Wired slaughters a few environmental sacred cows in showing how to adapt to climate change. Ten Green heresies, summarised by yours truly:
1. Live in cities. Heh, introduce zoning for employment! If it's good enough for the kiddies...
2. Air Conditioning OK. While the corporate towers overseas may take heart that it takes less energy to cool than to heat, tell that to NZ home dwellers in winter. Brrrr!
3. Conventional farming better than organic. Lower yields with organic foods tend to produce more wastage.
4. Euthanise old trees and farm the forests. Rotting or burning trees offload all that CO2 they were storing. Not to mention all those trees that fall into dam lakes, transformed by anaerobic forces into methane. Hydro causes swamp gas! Think of it as the marginal utility of trees.
5. Follow China's example. If you can't get a world war to wipe the slate clean like Japan and Germany got, the next best thing is to be a primitive tech country, avoiding all the interim steps of industrialisation and going straight to the new tech. First there was Made in Japan. Then there was Made in Hong Kong. Made in China in morphing.
6. GE is here to stay. Ideally, what we should be looking for is genetically engineering a plant that eats carbon, methane and water vapour, whilst shitting hydrocarbons. I volunteer to suck up excess nitrous oxide.
7. Carbon trading does not work. Carbon credits compared with sub-prime mortgages. Ouch. Keep it simple; a fossil fuel tax.
8. Let's Go Nuclear. Auckland's power demands make this inevitable. Don't give me that tosh about nuclear free NZ either. What the hell is radiotherapy? Hands up all those in favour of a nuclear reactor in Remuera?
9. Hybrids vs. Mk I Ford Zephyr. Zephyr wins.
10. Don't fight Cyclone Marsha, it's bigger than both of us. Climate change, whether anthropogenic or not, is upon us. Get ready to adapt.
