New Ideas for the Environment

By ian

In the spirit of Blog Action Day, I felt that I would share some of my thoughts on environmental responsibility. Partly because the theme of the Blog Action Day is the environment and partly because some of my views are a little odd. One person I would attribute much of my environmentally conscious thinking to is John Muir. He was incredibly successful at not only inspiring people to be more environmentally conscious, but also working with businesses and the governement to take action. He understood that in order to make change, there must be a compelling reason for all parties involved. With that in mind, here are some of the ways I’ve been working to help the environment.

Reducing Carbon Footprint and Environmental Impact Through Adoption

This is one of ny views that’s raised a few eyebrows. At the moment, overpopulation is one of the biggest environmental problems facing society. Every new person that is born brings a lifetime’s worth of carbon, energy use, housing needs and food. What will have more impact on the environment: buying free trade coffee or having 2 kids instead of 3? If you’re a family that wants more than 2 children, consider adoption. Kelley and I are thinking about having 2 children and adopting a third. We would be creating less environmental impact by not contributing to overpopulation, and we would be helping a child who may otherwise be stuck in foster homes for their entire childhood.

Intelligent Use of Modern Nuclear Power

Nuclear power is a hot button issue for many environmentally conscious individuals. For many, nuclear power brings images of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. Unfortunately, most of the conceptions about nuclear power are based on technology from the 50’s and 60’s. Modern generation IV reactors are pretty amazing. These reactors are passively safe (which means no meltdowns), use low-volitilty fuel preventing use as weapons, and can produce both electricity and process liquid hydrogen providing a backbone for a fuel cell infrastructure. In an ideal world, we could all use solar and carbon neutral biomass, but in reality these energy sources are in-efficient and don’t provided the power output needed for our growing energy needs.

Those are my 2 soap box issues. Have a nice blog action day.