Triage...
1 a: the sorting of and allocation of treatment to patients and especially battle and disaster victims according to a system of priorities designed to maximize the number of survivors b: the sorting of patients (as in an emergency room) according to the urgency of their need for care
2: the assigning of priority order to projects on the basis of where funds and other resources can be best used, are most needed, or are most likely to achieve success
I put this definition here because of John Fleck's article in the Journal today about artificial trees that might be effective in cleaning CO2 from the atmosphere. Some people think we should just stop putting green house gases there in the first place so we don't need the artificial trees, but frankly we may be getting to a point where triage is necessary.
This is why I keep telling all of my friends in the public land protection groups that we have to be very careful about how we react to new renewable power transmission lines. Yes, we must be very careful about their placement in sensitive and protective areas, but in some cases it may be necessary to help site these facilities where not everyone would be in agreement.
The real message here is that we are approaching a real triage dilemma in trying to stave off climate change and we wont all be happy with the alternatives that we are presented with.
1 comment:
The thing about transmission lines is, we shouldn't need them. Generation of electricity should be de-cenralized. Everyone should be doing what you're doing, putting in rooftop solar. If the subsidies that are going to energy companies now were redirected into consumer programs to reduce the cost of Roof-Top SPV, there would be no need for additional transmission lines. If residential electricity use was removed from the existing lines, they would support the current industrial use. But, PNM and others would lose revenue, so that will never happen.
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