Energy Independence, Part 2

As we’ve been often reminded, at times of crisis we should be prepared to make sacrifices. We get the same pitch when the interests of national security are at stake. Well, we’re in a crisis now, and it’s more than a national security issue.

As a first step toward energy independence, a responsible administration should launch a credible public education campaign. Not propaganda, but real science, real facts. Oil company PR machines should be silenced. The public must be made to believe that energy independence is crucial not only for a stable economy but for peace. Why? Because it’s true. It’s not a political position. The crisis transcends parties, and our elected officials must come to terms with that.

The public must be prepared for what will be expected of it — and the elected leadership must admit that mistakes have been made in the past. There must be no doubt in the minds of the people that the measures that need to be taken to achieve energy independence are required to preserve our democracy and to forestall any possible climatic catastrophe. And, too, the public must be convinced that the path to energy independence will not cost jobs or damage the economy but in the long run create jobs — good jobs — and, in the long run, strengthen the economy.

Finally, the public must be convinced that regardless of the price of oil, no matter how low it might dip, it must get with the program because 1) even if suppliers were forced to lower prices we will still run out of oil eventually; 2) global warming is real, and lives and property are at stake, never mind the planet as we know it; and 3) a stable oil supply really is a motive to wage war.

Is the current administration capable of undertaking this first step and the series of steps that would necessarily follow? I think not. Even if Democrats regain the majority in both houses of Congress, it would still fall to the President to provide the leadership necessary to embark upon such a comprehensive and bold program. It would require unprecedented cooperation between Congress and the Executive Branch of governments — and it would require a Supreme Court that would uphold the will of the people in the face of challenges from businesses that would surely follow.

Stay tuned.

An Energy-Independence Plan, in Brief

Gas prices approaching $3.00 a gallon again are a bitter reminder of our dependence on oil from the Middle East. But it’s not just the gas that’s taking a big bite out of our budgets — it’s other costs related to rising oil prices as well. The agriculture industry is heavily dependent on oil — for fuel to operate farm machinery, for the chemicals used in fertilizers — and those costs are reflected in the prices we’re now paying in the grocery store. So are the costs of fuel required to ship produce and meat products in our industrialized agricultural system.

As unaffordable as gas is becoming, global warming is a far more urgent, if seemingly less immediate, reason to find other ways to power our economy. True, we may be experiencing manifestations of global warming right now as climate patterns seem to shift and storms become more intense, but the longe-range prospect of rising sea levels that will overwash Gulf and Atlantic coast regions of the United States exempt most people now living of that particular danger.

The world’s supply of oil is not inexhaustible, yet at times we act as if it were. What’s worse, most of the world’s crude oil reserves are in regions and countries that are either volatile or unstable, or hostile to the United States. There’s been some lip service paid recently to the idea of energy independence, but it’s mostly PR intended to jazz up the dismal environmental reputation of the Bush administration and its conservative allies in Congress. A Manhattan Project for alternative energy would be big news, and this crowd isn’t making that kind of news.

The news itself might have an immediate effect — if it could be taken seriously. If the oil-producing countries were convinced that the United States was serious about independence from oil, I think gas prices would drop dramatically very quickly. But while that would be a good thing for our pocketbooks, it might have the unintended effect of eliminating the necessary sense of urgency from the public consciousness. And this kind of Manhattan Project needs public support and political support.

Which brings me to my plan. Stay tuned to this blog.

It’s the Oil, Stupid

Almost everything in the world is about oil, the black goo that we rely on for everything from gasoline to plastics. Oil supplies are diminishing, and too much of what’s left is in places that we’ve managed to alienate and destabilize. And the reason we’ve alienated and destabilize them? The oil.

At the risk of seeming redundant, there are more alternative sources of energy than we can shake a stick at. And you can’t say we didn’t see this coming, because as long ago as the 1970s wiser people than now in power were raising the alarm and pushing for exploration of those alternatives. But over the years since, powerful people a lot less wise have stood in the way of energy progress. Why? Because of the oil, and because of the ties between those people and the oil industry. The world is like an old cow, and they want to milk every last drop of oil from its udders at ever-higher profits. It’s social security for the very wealthy.

Let me remind you of the renewable sources of fuels: corn, sawgrass, hemp, human sewage and animal waste (that’s right — poop), among others. Let me remind you about non-polluting renewable sources of energy: solar, wind, tidal, among others. These are all well-established technologies that lack only some gutsy support from the political side. Then there’s the tempting new technologies like hydrogen fuel cells.

If we’d have pushed ahead with a serious, diverse energy program back when the Arab oil embargo ended in the 1970s, we’d be there now — independent of foreign oil, maybe even of oil itself. There would be no wars in the Middle East. There would be no need. We could leave those people alone, to sort out their own differences. And they would have no grievances against us. 9/11 probably would never have happened. We would be secure. We could have afforded good schools and decent health care for everyone. We could have rebuilt the infrastructure. We could have a good country that everyone admired.

But, no… it was the oil. And, it still is.

A Greener Greenland?

Scientists are now reporting that thanks to global warming the ice that covers most of Greenland is melting more rapidly than previously believed. According to the report, the sea level would rise about 23 feet if the entire ice sheet were to melt. Now, it might take a couple of hundred years for this to happen, so it’s not something we would see in our lifetimes.

But where Nature is concerned, it’s impossible to be sure of anything. Would it happen faster if atmospheric warming increased at a faster rate? And what about when the melt of Arctic and Antarctic ice are taken into account?

The atmosphere is a complex mix of gases. As the level of carbon dioxide in that mix has increased, I’ve wondered if there’s a point of no return — that is, a point at which it would be impossible to begin to reverse that trend. Which is why I must now consider the possibility that President Bush’s own reversal on alternative energy may be too little too late. I can’t help but remember that since the early 1970s and the beginnings of the environmental movement it’s been mostly conservative Republicans who’ve rejected the kinds of policy changes that might have avoided the catastrophe we may now be facing. When NASA’s James Hansen explained the greenhouse effect and warned of the threat of global warming in 1988, he was pretty much ridiculed. He’s since been vindicated of course, but maybe it’s too late.

A Greener Bush?

George Bush surprised everyone when he talked about alternate sources of energy in his State of the Union address last month. He surprised me when he mentioned sawgrass as a source for the production of ethanol — surprised me because I’d just heard a story about sawgrass on Living On Earth a few days before. According to insiders, though, the paragraphs about independence from oil were inserted at the last minute. A coincidence? Or is someone at the White House listening to NPR. Naturally most listening to the speech were startled by what can only be described as a turn-around by a very conservative Republican president, since it’s been Republicans who’ve been the obstacle to almost every environmental reform since Jimmy Carter left office.

I doubt if many people recall that it was Carter who tried to get the ball rolling toward the kind of energy independence Bush mentioned in that speech. It was in 1979 that Carter made legislative recommendations to Congress for a new solar strategy that would pave the way toward energy independence. “By the end of this century,” he said, “I want our Nation to derive 20 percent of all the energy we use from the sun — direct solar energy in radiation and also renewable forms of energy derived more indirectly from the sun.” Symbolic of his belief in solar power, Carter had a solar water heater installed on the White House roof. After Ronald Reagan took over occupancy of the White House, he had the water heater removed, ostensibly because it wasn’t cost efficient. Whether or not it was is immaterial — it was a symbol, an example for the rest of us. The example Reagan set when he removed the device was a bad one, and it solidified the anti-environmental attitude that has dominated Republican thinking since.