had begun to diminish the land available for reforestation and had some impact on the food chain.

Nuclear power seemed another good means of reducing greenhouse gases until you see the environmental damage done by working nuclear power plants, with their nuclear waste. Of course nuclear power plant accidents such as Three Mile Island and Chernobyl cause huge environmental damage and pollution.

The last environmental crisis, the depletion of the Ozone layer, was largely solved by the Montreal Protocol and the outlawing of ozone depleting substances such as CFCs. But the substances brought in to replace these, hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) and perfluorocarbon (PFC), are some of the strongest greenhouse gases known to man.

Even renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, while they do cut out carbon dioxide emissions during their working life need a large investment of carbon emitting energy to produce them in the first instance.

The battle against climate change will be slow and frustrating, with no “silver bullet” to quickly solve the problem for us. International protocols on carbon dioxide emissions, to be as successful as the Montreal Protocol on the ozone layer, will have to be very widely applied and accepted.