Is the minor convenience of allowing the present generation the luxury of doubling its energy consumption every 10 years worth the major hazard of exposing the next 20,000 generations to this lethal waste?
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
If you look at the state of our planet, the next generations won't be around if we consider sustainability as a gimmick.
The risk presented by these lethal wastes is like no other risk, and we should not be expected to accept it or to project it into the future in order for manufacturers and utilities to make a dollar killing now.
Low-cost, high-grade coal, oil and natural gas - the backbone of the Industrial Revolution - will be a distant memory by 2050. Much higher-cost remnants will still be available, but they will not be able to drive our growth, our population and, most critically, our food supply as before.
Perhaps most ridiculous of all is the suggestion that we 'keep' our radioactive garbage for the use of our descendants. This 'solution', I think, requires an immediate poll of the next 20,000 generations.
Instead of hazarding our future on the dirty fuels of the past, let's invest in clean power that can drive this country forward. Let's cut energy waste, make our economy the world's most efficient, and give our workers a leg up in the global marketplace.
There's an overemphasis on conservation and other idyllic energy sources that can be harmful in that it hampers new technology and innovation.
I think so long as fossil fuels are cheap, people will use them and it will postpone a movement towards new technologies.
Does this planet have enough resources so seven or eight billion can have the same level of consumption and waste that today is seen in rich societies? It is this level of hyper-consumption that is harming our planet.
We waste an awful lot of energy as a Nation through inefficient use of energy.
It's as certain that as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, we will just keep burning them.