Climate scientists have been warning us for over 30 years
that if we continue to emit greenhouse gases at the present rate it will cause
unpredictable and dangerous changes to the Earth's climate with profound
consequences for our children and grandchildren. However decarbonising our energy supply
presents a massive challenge because people tend to object to all the
alternatives. Onshore wind turbines:
`not in my back yard', offshore turbines: spoil the view and kill seabirds, Severn
barrage: destroys habitats for rare geese and waders, nuclear: too dangerous,
solar: too expensive etc. The
implications of switching to low carbon energy for the state and appearance of
the UK countryside are huge. For example covering 10% of the land area of the
UK with wind turbines would provide only one-sixth of our energy needs. An
excellent presentation on this can be seen at http://www.ted.com/talks/david_mackay_a_reality_check_on_renewables.
There needs to be an informed public debate about which mixes
of low carbon energy (wind, nuclear, tide etc.) people would find least
objectionable. So far there has been a
complete lack of leadership from politicians and the media on this matter. How do we get a debate started?
