Energy Independence, Part 5

We expend energy to do work. That’s sort of a principle of physics. When an automobile engine burns gasoline, the idea is to move one or more persons from one place to another in a car. But when the car sits in traffic, engine idling, energy is being expended without accomplishing work. It’s wasted. Yet we’re addicted to our automobiles for several reasons. One, for that so-called sense of freedom. Another, because there aren’t always alternatives. And even when there are alternatives, many people still choose their cars.

For too long, support for public transportation in many areas has been grudging. Often decent mass-transit systems are impractical, simply because of the nature of our sprawling growth. Populations are no longer concentrated in a way that can be well served by bus and light rail systems. And if it’s impractical in many suburban areas, it’s certainly even less practical in rural sections of the country.

But where it is practical, public transportation should be expanded and made even more attractive an alternative to automobiles. And future planning should make public transit a high priority for communities of the future.

When public transportation does exist though, how can it be made more appealing than the private auto? One way is to make it cheaper to take a train or bus than to drive a car. If this means subsidies (and it surely will), so what. Another way is to make it far-reaching and timely. If people spend less time getting to their destination on a bus or train than they would in their car, they might be more inclined to regularly choose that option. Getting more people out of cars and into public transportation in cities and densely populated suburban areas would go a long way toward reducing greenhouse gases and energy consumption.

Once again though, it requires leadership at the top to get people behind public transportation. Right now we don’t have that kind of leadership. And once again, it requires the kind of leadership willing to fund public-transit alternatives. It might be expensive, but it’s a step that needs to be taken if we’re going to become energy independent and slow the rate of global warming.

Energy Independence, Part 4

Why are campaign and election reform crucial to gaining energy independence? Why would it be necessary to curtail common lobbying practices to gain energy independence?

Deep pockets buy elections, and deep pockets secure a political point of view. The people as a whole do not have the opportunity to dig into deep pockets in order to “buy” candidates and legislation that is in their best interests. Which is why we are usually left with elected officials who put the interests of large corporations ahead of the people. And it’s not about jobs or a strong economy — it’s about profits.

Once, during a confrontation between loggers and environmentalists in the Northwest, protestors displayed a banner that read, “There are no jobs on a dead planet.” How true that is. Yet when corporations balk at the thought of having rules forced upon them for environmental reasons, they raise the issues of job loss and a weakened economy — a scare tactic designed to sway public opinion against environmentalism.

These same kinds of corporations habitually fund the campaigns of candidates they believe will support their line of thinking, and engage in costly lobbying tactics to further influence these candidates once they are elected. But it should be clear to everyone by now that these practices have brought the planet to the brink of environmental disaster, that they have made us the target of terrorist attacks, and that they have forced us to become so dependent on oil that we’ve gone to war to stabilize its sources.

Only when environmentally conscious candidates are given a level playing field, and once elected they are able to support legislation that would be in the public interest, will we be able to properly attack the problems that beset us now.

But it still depends on having the right president in office, because only the president can command an audience wide enough to have any effect on the kind of public thinking that would allow this to happen in the first place.

Energy Independence, Part 3

A public education program must be thorough and persuasive. It must begin with the reasons for energy independence in the first place. It must candidly inform the public about the very real phenomenon of global warming, and the growing body of evidence that supports the views that the planet’s climate is changing. It must also, again candidly, explain that the energy policy of the past has affected our foreign policy which, in turn, has fostered sufficient hatred of the United State to have made us the target of terrorism. Our dependence on oil has literally cost innocent American lives.

But it’s not enough to tell the American people what’s wrong. Americans must also be told how to fix it. They must be told that the emerging fuel cell technology, about which President Bush spoke briefly in his State-of-the-Union address, receives far more serious attention — and public research dollars — in Europe and Japan than in the US. Will we have to import that too?

If all of the following recommendations are pursued, energy independence is achievable. And during the education phase of the program, the public must be persuaded that such steps are necessary and doable. The public must also be told the whys and hows of each aspect of the entire program. Finally, all aspects must be undertaken simultaneously.

1) Public transportation must be expanded, and its use must be encouraged.
2) Stricter fuel efficiency standards must be adopted for all vehicles using current combustion-engine technology. Manufacturers must be discouraged from manufacturing vehicles that consume an unreasonable amount of fuel. In other words, no more Humvees.
3) Hybrid vehicles must be promoted, and their purchase price must be more attractive than standard vehicles.
4) Fuel cell technology research must be accelerated, and subsidized.
5) Solar energy technology research must be accelerated, and subsidized.
6) Other alternative sources of energy, such as wind, tidal and geothermal, must be further explored and subsidized.
7) Industrial hemp must be legalized in the US, and its potential must be explored and fulfilled.
8) Election reform (believe it or not) and an end to lobbying practices, so elected leaders will be beholden only to the people of the United States, and not to the corporations that now control the process of government.

And where will the money come from for all the subsidized research? The Federal Government, of course, by way of increased taxes only on those who can afford it — on those whose wealth has come at the expense of planetary health, at the expense of the young, innocent lives lost in an irrational defense of oil sources. With courageous leadership, energy independence can be achieved.

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.