Quote:
Originally Posted by Table 5
Don't feel too bad...what we did, or will do, in Canada is fairly irrelevant. If you look at the population/economic projections over the next few decades, the vast majority of growth it is in South Asia and Africa, so that's where you need to focus your efforts in improvement.
Bypassing fossil fuels sounds great in theory, but I'm not sure how realistic that is in these scenarios. You don't hop from burning animal waste to a solar panel when you don't even have a basic electrical outlet in your shanty, or your town/country doesn't have a reliable electrical grid (which often coincides with political/social instability). You work with what's cheap, accessible, and transportable...and then go from there. It usually starts with coal (see China).
Oil, Gas, even coal....regardless of what happens with renewables, none of that is going anywhere. It all just gets added to the pile to feed the ever hungry global energy monster. We might as well be the one to feed it...or watch others (like the ones in Central Asia) take over.
|
I understand your points, and you are correct about the appetite for the energy, but theoretically if a nation chose to not develop its energy reserves, it could reduce the amount of carbon that will go into the atmosphere overall.