Footprints of renewables and fossil fuels
As many of you have also likely heard, renewable energy skeptics claim that we’d have to “pave over paradise” [apologies to Joni Mitchell] using tremendous amounts of land to put up massive amounts of wind and solar renewable energy. In this brief (2½ minute) video from October 4th, Professor Mark Jacobson compares the land footprint required to meet the US’ demand for energy from either renewable energy or from producing, refining, distributing, and burning fossil fuels.
At the risk of stealing his message, the footprint for new solar, wind, & hydro is roughly 1/3 of the footprint for producing energy from coal, oil, gas, and ethanol. And, we’re not even talking about health effects for burning this stuff for energy.
So, I recommend you watch Mark’s video and consider how we could make much better use of our lands than by producing energy that negatively impacts our climate, health, safety, and environmental degradation. And, please hasten our move to renewable energy as quickly as possible by writing your elected officials to remind them that:
- Climate change is real
- It’s us
- We’re sure
- It’s bad
- We can fix it
- But time is running out.
Please share with my your thoughts on this video or other emails in this series. And if you know someone who would like to receive these emails, please let me know.
Cheers, Bill
