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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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[Below is the original script. But a few changes may have been made during the recording of this audio podcast.]
Times are tough when a millionaire oil man can't get a wind farm built. T. Boone Pickens backed off of his much ballyhooed mega-wind project in Texas this week, citing the declining cost of natural gas. Fossil fuel burning power plants are still too good of a deal to bother investing $2 billion into wind turbines.
A bear market might seem like a boon for the environment: less overall economic activity, like manufacturing and driving, means less overall pollution. Right?
Actually, as the Pickens example proves, global economic downturns take a toll on the environment by restraining economic activity that could improve the situation. But that's not all. Over-farming and drought led to 400,000 square kilometers of prime top soil blowing away in the wind in the 1930s, exacerbating, and exacerbated by, the Great Depression. And the economic crises that crippled the economies of southeast Asia in the 1990s also set in motion a rapid uptick in environmentally damaging pursuits such as illegal logging and cyanide fishing, according to the World Bank.
Even as I speak, economic worries have prompted some European countries to begin backpedaling on their commitments to cut back on global warming pollution.
So an economic downturn is no friend of the environment. Brother, can you spare a turbine?
—David Biello
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3 Comments
Add CommentIf reversing the economic downturn means buying more gas-guzzling cars, nobody is going to get very far.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is logical to assume that if you have money to spare, you can sponsor things that will not "pay back" soon or at all, like arts, culture, research and science, (ok, before you start flaming me, I know this things do pay in greater extent on time, but you can't eat a DaVinci unless you are a moth), so people turns to survival mode, get food now... like for today, worry about tomorrow tomorrow.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo bad economy means just that, you are going to cut that which cannot return immediately (as science and education, which will pay back in 20+ years), environment (which is supposed to pay back in about a hundred years), and other things in order to keep your people from revolting.
On the other hand, a buoyant economy means things become so cheap you don't care much for them, that brings a grim scenario in itself (why drive that mosquito when I can have a powerful 3 liters a kilometer HumVee, even when it never touches a road that isn't paved and free of potholes)
There are always two sides to a coin, and pros and cons to an event.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf Sciam were to choose to report on one side of the story, then let it be. I don’t see any point of putting up an argument or discussion.
Just lament that why Sciam cannot be less biased and give a better overall picture.