It’s the thought that counts

Noémi Ulbrich counters some of the criticisms, or rather, misconceptions, that she has heard about environmentally and nature-friendly technology, lifestyles and world views.

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Criticism no. 1: “Green technologies are just too underdeveloped and inefficient to work properly.”

For now they are underdeveloped and inefficient. What most people who say this tend to forget is that if we never start trying the green technologies in practice, with the excuse that there are still problems with them, their development will never make any progress whatsoever.

Criticism no. 2: “What’s the point of developing green technologies? It is just expensive, and will never repay, not to mention we already have working technologies for energy and transport.”

It’s true that the development of green technologies is expensive and that there are other ways of getting energy and fuel that are cheaper. However, this is only true for the short-term. In the long run this is not a very practical view of the world. It is now a known fact that the planet’s oil reserves are very limited and will probably run out if not in our lifetime, then in our children’s. Coal, for example, is not as limited as oil, however it pollutes. A lot. And I guess we’ve all heard about the effects of pollution ruining the environment. In the long-run, it is much cheaper, more realistic, and less troublesome, to develop some more efficient green technologies than to search for a new planet or have to clean up Earth, it being totally uninhabitable, while the whole population of about 7 to 8 billion goes for a space cruise (seen the movie, WALL•E?) – if we manage to build enough spaceships before the atmosphere falls apart and we all roast under the UV glare of the sun.

Criticism no. 3: “Here we go again… Pollution, polluted atmosphere getting ruined, global warming… Global warming is not caused by humans.”

Well, since even most elite scientists are still debating/arguing about whether global warming is anthropogenic (fancy word for “caused by humans”) or not, this statement may or may not be true. I personally think it is a mixture of both. There have been fairly periodic rises and falls of temperature, and also CO2 in the distant past, so maybe it is just the natural pulse of the earth. However, this is totally irrelevant. Maybe polluting the environment will not cause the earth to get uncomfortably hot, but it certainly causes tons of trouble to all life on earth. So, this includes humans.

Ego v. Eco

Criticism no. 4: “It takes more energy and pollution to produce the green technology than it avoids. So we shouldn’t build them.”

See answer to the first criticism. If we stop building new technologies it will be impossible to develop them. And, it is possible to build green technology more efficiently, as well as have it working more efficiently.

Criticism no. 5: “Green lifestyle is such a hippie thing!” (I am seriously not kidding; some people say this!) Also, a similar criticism: “Green technology will not get us a quick profit. Oil and the rest of that gang will.”

This sounds like the typical thing for a pollution-profiteer to say. Originally when hippies first came into being, the ones who used the word as a negative adjective were the war profiteers. Here I appeal to anyone who has a conscience: think not only of the profits that could be made in days, maybe months or a few years. Think about what happens later than that. Think about your children, and their children, and Mother Nature… And do not fall into the category of the profiteers who would sacrifice their mother planet for a bunch of coloured slips of paper with numbers on them. As for those of you who do not really have a conscience, let’s appeal to common sense: you can’t really make a profit on an uninhabitable planet.

Criticism no. 6: “So, optimistic people are encouraging their neighbours to buy electric motors and solar panels. That’s just so naive. These are tiny things that will not make any difference!”

In the beginning, it’s the thought that counts. If many people are prepared to buy little insignificant solar panels for the roofs of their houses, they will be prepared to support the development of, and change over from out-dated to modern, world-friendly technology.

● Noémi Ulbrich is a pupil at the Vienna International School (VIS), Austria. She has just completed Grade 11, specializing in physics, history and film.

This article was first published in the May 2012 issue of VIS Spotlight.