As the international community gathers in Copenhagen this week to try and agree on how to fix the world’s climate, I’m left thinking about what I can do to have a positive impact on our future. While I don’t deny political action is necessary to move us forward in this area, my cynicism towards the process often gets the best of me. I really hope that our leaders come to an agreement that satisfies everyone, but I think in the mean time we should be hedging our bets at the community level and figuring out what we, as individuals, can do.
The bigger question I keep coming back to is, how is an international climate agreement going to impact the communities where we live and work?
Here’s what I know for sure – energy costs will continue to rise. Even if there isn’t a carbon cost, they will rise because the cost of getting oil and gas out of the ground continues to go up. If a carbon cost is implemented (via a cap-and-trade scheme or carbon tax), energy costs will rise even more. When the cost of energy rises, so does the cost of everything else, because it’s a key input to such essential everyday things like food, transportation and heat.
Therefore the best thing for a community to do, if it wants to protect itself from these rising costs without negatively affecting its standard of living, is to reduce its reliance on conventional sources of energy – through conservation and renewable energy.
Biogas can and should be a part of the solution for individual communities, and here’s why:
- It reduces actual greenhouse gas emissions through the capture and use of methane (wind and solar don’t do that).
- Biogas-fired electricity can provide power around 92% of the hours in a year (wind and solar can’t do that).
- By taking food scraps, restaurant grease, fats, bakery waste, the shit from the animals we eat, and even our own shit, and producing energy instead of sending it to landfills we are adding value to the food chain.
- The waste produced from the biogas process is high quality, nitrogen rich fertilizer that can replace petroleum-based chemical fertilizers (which are also going to get more expensive)
Talk to the people in your community; if you’re interested in improving local air quality, reducing costs for your food producers, and adding value to your local economy, then talk to me to find out more.
Enjoyed it? Why not share it?
Email It | Tweet It | Stumble It | Save to Delicious | Save to FaceBook
