UCLouvain / Chemical Engineering
The translation of this testimony was generated automatically by a translation program. Thanks for your understanding.
My expertise is on membrane technology, which I am using to capture carbon dioxide from flue gases and to recovery it in the form of pure (bi)carbonate crystals. My objective is to develop a process that can avoid new emissions to the atmosphere and reduce the use of raw materials. My main concern is the stress that technology developers are facing in order to ‘solve’ the problem. Technology cannot make miracles and a positive impact will be never achieved without a global transformation of the way we think we have/need to live. All current actions are going through ‘doing more with less’. I believe that we have to ‘do less with less’.
In my life, I have started to go through this transformation. My main personal actions for the moment are:
- NOT to use the car. Using the car is Killing any kind of environmental improvement. I use the bike and the train. When I have to use the car, I feel that the day started in the wrong way.
- To reuse and repare as much as possible. If Something is broken, I repair it, and use it again and again.
- To buy less things (sometimes it is a challenge, considering that I have small children – 2 and 4 years – and there are beautiful things everywhere! too much consumption stress)
- To educate my children and show them a better life style that I had/have.
-To be tolerant with everybody.,
The main difficulty that I found was related to avoiding the use of the car. It takes me one hour by train to get to my job, plus the cycling time to go to the station. Being in the train is working time for me but it may not be seen like that by everybody. In addition, due to family constrains (school schedules mainly), sometimes I need the car to be on time for a meeting or teaching my classes.
We need transformation, and the role of politicians is essential to address people in the right direction. However, they do not know the right direction theirselves and still, demonstrations (even led by children!) are needed to wake up many people. Investment in green cities and public transport is essential. Using the car should have a strong financial penalty somewhere. Only the people that have a physical limitation should be allowed to use the car.
Originally posted 2018-04-30 21:08:27.