I wish to reply to Lesley Chapman’s letter of August 18.
Lesley Chapman says that “solar and wind technologies are not viable for base load electricity production”. This might be true if scientists and inventors just sat on their hands and did nothing. However solar thermal technology now exists and is up and running in Spain, Germany and California, with more planned. In fact the Sydney Morning Herald Business News on 15 August reported Tony Windsor and other Australians visiting a 20 megawatt Gemasolar power station in Spain. Gemasolar uses over 2000 mirrors to heat salt to over 500 degrees which slowly releases the heat to power a steam turbine which generates enough electricity for 25,000 households even after the sun has set.
Now to the argument about volcanos versus humans emissions. The esteemed “New Scientist” has looked into this and I quote “total emissions from volcanos on land are estimated to average just 0.3 Gigatonnes of CO2 each year — about a hundredth of human emissions.”
Next Lesley berates climate change proponents for not grasping the concept that plants need CO2. Yes, we are all agreed that CO2 is a natural gas which plants need to survive. But since the industrial revolution, humans have been creating an imbalance in the CO2 in the air. It is the imbalance which will give us serious grief, raising the average temperature by as much as 6 degrees by the end of the century if we continue business as usual. And this might be okay, we could live in air conditioning and close our eyes to all God’s little creatures losing their habitats. Except that wheat and other cereals and plants will not grow in these conditions. Believe it or not scientists have been experimenting and they have found this an unpalatable truth. The earth will go on but our future is only guaranteed if we change our ways to be sustainable.
And you know what? I don’t think we need to be scared of the future. I don’t think being sustainable will be too painful. Leaf blowers may become museum pieces — can’t be all bad!
Drusilla Megget
