Other Voices

Poking around fellow students' Beat Blogs is fun and informative. Transitional Truths
Jessika's blog about farm and food, turned me on to a new (to me) blogger, Nicole Faires

Nicole has a great story and a couple books under her belt. She doesn't pull her punches and she knows her stuff. I bring her to you as an example of the sort of writing I hope to achieve - she is clear, direct, authentic, unique. The useful info is there, yet the emotional importance of what she has to say doesn't get lost in a sea of words. It's good stuff.

She writes about the human cost of wasting energy. She reminds us:

All energy, even so-called ‘clean’ energy, has a high cost. Hydro comes from building dams which destroys trees and the ecological balance of rivers and lakes. Trees and water all hang in a careful biological balance that are part of the oxygen and water cycles we depend on to survive. I mean, really - you have to have clean air and water.

Solar and wind production don’t magically happen. The equipment needed requires mining for rare materials, metals, and other parts which are manufactured in factories. Mining and manufacturing are just another huge waste of energy. Not to mention that these don’t yet have the necessary power-producing ability that other options have, which would leave some of us in the dark.

Nuclear has been touted as the clean power that will save us all, but it is another wasteful and costly solution. Mining for the materials is toxic and disastrous to the environment, no matter what the materials are, and once you’ve used the fuel in a nuclear plant it becomes toxic waste that has to be protected and saved for hundreds or thousands of years, lest it kill everyone who comes in contact with it.

In a nutshell, almost all of the world's energy challenges get easier if we just use less. The logic is so simple. It makes sen$e. Let's just do it.