Maria Erika

This morning on my way to work I heard this really intresting show about the enviroment and energy on the swedish radio p3, with a proffessor called Pål Börjesson.

The main subject of the show was how we as consummers affect the enviroment but also they talked about the energy industry in other countries and the affect of that.

 

One of the most expanding energy industry in the states is the Fracking where we injecting a big amount of water and chemicals into the ground to make it explose and there after extracting the natural gas. This controversial method will have a huge impact of coming generations, because this might polluted the groundwater. A really good website that explains everything is http://www.dangersoffracking.com/ and is very easy to understand.

So why are the states using this method to get energy? The proffessor tells us it because of they want to get independent over their energy industry. Before the states was an importer of gas now they are an exporter. This way they get more security in their energy market and don't need to import from countries in the middle east which they have some conflicts with.

Even in Europe we have this resourses of natural gas. Both in Poland and in France, but in France they have forbidden the Fracking just because it affects so many generations. It must also be added that it was stricter naturelaws against fracking before in the states. But reacently they have changed.

 

Another country that is often mentioned in this kind of context is China, and it is a reason of that. China is the world leadning country in consumming energy and 2/3of their consumption is coal energy. So China often pointed out when talking about the global warming. But we have to keep in mind that they are also the leading country in development of renewable energy.

 

Speaking of renewable energy. Here in sweden we have reduced our carbon with 20% on 20years which makes us to a "rolemodel", or does it? As Pål Börjesson points out, We may have reduce our direct energy using as cars, lights ect. BUT! and here comes the best part. We have increased our indirect energy use, which means that every product we but and use, or when we go away on holiday we use energy that are created in other countries. For example we move our making industries of clothes to Thailand, they will use mabe coal energy to make the clothes to later on send them back here in Sweden so we can buy them. The products we buy that are made in other countries may be created by "bad" energy as the coal or natural gas. So will we still be a "rolemodel" for other countries. We may have reduced our direct use of energy with 20% but we have increased our indirect use by more than 15% so that means that we are kind of on the same place as 20years ago.

 As consumers we have to have in mind that when we buy a phone that are made in china for example the changes that it's produced with coal energy is high. So what we should do is to put pressure on our politiciens to ask for stricter rules when it comes to energy choice.

 

This made an huge impact on me and I hope it gave you something aswell

If you have any comments or thoughts please share them.