As a result, environmentalists act against nuclear and hydro-electric power, while being unaware that, in as far as their actions are successful, they keep us more dependent of fossil fuels. Both they and the decision makers at the top lack basic knowledge in physics and so does the public. Do you know the difference between mass and weight, between temperature and energy, between a Joule and a Watt, not to speak of what a Newton-meter per second is? Don't be embarrassed, because the "big shots" have no idea either (a great failure of our educational system)!

The real situation in respect to fossil fuels is illustrated quite well with comparing to an iceberg.  The effects of burning fossil fuels during say the last 150 years, now most significantly manifestating itself as global warming, form the top of an iceberg that is visible. What is not visible is the 90% of its mass under water - it is ignored in all debates! Instead the talk is about removing, or rather reducing the top of the iceberg (reducing emissions).

However, all the emissions of the last 150 years are still stored in the Earth's ecological systems. They are there for ever and not decaying like f.ex nuclear waste would. They will stay there for all eternity and so it is with all chemicals that we have poured and still are pouring into Nature, increasing the iceberg.

For example, the soil around Verdun in France, that was poisoned by chemical weapons during WW I, is still infertile, while Hiroshima and Nagasaki are flourishing cities today. Hence, we will be too late with reducing the use of fossil fuels with some percentage over decades to come. It must fully stop as soon as possible, not in some 50 or more years from now - the Kyoto protocol is a farce in comparison.

WHY IS IT LIKE THIS?

The basic mechanism behind pollution simply is economy. Had engineers determined the technological developments, the world would have looked totally different today, but it were, are and always will be the economists, the policy makers in business and governments that are in control.

At large this is also necessary (without profit, nothing moves), but unconstrained greed has pushed the limits far beyond the acceptable.  It is not only the producers who don't want to pay for cleaning up after them, the same greed rules the consumers also. We all want a green, say an electric car, but it must perform as well as present cars do and not cost more, rather less, otherwise we won't buy it. So we continue to drive our fossil fuel based cars and conveniently blame car makers and politicians for it. This urges the latter to promote their infeasible environment policies, that the public accepts in ignorance, as long as it sounds 'good' and others pay for it.

Meanwhile, Space Ship Earth continuous moving towards collapse, while billions of people believe that the resulting Armageddon is God's will  [Rev. 16:16].

However, it is not only greed but also the simple fact that cleaning up IS very costly and, when done to its full extend, would not allow any profits to be made, thus no industrial development at all. Just imagine that the first steam and combustion engines would have been restricted on CO2 and other hazardous emissions, which was technologically impossible to achieve at the time (at large still is). Moreover, technology is about turning raw materials (natural resources) into garbage, because all products finally decay. If we would make products that do not decay, thus last for ever, no producing industry could survive on a one-time production only. Products must decay in order to achieve economical growth. This is why engineers cannot be in control of industrial development - they would kill the business with their 'perfect' designs! Hence and by necessity, we are turning our planet into a dump!
The question is "only" at what rate...

So there is the discussion about recirculation of garbage back to raw materials. Now, imagine what it would take to restore your broken glass, smashed into hundreds of pieces on the floor, into its original condition, without using any new raw materials. Theoretically a new glass could be made from the pieces only, but it will not become like the original one. It would be smaller and of lower quality than the original glass.  The second law of thermodynamics implies that an infinite large effort (read energy) would have to be made to restore to the exact original condition, without using any new raw materials.

Nevertheless, if we accept the lower quality, it is still within economical constraints to recirculate simple products, like glass and paper. Mind well, simple products. When it comes to complicated compounded products, like plastics in packaging and other artificial materials and products, there is no commercial feasibility in it. Technology does not set the limits - economics do (largely ignored by the 'environmentalists').

WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?

Instead of focusing on renewable energy sources, which may not be as green as expected in the end and which take far too long time to develop anyway (we are running out of time), as well as that they require huge investments to develop, far more effective in the short run would be to focus on measures that reduce the use of fossil fuels, using existing technologies. In other words, save energy instead of finding new sources. In fact, this we could have done (started with) decades ago.

1.  Long distance transportation of goods by rail requires only a fraction of the fuel that trucks on the road use, roughly only 10%, thus a 90% reduction of oil dependence.  Build out the railway network and use trucks only for short-distance transports between nearest railway station and destination. As part of the infra-structure, rail roads would be state-owned, while transport companies could own the trains running on them.

2.  Extended use of heat-pumps for homes, instead of oil and gas heating. A heat pump is exactly the same machine as an air-conditioner, just that the warm side is used instead of the cold side. A heat-pump absorbs heat from the outside air (just as an air conditioner does that from a room) and 'pumps' it up to a higher temperature that you can heat your home with. Typically 3 times more energy is given off in heat, than what is used to drive it. Hence, for every dollar you pay driving it, you get 3 dollars worth in useful heat back. For every dollar you pay for oil or gas heating, you get far less than one dollar in useful heat back. The difference may well be a factor four in savings (it varies with climate zone) and it is solar energy for free!

Now, show me any solar panel that gives you this kind of savings. In addition, a solar panel only collects the energy that falls on its surface, while a heat-pump collects energy from wide areas, basically from the whole of the Earth's atmosphere, brought to it by the wind.  The heat-pump just takes a small volume and is sufficient for all your needs, while your roof is not big enough to do the same with solar panels, that don't work when the sun doesn't shine, while heat-pumps work around the clock, day and night.

But then, you are told that solar energy is free and the electricity to drive your heat-pump is not. This is how you are being fooled!  Even worse than that, because it shows the incompetence of our leaders and with that, how a hopeless case I am trying to make here.

3. Do you know how much energy that you paid for is wasted when doing your dishes, taking a hot shower, or emptying your bath tub after use? A great part of this heat could easily be recovered with a heat-exchanger to warm the air in your home with, or to pre-heat incoming cold water from the grid, even more if a heat-pump is used in combination.  Why has this simple and known technology not been widely used since decades ago? Probably because it was easier and cheaper to burn fuels instead and so we are still doing that...while destroying our planet.

4. Nuclear power. This subject has by now been argued to death by the 'environmentalists' and so I won't argue further on it. Nuclear disasters are indeed very serious, but compared to the disaster iceberg that we created and still are creating with fossil fuels, not half as lethal. More I can't say about it - another hopeless case ...          

So far what we can do on Earth and failed to do, but in any case, it would not be enough in the longer run. It would however buy us time, time we desperately need before it really is too late.  We need time to expand in space, the only way out that we have. It is not so much that people would have to leave Earth, but rather more that we have to move our polluting industry outside the atmosphere and use the natural resources of our moon and in other locations of the Solar System. These resources are there in abundance, more than we ever can use in a million years to come.

Moreover, in space, without gravity and under absolute vacuum conditions, materials could be made that we cannot make on Earth. Materials with a crystalline structure so strong, that a string of it - too thin to be seen with the eye - could lift an elephant from the ground.  It would create a new technological and economical revolution, well in class with that of the first steam engines (why are no such experiments done in the ISS, neither planned that I know of?).

In order to do this we need the huge funds that today are wasted on warfare and destruction. Hence, our prime goal would be to eliminate war, enabling us to redirect the war industry (a major economical factor) towards space technology development and for this we need a Global Resource Authority (GRA). We need this in order to prevent world crises to arise that unavoidably will lead to war, if the Earth's natural resources remain in control of the countries in which they are located.

We have seen how crude oil prices went yo-yo during 2008, still can change again to any level and in the moment of writing the gas crisis is getting worse, as Russian Gazprom closed the gas supply to Europe in the midst of cold winter. It shows how vulnerable our technological societies are and this all is the result of the world's energy sources being in the hands of the countries where they are found. It doesn't need much fantasy to imagine how easily such man-made crisis situations could lead to armed conflicts, even to full blown wars in a worse case scenario.

Our world has become a small one, in which no longer any country can be independent of the rest of the World. We see that an economical crisis in a super power like the USA spreads over the whole world. Likewise we see a global food crisis, caused by prices that are set by large food producing countries that control the world market. It is obvious that the world's energy and food resources no longer can be left in the hands of greedy traders, producers and national governments, seeking their own advantages, without any consideration what it does to the World. To change this we need a GRA....

The global resources are, should be the property of Mankind, not of the nations of origin that can deal with them at their will.  The GRA  would be a global organization, acknowledged by all nations of the World, that controls the crucial resources of our planet. The GRA would dictate how much is produced of what and distributed to where, as such preventing crises to arise. It therefore should set the prices and manage those resources to be used in the most appropriate manner to preserve our planet, as long and as good as can be done. It should collect all the revenue from trading these resources, reimburse the countries of origin and producers for their production costs and efforts and use the rest of the revenue to:

• Promote and finance fossil fuel reducing projects that it dictates governments to perform.
• Manage the world production and distribution of food, while preserving the  environment.
• Promote, manage and finance a massive development of technology to create a space industry, to exploit the resources of the Solar System. This would create a new economical and technological revolution, needed to bring prosperity to all of Mankind and to turn Earth into a sustainable garden for living purposes only.
• Establish colonies on other planets and locations in the Solar System that it will administer - no national government on Earth will have any jurisdiction over such colonies (that otherwise would lead to conflicts of interest and ultimately to war).

Of course, the a.m. revenue will not be enough, but if war, causing crises, could be eliminated and there would be no more people who want to kill and die for their god (when Easter and Christmas fall on the same day), then  'the World' could assign their former military budgets to the GRA - it would do .....

CONCLUSION

How would any kind of GRA come about? It would be through the United Nations, the World Bank and the IMF, basically being the only international organizations that in combination have the potential for it. If these organizations fail to do so and the funds that are wasted on warfare and destruction cannot be redirected to space technology development, then there are only two persons left in this whole wide world, who can save Mankind from extinction:

You and I and I am tired ....

good night!