Everyone knows what it’s like to love chocolate.

First you buy a bar. Then you promise yourself that you’ll only have one piece. Within 15 minutes you have to make another promise not to take more than three pieces. Eventually you’ve eaten the whole bar.

This is how it goes with the climate change too. Modern technology has developed some ways to prevent us polluting. Those are like chocolate bars for us. They only make us consume more.

The first solution is nuclear power. It doesn’t generate carbon dioxide so our politicians here in Finland think that we can build three more stations (having eight in total) just to have enough electricity. After we’ve built those three more stations we’ll probably build few more so that we don’t have to think about reducing consuming.

The second solution is incineration. It’s quite handy way to get rid of most of the waste we leave behind. However, here in Finland we’re planning to build so many incinerators that we have reached overcapacity. An incinerator is a long-time investment. You can effectively use it for 20-30 years. Overcapacity means you actually need MORE and MORE waste to keep the incinerators in use. That doesn’t sound very clever, does it?

The third solution is storing carbon dioxide below ground. The scientists estimate that it’s a safe way to get rid of most of the carbon dioxide we produce. But what then? Do we begin to consume more and more when we have finally found a way how we can forget the harmful greenhouse gases?

The climate change would be already stopped if man could say no to temptations. Unfortunately, we can’t yet resist even a chocolate bar.

Kirjoitus on osa Th!nk about it -projektia. The blog entry is part of the Th!nk about it project.