Can any good come from the unprovoked war by Russia on Ukraine? If we take the big view, maybe it is the push we needed to do what we should have done years ago. We should have transitioned to clean energy over the last 40 years, rather than stay dependent on fascist regimes that sell us oil. As Thomas Friedman suggested in his April 10, 2022 article, How Do We Deal With a Superpower Led by a War Criminal? he recommended we should “…double down on ending our addiction to oil, Putin’s main source of income…”
Many other recent articles also seem to agree we should move to clean energy, see: NYTimes: What the Ukraine War Means for the Future of Climate Change, LA Times: One way to combat Russia? Move faster on clean energy, NYTimes: What Putin’s war could mean for fossil fuels, the Guardian: Could Ukraine war help end west’s reliance on hydrocarbons? and many more good articles. At the end of your post, I linked quoted and linkedThomas Friedman’s March 29, 2022 NYTimes article, “How to Defeat Putin and Save the Planet“ emphasizing our need to follow this push to generate comprehensive benefits. I encourage you to read his article.
Another article on the topic was published in The New Yorker by Bill McKibben, This Earth Day, We Could Be Helping the Environment—and Ukraine. As he explains,
“…It is, for instance, widely acknowledged at this point that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is financed by fossil fuel, and that Putin is exploiting his control of Europe’s oil and gas to wage it. … Electrifying your home one machine at a time is today’s Victory Garden—a thing you can do to fight tyranny, inflation, and runaway emissions…Yet we’ve been asked to do none of these things. ”
Moving to clean energy will be better for the people, workers, animals, plants and the environment. It will mean more jobs, cleaner air, and less sickness. It will also enable people to engage in actions that will be selfish, selfless or synergistic. Will we finally speed toward a new, clean energy system? Should this new system include nuclear energy>?
Nuclear Energy
I was a no to nuclear energy prior to learning more. James Lovelock, the father of Gaia, which evolved into Earth Systems Science, strongly endorses the use of nuclear energy. He explains that it has gotten bad press due to the development of super powerful, life ending, nuclear weapons. As he notes, the power of these weapons alone should document the potential or nuclear power.
While I am certainly not an expert, I trust James Lovelock. He also recommends, in his 2006 book, Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate in Crisis and the Fate of Humanity to read Nuclear Renaissance: Technologies and Policies for the Future of Nuclear Power (c) 2005 by William Nuttall and the 1999 book, Transforming Electricity: The Coming Generation of Change by Walt Patterson to learn more about nuclear energy.
Overall he recommends nuclear energy for these simple reasons, and more:
- Nuclear energy from fission or fusion is significantly more dense and more powerful than fossil fuels as is demonstrated by the power of nuclear bombs.
- Waste from nuclear energy is two million times less than what is generated by burning fossil fuels, for the same quantity of energy.
- Nuclear waste can be buried in forests, where it will HELP, not hurt trees or animals. Nuclear energy is, after all, what powers the sun.
- Although we cannot see carbon dioxide, fossil fuel waste causes incalculable problems sickness and climate change
These facts suggest nuclear energy at least needs another look. We should think again (see “Think Again” Very Helpful Book) Might the quick transition to clean energy be a possible benefit from this horrible war being perpetrated by Putin? Should Nuclear power, as recommended by James Lovelock, be part of the mix?
Along with many throughout the world, we are emphasizing that moving toward clean energy should be a way to move forward to generate comprehensive benefits by creating net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits. Right now Russia helps power Europe.
This may be our best hope and opportunity to practice paneugenesis so we generate all good as we experience #SelfishSelflessSynergy benefits. I look forward to hearing your thoughts…what do you think? Did this help you “think again”?
March 29, 2022 NYTimes Thomas Friedman’s column suggests this must PUSH US and it can be “How to Defeat Putin and Save the Planet“
As he explains, we can do many things to reduce our use of fossil fuels such as speeding the transition to renewables with legislation and even reducing the speed limit. He emphasizes that we must do this because….
“As long as we’re addicted to oil, we are always going to be begging someone, usually a bad guy, to move the price up or down, because we alone are not masters of our own fate….This has got to stop. Yes, there needs to be a transition phase, during which we will continue to use oil, gas and coal. We can’t go cold turkey. But let’s vow to double the pace of that transition — not double down on fossil fuels.
Thomas Friedman – NYTimes, March 29, 2022
BeWell’r,
Craig Becker
Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!
#SelfishSelflessSynergy
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