I have zero problems with climate science and the research, studies and measurements made by climate scientists, as well as their conclusion that we are in an almost catastrophic man-made climate crisis that's soon approaching (probably in the next 50 or so years).
However, I do have a problem with many of the measures (and non-measures) taken especially by several western countries in order to combat this crisis and reduce human-produced harmful emissions.
This is because many of these measures consist of severely hindering local production of food and goods, by putting sometimes extreme restrictions on them, making the price of locally produced food skyrocket and putting many local farmers and local businesses out of business. That, all in itself, would be bad enough. However, the worst part about it is that hindering so severely local work only causes the demand for cheap products from abroad to likewise skyrocket.
And the problem is that most of these other countries that produce stuff cheaply have zero interest in reducing pollution. This almost exclusively means China. An astonishing amount of products, including food products, are manufactured in China, where environmentalism is completely non-existent. The amount of emissions in China increase every year more than the entire total yearly emissions of most European countries. (In other words, even if an European country were to completely stop all harmful emissions today, it would make very little difference because China will increase its own emissions by more than that in less than a year.)
Many of the more conservative politicians in several European countries are trying to bring attention to this exact problem. In other words, the climate problems are real, but what Europe is doing to combat it doesn't help one iota, and is only destroying the local economy, putting people out of business, and only increasing demand for products from countries that don't care about environmentalism, which means that all these measures to combat climate change are only making things worse, not better. Ironically, it would be better for the environment for Europe to change nothing than it is for it to continue the path it's taking in this regard.
There are, however, some measures that (sometimes perhaps serendipitously) are helping reducing emissions.
For example Finland started to build its fifth nuclear reactor, "Olkiluoto 3", in 2005. It suffered from extreme delays and went hugely over the budget, but it was finally finished in 2023 (originally it was intended to be finished in 2009, that's how much it was delayed). At 1600 MW it's the biggest nuclear reactor in Europe, and the second biggest in the entire world.
Serendipitously, Finland is reaching its internationally agreed goals of emission reduction thanks to this nuclear reactor. One of the very few European countries who are managing to do so. The nuclear reactor is so effective at reducing pollution and dependency on foreign energy that, incredibly, even the Finnish branch of Greenpeace has switched their attitude towards it, and are now in support of it, even though they actively opposed it for like 20 years.
On top of that, Finland has the highest standards of nuclear waste management in the entire world, with extremely meticulous and safe plans to manage all of its nuclear waste in a safe and non-polluting manner.
This is in direct contrast to eg. Germany which has been on a decades-long path to get completely rid of nuclear energy. Ironically, Germany has some of the highest emissions among all European countries, and it's only getting worse and worse by the year. Germany is most definitely not reaching its agreed-on goals for reduction of emissions. Not by a long shot. They are, of course, replacing all that nuclear power with, what do you know, coal power plants and imported energy (which is itself mostly produced by coal plants). Renewable energy production is still but a small fraction of all the energy consumed in Germany.
To this day it's still a complete mystery to me why Germany has done this.
However, this blog post isn't actually about nuclear energy. In other words, what I'm referring to in the title of this post isn't nuclear power plants.
Do you know what it is? District heating.
District heating is in very common use almost exclusively in the Northern Countries, and in a few cities elsewhere in the world. It's the idea of heating households (especially those in colder climates) by pumping hot water through large insulated water pipes to each household, where it goes through water radiators, which warms up the domiciles really effectively.
"Ok, but how exactly do you heat the water without causing emissions?" And that's the brilliance of it: The vast majority of this heating is the byproduct of normal energy production! Most power plants (regardless of which type they are) produce enormous amounts of heat that normally just goes to waste. District heating, for the most part, takes advantage of this extra waste heat in order to heat water, which is then transported via the water pipes to heat up domiciles. When well implemented, it doesn't increase emissions in any significant manner.
District heating is, BY FAR, the most energy-efficient and least-polluting way of heating up enormous amounts of domiciles (tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands). There is no other form of heating that would beat it in terms of energy efficiency, lack of emissions, and number of domiciles heated. (A ground source heat pump might be even more energy efficient and producing even less emissions, but its problem is that it can only heat up one household, and can only be installed in certain parts of the land. Trying to heat up the equivalent amount of domiciles using that technology is pretty much impossible.)
Do you know what's most incredible about district heating?
The fact that outside of the Nordic Countries almost nobody has ever even heard of such a thing existing! I have talked about the subject with many people all over the world, and almost nobody has ever even heard of such a technology before (it's not just that the term "district heating" is unknown to them, but the very idea of how it works. They have never even heard of such a thing!)
This even though it is, BY FAR, the most efficient and least polluting way of heating enormous amounts of households, especially in cities.
That is what European and other countries should be investing in, not in stupid paper straws and hindering local farmers and small businesses. That would be an enormously efficient way to reduce emissions.
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