So, I thought that I should bump this and get the attention everyone so I will outline my case first along with a team line and then hope discussion goes from there.
So the teamline I'll be using is a sustainable society today is a sustainable society tomorrow.
My first argument is about sustainability of the environment. Practically, the environment itself is being harmed; we're affecting the climate in an adverse way, we are destroying ecosystems with our CO2 emissions and the waste and undeniably, we are killing the environment. It's evidence in the fact that our oceans, lakes and seas, coast to coast, are being poisoned. It's evidence in the fact that noxious chemicals are leaking from our disposal. It's evidence in the fact that atomic waste is being disposed of and will survive for thousands of years. This is a problem that causes irreparable damage. We only have one Earth, and what we can see is that soon we'll have no Earth.
Principally, we see another problem with allowing this to happen. Our society and our government preach green, and yet we never follow through with these green techniques. We think that a fundamental reason this is occurring is because of fears of damage to our economy. I'll outline two different examples where we can see this happening; firstly, the examples of GM, Chrysler and Ford. We can see undoubtedly their industries will be effected by this, and we can see that right now they are providing cars that consume fossil fuels that are harmful to society. Secondly, the example of offshore drilling specifically pertaining to Canada, with it currently still not being banned. Now, why can they get away scotch-free? We see because they cause so much harm to society, there is no reason but the fact they are big corporations that employ many people. The government is setting this double standard for these companies and not fulfilling their role to society. They are enforcing laws and punishments for other industries that employ less people and we believe that this sets a dangerous moral precedent that gives these big corporations overwhelming power, and we would say that the government is being very short-sighted and looking at these needs right now but are not understanding the damage that is being caused is irreparable.
Secondly, we would say that fossil fuels as a source of our energy is both unsustainable and not to be depended on. We know that fossil fuels as a resource have a limit, and will eventually run out. When that occurs, we won't have any more fuel to use, and will be stuck in a dilemma where we will essentially run out of options because of a lack of infrastructure invested in renewable energy. We would say that, looking in the long run, we have to make the change to renewable energy sources right now before that time eventually will come. And we think that day will come very soon. We see that right now oil consumption is increasing, and we think that it's for a variety of reasons; we would say it's caused by two major issues however, population growth and an over dependence on oil right now. While production is increasing with demand, at some point, we will reach peak oil where we our production reaches it's full capacity and then goes back down.
Another issue we can see with dependance on foreign oil. We would say that right now, we don't have true energy sovereignty. We're very dependent on receiving oil from other countries and we think that it would be much better to not have to rely on situations out of our control. To gain true energy independence, we have to be able to have a resource that is both reliable and permanent and we think that renewable energy sources provide that for us. We see that oil provides a rising price, with the supply of oil being monopolized by OPEC and we would much prefer to be able to be dependent on ourselves than unstable countries.
Lastly, we would say that in the long run, to sustain an economy we have to be able to have a sustainable resource. We would say in the long run, in the energy market, we have to invest in renewable energy at some point to be able to support it. We would say that gas is both ineffective for consumers and companies in the long run. For the consumer, gas prices are so greatly rising that it's becoming very economically straining on the consumer. By the law of stock and demand, when we do reach peak oil as mentioned before, the prices of gas prices will continue to increase to ridiculous prices. For the companies, we think that when their supply has started to gradually decline after peaking, they're going to have a very unsustainable business. We think that their business would start in fact losing money due to the deterrent that the high prices to the purchase of oil will be to society and furthermore we think that they'll soon enough reach a point where all oil companies will be nationalized and will be kept for their own countries. We would say that policy as it is now seems to really forget about these long term effects and how unsustainable the business of fossil fuels will continue to be and we would say that this would be a very bad thing that would kill the energy sector within Canada, the US and other developed and undeveloped nations. We think that it's a gamble to simply think that the economy for fossil fuels to look up and we would much rather prefer do the smart thing and provide a safe economy not only for the economy but for tax payers as well.
