TalkClimateChange

Although often maligned for their rising contribution to greenhouse gasses, China has a significant renewable energy program. The completion of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River year brought the world’s biggest hydro-electric power station on line,  and there are plans for 19 additional damns before 2020.

However, this project has shown the risks of moving to zero-carbon energy production. A record 1.13 million people have been displaced, many species have become extinct after failing to adapt to new ecological conditions, water sources have become polluted and landslides have threatened local populations.

To reduce the use of fossil fuels to the levels regarded as acceptable by green campaigners will require thousands of similar projects, each with the potential for similar consequences. In planning our response to climate change we seriously doubt that current policies fully consider all sides of the equation.

Can a couple of coal fired power stations have a worse impact than a colossal engineering project which substantially alters its surrounding environment? We doubt it, but the real issue is that of scale. The impact of just a couple of anything can easily be managed. The problems only start when we think about the sheer number of people on this planet and the sheet amount of energy we need to sustain our lives. Unless we start looking seriously at managing population we will never find a true solution to providing sustainable energy.

China has taken a lead on the population issue too, but there are few who would support a similar one-child policy in the western world, and even fewer who would seriously suggest it. Until then it seems that reducing our level of energy consumption is the only really sustainable approach.