One of the most trivial things to discuss at coffee breaks is plastic bag taxes and caps on plastic bottles. In its eagerness to defeat the climate gods, the EU has started to engage in unnecessary nonsense, things that will never have any effect, but mostly annoy citizens.
We have already solved the plastic bag problem. Bags can be made from organic materials that are not harmful to the environment, and several countries are already using this technology and have been doing so for years. In Italy, for example, organic materials such as corn starch, vegetable oils and even materials such as manila hemp are used to make biodegradable plastic bags.
The same is true for all kinds of packaging, bottles and corks. All can be made from materials that do not leave devastating traces in nature. In addition, it is important to sort waste and burn unsorted material in controlled conditions in heating plants. Nothing ends up in nature, and this has also been practised for decades in many Western European countries.
In addition, we now have no problem with population growth in most parts of the world, as we instead have widespread population decline, due to social and cultural changes, as well as medical innovations such as contraception. Reducing the world’s population also means that we will create less waste and emissions.
Nuclear power has long provided safe and cheap energy, and technology is advancing to make it even safer. Final disposal has often been highlighted as a problem, but burying uranium deep in the bedrock in places where there is no earthquake risk should be almost 100% safe, in cases where you need to get rid of material, as we now have reactors that can use residual waste. And then there is thorium, which has a much higher radiation content than uranium, for example, and the Chinese now have a functioning reactor based on this technology, reducing the overall risk to near zero.
Even our cars now emit less exhaust, or no exhaust at all. Technology is advancing rapidly, and there are many viable technical solutions, exactly which one will become the dominant one remains to be seen.
Where we need to use petroleum products with emissions into the environment, for example in agriculture or construction, more efficient engines with better combustion and exhaust filters are now being produced.
Aviation is often described as an environmental villain, but even there there is a huge amount of efficiency improvement. Add to this a shrinking population and such emissions will also fall, as the travel industry shrinks in line with the population. And if you really want to eliminate emissions completely from the aviation industry, it is actually possible, there have been experiments with hydrogen fuelled planes from the 1980s onwards.
The question is, why are we spending so much time on things that are already solved? Our media is full of climate scare tactics. And the environmental movement is spreading panic and doom and gloom.
The somewhat uncomfortable answer to this question is that people often find a niche in life, which they specialise in and make a living from, and this is very difficult to shift. Even if the reality changes.
