I was sitting here, writing a rather angry email to some editor of an economics magazine that was claiming that by tripling the price of gas, Norway would become a more environmentally friendly place to be.
I won’t repeat what I wrote to him in my email, after all, I have no way to certify that my readers are of age to digest the language that I used, but I would like to share with you a fine point that I remembered after sending the email to this sad editor.
Kyoto ultimately blames you!
During the talks of Kyoto, various countries committed themselves to the reduction of producing pollution. As a consequence I am suddenly to blame for the worlds state and need to pay for it – because I have a car, and need electricity to post my blogs. Where did this come from? I live near a plastic factory that alone spends more electricity and diesel than the rest of my entire village put together. Good thing we’re using a lot of natural energy!
But, over to my fine point in this post, I was speaking about cars and the price of gas. Isn’t it about time that someone sat down and investigated what is MORE costly to the environment: The newspaper industry, or the transport situation?
I would dare to bet, that the amount of trees that are being cut down throughout the planet only to satisfy the newspaper business alone has a higher impact on our planets ability to breathe than the effect that personal use of cars and motorcycles. Add to that all the paper copies being used by faxes and copies for meetings. Think globally.
The point is that the paper industry is supported by businesses of all kinds, along with the newspaper press. Every time you buy a newspaper, you’re supporting the death of a tree somewhere. It’s one less breath to take away some of that globally warming carbon monoxide.
Politicians need to wake up and smell the forest. Yes. Cars pollute to some degree, but the lost point is this: The lack of trees attributed to the support of the paper industry must stop. Cutting down a tree is directly leading to global warming. Ban newspapers to begin with – everyone will soon have internet now that the 100 dollar PC is out there anyway. Plant more trees, and stop chugging them down again to make paper. All we NEED paper for is wiping our behinds, until someone figures out how to use the 3 seashells.
I agree with you, tripling the price of gas in Norway will do little to save the environment. As you point out, dino powered vehicles are not the only polluters out there. We must look for ways to reduce emissions across the board, not just in one place.
Or, in case if we figure out that reducing emissions isn’t enough, at least supply the world with enough trees to faster get the planet breathing again. I would go as far as to say that planting trees and other plants (most if not all breathe CO2 at night anyways) is probably a faster and cheaper solution to the global warming problem than to reduce emissions.