UN chief came out yesterday to say fossil fuel majors treat atmosphere like ‘open sewer’. Antonio Guterres slammed the energy industry at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. ‘Those who polluted the most, and profited the most, must do far more to repair the damage they caused,’ he urged. This reminds me of the climate change movement and its ineffectiveness if not failure.
Climate Change has been a big word frequently cited by media and institutions through the world in the last few decades. Greta Thunberg, a Swedish environmental activist had sparked the global “Fridays for Future” movement in 2018. Thunberg first became aware of climate change in 2011 and, by age 15, decided to take direct action. She began sitting outside the Swedish Parliament every Friday until the general election, holding a sign reading “Skolstrejk för klimatet” (“School strike for the climate”). Greta missed school to protest against climate change may not be appropriate, because climate change issue may not be able to be tackled by protest only, in-depth research and technology innovation are Indispensable which would demands much schooling for her to be effective activists.
There had been climate changes through history. That has been part of nature. Ancient people had to adopt the changes by move their dwelling place, change their life style, and living means. For example, during the time of Justinian the Great (484-565 CE) coincided with one of the most severe climate disruptions in the last two millennia — the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA), triggered by multiple volcanic eruptions and reduced solar activity. Together with the climate change, there were devastating plagues. Justinian was brought to Constantinople by his uncle Justin I and received well education in jurisprudence, theology, and Roman history, and became the sole ruler as Byzantine emperor after Justin’s death on 1 August 527. ( by the way, He passed laws to protect prostitutes from exploitation and women from being forced into prostitution. Rapists were treated severely. Further, by his policies: women charged with major crimes should be guarded by other women to prevent sexual abuse; if a woman was widowed, her dowry should be returned; and a husband could not take on a major debt without his wife giving her consent twice. )
Back to the climate change in the physical level, I do not know enough about science and technology to speak in depth of car emission mechanism. But from what I briefly know about, climate change of our age which is used as a reason to use electric car, as for example, Tesla cars, are not preventing fossil pollution because the technology (lithium-ion batteries) used to produce battery is causing even more pollutions. That is the reason I call the “climate change initiative a bullshit. The EV tax credits, first introduced in 2008 and extended under the Inflation Reduction Act until 2032, was based on the climate change for green energy initiative. Trump administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” terminated the program seven years earlier than planned, removing the $7,500 tax credit for new EVs and $4,000 for used EVs.
There are actually a technology that can potentially curtail car emissions very effectively, but that would would quite expensive to implement. It is called Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology (Fuel Cell Vehicles or FCVs), exemplified by vehicles like the Toyota Mirai – as an alternative to conventional lithium-ion batteries. Japan had heavily invested in this technology. Another notable, albeit controversial, non-battery energy conversion technology heavily publicized out of Japan was the water-based energy generator (or water fuel cell system) introduced by the company Genepax, which claimed to extract hydrogen from water on-demand to power an electric motor without recaring. If we are truly supporting green energy initiative, the tax benefits should be applied to true technology that do the job, not in the name of it.