I was going to write a list of reasons why the coal industry should be held responsible - but i suspect that many of you are too stupid to understand it anyway. So, you may as well keep on shitting in your own nest and mortgaging your kids future!
Nakedape, I assume you are one of the people who jumped on board the climate change bandwagon, without informing themselves of the details. That's okay, you're not alone, in fact there are millions of people who you will find comfort with. I am not one of those who you suspect is too stupid to understand the regurgitated information that you can provide to me, however I can find said information myself quite easily by doing a google search on climate change, as that is probably all you have done to form your point of view (you may not have even gone to that much effort, perhaps you just listen to people spruking about it on commercial TV)
I'll happily go on record as saying coal mining is not great for the environment, and the burning of fossil fuels contributes to the climate to some degree, and we should take significant and reasonable steps to minimise our impact on the environment through efficient and sustainable design (after all, that IS what I do for a living so I had better believe in it), however;
We have been taking records on climate parameters for what, a couple of hundred years or so? We've had
accurate methods of measuring and recording said records for maybe 50-100 years? The planet has been around for millions and millions of years, we are just a blip on the radar of time.
I think we should be focusing more on strategic planning of our built environment to reduce our reliance on mining, to reduce the destruction of valuable farmland and bushland to build, and also continue with our current advancements in building codes to ensure energy efficiency in construction.
Specifically, I believe we should be moving away from bulldozing hectares and hectares of bushland and prime farming land to build sprawling estates full of 4 bedroom, double garage houses filled with split system air conditioners, located outside major cities which means people have to commute in cars to the city. In the meantime, we are increasing our population, we are decreasing our available farmland to provide our food, reducing bushland for recreational spaces, native flora and fauna, and vegetation to absorb our carbon emissions. It is a rapid downward spiral in my opinion.
In my head, my plan condenses our urban populations by building vertically, and in conjunction, providing efficient mass transit systems that are laid out logically and effectively, and providing well equipped public recreation spaces amongst the vertical housing. Medium-to-high rise buildings would have minimum size restrictions so developers don't build ridiculously small apartments suitable only for asian uni students, so that families will actually be able to live in them.
The result (in my head) is that we reduce our horizontal footprint on the earth and live more efficiently - and when I say effiently I mean that in a much more thorough and holistic sense than simply buying a Toyota Prius and voting for the Greens party. This, in my opinion, is a far more important issue than what effect some carbon emissions do or do not have on our climate.
- too farkin right!!!
