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| Going Green: Hydrogen cars, organic food, and living well |
Going Green: Hydrogen cars, organic food, and living well
Recently in most Western countries, entire aisles and produce sections have opened for organic foods, and health food chains are logging record sales. People are looking for alternatives to gasoline, in an attempt to fight back against the high prices and the pollution. We are told we may have already doomed ourselves to an increasingly warm world, to powerful storms, and to climactic changes that will benefit some and doom others to starvation and death.
The environmental movement, much like the women's movement twenty years ago, is in the throes of a major change. Many of the old-school environmentalists seem incapable of admitting that their life's work may be complete and they have accomplished what they set out to do: for instance, acid rain is being controlled by governments and, except for emerging countries with new industries, has been eradicated. The horror tales many of us heard in high school never came about. The Earth's overpopulation and crash due to lack of food seems improbable when countries control their own populations as they grow into the posttechnological world.
But as these voices are either silenced or become increasingly shrill and ignored, a whole new generation of environmentally-minded consumers has grown up. These men and women inherited a concern for the world that did not exist in the 1950s, when nuclear annihilation seemed more likely than world starvation. They are buying "green" cars, hydrogen-burning vehicles that mostly put out water as a by-product. They are starting to question the wisdom of the old-school determination to block nuclear power in favor of fossil fuel power; wind, wave, and solar power cannot fulfil our thirst for energy.
Where the consumer goes is where the sales go. In response to this large-scale shift to greener living, developments in all sectors of industry are moving to answer new demands.
Organic Food Versus Genetically-Engineered Food
Organic food has become a huge industry recently, giving a boost to hundreds of thousands of local growers. It is defined by the use of natural products to fertilize the soil and to protect crops against disease and bugs, and because it's artificial chemical-free, most people view it as healthier than other foods.
You need to be careful, though, about what you buy in the organic food aisles. Ask produce employees where the different fruits and vegetables came from. Locally grown produce is perfect, and this is what you should always choose if given the choice. Avoid foods grown in Mexico; there are some real sanitation issues there, and it hasn't been long since salmonella infested crops of green onions (scallions) coming from Mexico, sickening hundreds of Americans.
You should also try to find organics grown by small growers. These are generally grown in non-industrial ways. Hydroponics, a common industrial technique, grows safe and healthy foods, but they are not always tasty; and food grown in healthy, fertile soil will typically have more essential trace minerals in it. Look for natural food grown naturally, and don't cavil at a couple of little bug marks on your fruit – just cut it off. The fact that you see those marks tells you chemicals were not sprayed on your apple.
There is an enormous debate today in Europe (America doesn't really care) about genetically-engineered foods. Scientists argue that these crops are safe and often healthier than their natural counterparts, while many European groups doubt this, or insist that these crops can infect other natural crops and wipe out our diversity, a critical component to keeping our food supply healthy and abundant.
While the latter concern is valid, scientists take pains to ensure that gengineered crops are incapable of pollinating by themselves, which prevents them from cross-breeding with natural crops even if they escape to the wild. As for the safety of gengineered foods, there is not yet a single study showing that they are unhealthy. Tons of research, on the other hand, shows that they are a healthy and abundant alternative, and that some of these crops if planted in Africa are adapted to harsh conditions there, and could potentially save thousands of lives.
While the US and Europe are battling it out, though, isn't it better to let Africa decide for itself? Europe is blocking the sale of this potential cornucopia to Africa, while thousands starve. It appears to this writer to be paternalism all over again.
Questioning The Old Wisdom
Enormous battles were fought, industries were put out of business, and the minds of politicians everywhere were changed in the battle to eliminate the dangerous insecticide DDT. It made eggshells weaker, you see, and besides, we could use alternative insecticides.
In the last few years, this has been questioned. The studies that showed that the eggshells of birds who ingested DDT in the wild were weaker have been discredited in the eyes of most environmental scientists, removing the main reason to keep DDT illegal. And malaria, at one point under control in Africa, has exploded, costing millions of lives every year.
Now Africa wants DDT to be legalized again. In the 1950s, DDT was used in Europe and America to wipe out malaria – utterly wipe it out. Today, if you get malaria, you've been below the equator.
A significant correlation has been shown between the rate of malaria transmission in South American and African countries and the use of DDT; more than any other chemical, DDT eliminates malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Yet Europe economically blocks the use of DDT in many African countries; the EU has threatened to not import foods from Africa that are contaminated by DDT. In addition, though DDT has NOT been proven harmful in humans, it can be deadly to waterlife like shrimp and crayfish.
We need to continually question the old environmental beliefs. Throughout history, our attempts to improve life for humans have been proven both right and wrong. Even though we live in a modern world, we are sometimes wrong, and sometimes what is right for those of us in the United States or France is wrong for the rest of the world. DDT is only one example of where the old wisdom may be wrong.
New Sources of Power
Anywhere we gather power; we have an impact on the environment. Wind towers and solar panels are often ugly and inefficient. Wave-powered generators may have an impact on ocean life and even the way currents flow in the ocean. Nuclear power plants produce nuclear waste and waste heat; the heat, released into the environment as water, can have an impact on water life even when there is no radiation whatsoever in that water.
But in order to maintain our modern life, in order to feed our large population, we must harvest energy from the environment. In the last ten years, innovative ideas for harvesting methane from trash, for using hydrogen electric cells to power cars, for mining endless frozen methane pockets below the ocean, have given us increasing hope for the future of clean power generation, or even power generation that has a positive net effect on the environment.
To create new power sources and maximize the ones we currently have, we need to maintain an open mind and constantly revisit the science we've done on our existing power sources. No matter how many times someone says it, there is no such thing as a scientific fact; continual questioning of our current science has consistently proven our theories wrong. Science, in other words, is not a religion, but a work in proress.
Where Are We Going, Where Have We Been
Looking back at where we've come from – the tiny, disease-ridden cities of early civilization, the Black Death and stinking streets of the Middle Ages, the black soot of the early Industrial Age – we've done a good job at preserving our world.
The only way to move forward is by being constantly vigilant, and by questioning everything we think we know. Only by performing new and good and independent research will we find the best ways to survive in our world, and only by nurturing our scientists, especially the ones that come from problem areas in the world, will we be able to maximize our potential while preserving our environment for all our children yet to come. |
| Average rating: 4 | Add 02 Apr 06 Green Peace |
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