The panel cleared up a lot of the confusions I had with environmental concerns, a topic seemingly so broad that it’s difficult to come up with a starting talking point in any discussion. Discourse is mostly summarized by the sentiment “global warning is a Bad Thing” and is never laid out in detail about other forms of energy or other sides of the debate about nonrenewable/renewable energy and nonwestern/western policies. Environmental concerns are more than worrying about fossil fuels, but about the effects of all energy consumption, in forms of costs and health. We talked about nuclear energy, and the gray areas of its benefits and disadvantages, and didn’t come to a concrete side. I didn’t know there was a potential of nuclear energy to be renewable (in its waste), and I wasn’t aware of the regulations that go along with each national nuclear energy processes, that also make it more difficult to use and improve.

A really interesting point that was brought up was the issue of capitalism and the natural push towards deregulation of industries, which has lead and is leading to more issues with energy (e.g fracking). Republicans push for the “free market”, to let the market run itself, but economic studies have shown that the free market only works in some instances, it is not in fact the rule.

I appreciated that the three professors admitted to the gray area of environmental policy, that there aren’t definite answers to whether or not renewable or nonrenewable sources of energy are better than others, it’s all about weighing the pros and cons for individual cases, which, like most issues, are subjective.