Green Energy

Thomas L. Friedman compares Denmark's and the United States' oil dependence in his book "Hot, Flat and Crowded":

"We decided we had to become less dependent on oil," Connie Hedegaard, Denmark's minister for climate and energy, explained to me. "We had a huge debate on nuclear, but in 1985 we decided against it. We decided to go instead for energy efficiency and renewable energy. We decided to use taxation, so energy was made relatively expensive and [therefore] people had an incentive to save and do things in their homes to make them more efficient... It was a result of political will."

"In 1973 we got 99 percent of our energy from the Middle East," said Hedegaard. "Today it is zero." I know: Denmark's a small country and it is a lot easier to make change there than across a huge economy like ours. Nevertheless, it's hard to look at Denmark and not see the road not taken.

 Here we can see how some countries like Denmark have the initiative to at least try to become less dependent on oil by using other resources and taxing CO2 producers, leading to a decrease in CO2 emissions. I was also very surprised when I read about how Denmark handled to keep flat the energy consumption after 1981 and the economy has grown 70% since then. This shows that we don't really need the "fuels from hell" to be a succesful country. I think it is kind of ridiculous that with all the technology we have nowadays we haven't find a way to stop using fossil fuels for good. I just hope that day comes soon.