THE PROSPERITY PREDICAMENT 
The noble green goal of reducing consumption and waste – but ALSO keeping the lights burning brightly, the music playing and the wine flowing freely – appears contradictory to the fact that increases in prosperity have always gone hand in glove with increases in consumption and WASTE..! So the idea that it might actually be possible to CONSUME LESS OF EVERYTHING whilst living a very comfortable lifestyle in harmony with nature, must surely be an impossible dream..?
PLASTIC PACKAGED WASTE – the paradox of prosperity
Behind all the earnest “save the planet” debates – and the lifestyle sacrifices we are exhorted to make in order to reduce our CARBON FOOTPRINT – lies a niggling fear and a question which nobody ever quite dares to ask…
“IS IT REALLY POSSIBLE TO GREATLY REDUCE OUR CONSUMPTION OF EVERYTHING, AND MAINTAIN A HIGH STANDARD OF LIVING..?”
We have inherited a living standard beyond the wildest dreams of our forbears, whose briefer and much tougher lives of poverty and toil built the foundations of our longer and far more comfortable lives of indulgence and plenty.
Interior plumbing with an unlimited supply of CLEAN WATER
FLUSH & FORGET TOILETS..!
Energy at the flick of a switch providing HEATING & COOLING & HOT WATER
HOT BATHS & SHOWERS whenever we want..!
Good quality FOOD, sourced from the entire planet, of every exotic variety, is ALWAYS available at LOW PRICES especially compared to what our grandparents could afford, mostly basic necessities like milk and eggs, bread and marge, cabbage and potatoes..!
Those fortunate enough to live In W. Europe also have unlimited “FREE” medical and hospital care. Most of us have a CAR or TWO, and can afford to splurge on foreign travel and luxury cruises and don’t think twice about spoiling ourselves in fancy spa hotels or wining and dining in gourmet restaurants. Until quite recently, such luxuries and hedonistic indulgences were the preserve of the wealthily privileged few..!
But its never enough – we all want and expect MORE and BETTER of everything..!
WHEN DOES THIS MAGICAL PARTY END, CINDERELLA…?
BUT..! It has become increasingly apparent that our greed for gizmo’s and gadgets, luxury living and hedonistic excess is UNSUSTAINABLE and so, with the minutes to midnight ticking away, climate experts and eco-activists are lecturing and hectoring that, unless we reduce our demands on the planet, THE MUSIC WILL STOP..!
So most of us now pay lip service to the idea that “something must be done” – a bit of “re-cycling”, an electric car, even occasionally not using a car at all – for “the good of the planet”. But just don’t ask us to do too much, OK?
So, by how much do we need to reduce our demands to steady the ship? Because this question keeps coming back…
Can HUGE REDUCTIONS in our CARBON FOOTPRINT and consumption be achieved WITHOUT REDUCING our living standards..?
COULD THERE BE A SIMPLE SOLUTION THAT NOBODY HAS EVEN CONSIDERED…???
Greenies love Electric Vehicle’s (EV’s), blind-eyeing the fact that MANUFACTURING EVs, with their enormous banks of lithium batteries, causes more enviro pollution than old-fangled ICE cars..! Hundreds of millions of EV’s will require an enormous increase of electricity generation, ideally of the “green” variety, which means covering thousands of sq km with solar panels and constructing 100’s of thousands of wind turbines, all needing regular maintenance and replacement every 20 years or so, as technological improvements will quickly render the older ones obsolete.
Much hopeful HUBRIS is being expelled about “Carbon Capture and Storage” (CCS) which sounds like a no-brainer until you delve into the enormously costly complexities of doing it on the colossal global scale required. Others are pinning hopes on a range of fanciful green energy technologies like “green hydrogen”, “wave power”, “tidal power”, or that the long-heralded “Fusion power” (Free energy just like the Sun makes..!) will soon ride to the rescue..! (need I remind that Fusion power has been “just over the horizon” for the past 70 years?)
Still others are pushing domestic green solutions, like insulate all homes to ‘Passiv Haus’ standard. Or, “every roof must have solar panels and a rainfall collection tank”. Others cast an admiring eye at Scandinavia where, it is claimed, they heat their homes by cleverly extracting waste heat from power stations and other industrial plants.
We are also told of the “free heat below our feet” which can be exploited with a “Ground-Source Heat Pump”, the installation of which involves excavating long deep trenches in your garden (assuming you have one) and filling it with hundreds of meters of coiled plastic piping. Gee – what could possibly go wrong with that idea..?
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