Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green

Wired Magazine has an article on some things they would like greens to rethink.

The real no-brainer is: don't buy a Prius, get an efficient used car instead. Hybrid car batteries incur large environmental costs for the extraction and processing of nickel and cadmium. It's better for the planet to get an efficient car and drive it for over 100,000 miles (160,000 km).

They also remind us that cap and trade schemes are more complex, and will not work as well as, a simple carbon tax. Of course, utilities, mining, and manufacturing companies would bitterly oppose a carbon tax.

More controversially, the authors would like us to reconsider genetically engineered crops made by firms such as Monsanto. I'm actually neutral on GM crops, but they raise human rights concerns in developing countries. I'll try to highlight some of the concerns around Monsanto's engineered, sterile crops in a later article.

Additionally, the authors would like us to accept nuclear power. They make the case that nuclear power generates zero greenhouse gases in operation. Of course there would be emissions and environmental concerns in extraction of uranium or thorium, which are nuclear fuels, and there are concerns over storage and safekeeping of nuclear waste, and reactor safety. Many of these concerns are addressable. However, it should be noted that Yucca Mountain, the presently identified deep geological waste repository in Nevada, is in severe conflict with indigenous peoples rights (specifically, the Western Shoshone peoples).