An Inconvenient Conversation

I have to be honest, I was not looking forward to having this conversation with my mother. To put it easiest, we do not see eye to eye on many political or sociological happenings. I was also not sure what we would be able to discuss without getting into an argument, we both happen to be very passionate about what we believe. So from the list of prompts we both decided to discuss prompt three. This prompt was “How can we provide the energy we need while maintaining ecological balance?”.

For my view point on this subject, it has been one that has changed little in the last couple of years. Energy sources should try and be as ecologically safe as possible. The reason behind this is that we can always develop new energy sources, but we cannot redevelop what is destroyed by current energy sources due to negligence. My examples a definitely not few and far between, they range from the Alaskan Oil line failure, to just a couple of years ago the Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill. My mother believe that on those standpoint our country needs the energy created by deep sea drilling and that although she would like it to be monitored more closely, to avoid spills that it is a good ecological source of energy. I am whole heartily against deep sea drilling until regulations are completely remade to be stricter and more in debt.

My moms view point on this question is that it all revolves around economics, to make the energy source cheaply so that everyone has access to it. I responded with the question that what if energy can be created cheaply but cause an ecological disaster. Her response was that we have to start up the economy first before we can create new sources. Also that the energy needs to be able to be recycled, such as being able to bring water through a hydro dam multiple time, or making a fountain a source of energy. Trying to look at things we use every day, such as plastics, that could be transformed into clean and green energy. I listened to these things and I do agree, but there is still a part of me that holds back. While I agree in what my mother says I do not agree with how she wants to get there. To be able to have the type of economy that would be able to sustain this type of energy research, firstly you would have to continue the energy sources that are already going which are not ecological. This means that more damage will be done to the environment than is being done now.