17 Jun 2025
Convenience or health
We can continue in our convenient lifestyle or we can switch to a healthy one. We cannot have both given the way most of us live these days. The things we do and the things we use are poisoning our environment and our bodies. Greenhouse gases from hundreds of millions of exhaust pipes and chimneys are changing our atmosphere and the climate our modern economies and food supply systems were designed for. Already, climate change has unleashed terrible storms, floods, droughts and forest fires. The damage is growing every year. It’s not just dollars but people’s lives upended or ended, period. And, billions of tonnes of plastics, made from oil and natural gas are part of everyday living and a great convenience. However, much of that plastic is discarded into the environment where it fragments over time into trillions of microscopic pieces. These microplastics are in our air, water food and our bodies. We have painted ourselves into a corner with our dependence on oil and its byproducts, such as plastics. We have an escape hatch but it will not be an easy way out. Electric cars are gradually replacing those burning fossil fuels but they are often more expensive and lack the driving range. The cars will improve as does each new technology but it will take years. We will also have to generate a lot more electricity to run the vehicles and it needs to be green power. Plastics are going to be hard to replace because we use them in so many ways. We need smart people to invent substances that will give us the benefits of plastics without the pollution. It’s time for a new industrial revolution.