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Along the spirit of the thread, I know you guys care about what we do with the planet. Some extreme and others more practical the bottom line IMO is about stewardship. I don't trust organizations, the largest of which are governments. They have too much invested in status and position to really offer much of a meaningful sacrifice or offer any action that might diminish their position. They "seem" to respond only when it is to their advantage or too painful to hold their position. The whole Idea of selling carbon credits vs. the real solution of reducing carbon emissions into the atmosphere is but one example.
I find it telling that it's OK to trash the planet if you're an underdeveloped economy but not if you're a mature one. Then the developed economies can purchase those same credits. Also the same people who opposed nuclear power in the past now embrace it if it's their side doing it. You can't let your cows piss in the stream but it's OK to dump millions of gallons of effluent into the bay and rivers every day. Way too subjective and self serving for my taste.
In the end I guess it's about balance. Ecosystems can handle a certain amount of stress as long as it doesn't get to be too much. It does take energy to refine and transport energy, that's a given. IMHO it's defining the line about how much is too much. Good or bad, we as a society will determine where that line is. If it were up to me, I'd avoid all the political issues of energy dependence with hostile entities. For those who can acquire it LNG seems to be a plentiful lower polluting energy source than oil. There are even ways to cleanly extract energy from coal but that's such a hot potato I don't care to go there.
Electricity as delivered today is a secondary refined energy source. It's production has consequences. When an affordable and efficient way to store and deliver it is developed I think the only question left for most of us will be about clean generator plants.
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