Paradigm Shift in Driving and the Migration to Renewable Energy
I started to write a blog post on this subject: how our appreciation for clean energy will cause a shift in our relationships with the cars we drive. Then I decided to make short video out of the concept. I hope it’s of some value.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfS5oSR54r4&w=425&h=344]
“We don’t use fur anymore”..No, we buy synthetic plastic clothes instead, which cost a lot more than killing and skinning an animal (a renewable resource), and let us think that we are being “humane” as we destroy the earth and invade countries with brown-skinned people to make money to buy petroleum products instead of just staying home, raising some animals on the land and making our own clothes.
Painting the system green isn’t going to turn humans into better people. The worst thing we do is already green: printing money and living according to those little green pieces of paper.
The “cruelty” of animal fur is not in the use of the fur: it’s the money involved in the process.
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to sell the fish, and the oceans boil with propellers.”
Craig,
I live in an area of the west where mink ranching was popular I say was because the numbers of ranches dropped a decade ago but there are still some around and they enjoy the lack of competition. There are still folks who wear fur though today it is hard to tell the real fur from the fake. That being said I drive a restored 1987 BMW325is because it is comfortable to do so, I also drive a 1975 jeep cj because I belong to a Search and Rescue unit and need that piece of equipment. In saying that I’ve proved your point that we need to look at transportation as utilitarian but Americans are obsessed with their vehicles if only because they spend so much time in them either for transportation to work of recreation simply because America is so big and our recreation locations are not located where we live. The ideal scenario would be to live near our work and provide open space for recreation in that scenario we could develop a utilitarian attitude toward our vehicles but as long as America has National Parks, Wilderness areas, National monuments that require a mode of transportation to access Americans will insist on doing so in comfort with the security that comes from not rubbing shoulders with strangers. Granted we some times need to use those methods to move us long distances like the rail system and the airlines but its the shorter leisurely destinations where we insist on being individuals seeking personal experiences and recreation opportunity where an electric mode ties us to a charging location would be very inconvenient. The hybrids will do well but not purely electric transportation. There is also the phenomena motorized technology has created (much like those who insist on recreating via manpower), many forms of recreation like snowmobiling, ATV/OHV riding has become not a mode to get from here to there but the ride its self is the attraction; the mode is the fun part. Until such a time that our freedoms are taken away concerning our recreation and individuality I don’t think Americans will voluntarily give up traveling is a for of recreation and doing so in relative comfort and security without time lines and schedules.
Garth
You really need to gather facts before coming up with your theories. There is no paradigm shift of American consumers in terms of “green” level. Surveys indicate only 5 to 6% of American consumers make behavior changes due to true “green-evironmental” reasons (e.g. Prius owners). Survey trend in past year show much LESS concern over global warming and environmental issues. The shift in American buying behavior toward smaller cars was driven by economics & demographics (high gas prices, gas price volatility, deep recession, more empty nesters who do not need large vehicles, mass retirement wave, and others). The shift by auto manufacturers towards hybrids and EV’s is driven by forced regulations (Democratic & California soicalists & enviornmentalists) plus responding to consumer needs as noted above. Now that the Global Warming scam is coming to light (e.g. emails, no global warming in last 15 years, key leaders exiting, EPA law suits now filed, Gore now silent, etc.) future CO2 regulations should get scrapped as us humans learn the truth and facts. The “evil” R’s will gain power in November 2010 and hopefully in 2012 to stop the continued progressive solialsim that is attempting to kill capitalism and freedom. The massive spending and debt will limit both future prosperity and the ability to invest in clean energy technologies. To help we also need to do drill more oil locally, invest in nuclear power, and invest in clean alternative energy where it is factually proven to be “economical” (e.g. wind, hydro, etc.). Without these basic economic issues, American’s would buy many more large and luxury vehicles. A car is NOT a utilitarian tool…it is is much more to real people and there is nothing wrong with that. It is freedom…it is comfort…it is personality…it is safety…etc. We need to respect and appreciate FREEDOM and for people to have different values…including what kind of vehicle they drive and what kind of energy they buy.
Right on schedule! I can set my watch with your contrarian responses. Just kidding; you know your viewpoints are always welcome 🙂
Indeed, there needs to be a paradigm shift in driving, a shift from driving to high-speed rail.
As long as a resource is available in abundance it will be squandered by humanity. In the present day with peak availability of petroleum we are and will use it freely for what will appear to be frivolous reasons in the not too distant future. In a free society it is not possible to be organized and foresighted enough to use automobiles as strictly a utilitarian tool until it becomes too expensive to waste the resource.
A totalitarian society can be very efficient but that is not how things work in the USA. Our freedom may breed wastefulness by many but it also breeds creativity and inventiveness. As long as we can find new ways to harness new technologies we can keep one step ahead of the dark shadow of an energy famine. Within our wasteful culture we as individuals can educate those who choose to listen about a better way to live, with less emphasis on consumption
and material gratification. Notice that we left the fur coat era behind without having to pass laws. No carbon err fur tax was needed. (:>) L
Society seems to be drivin by what the public wants and or what the public is told they need through commercials. So many of the ads are saying we need to have the latest stuff and we aren’t cool unless we drive a new flashy car. Trojan ads show every guy a pig but the one with a condom made by trojan. This is a put down on men and I think we need to steer our society in a moralistic way rather than a show off race or a “you look bad if you don’t use our product” way of asdvertizing. Sorry for the weird comparison, but it is so easy to think of many influences as normal because they are what we live every day. Sometimes the outrageous is what can encourage us to take a look at things from a different angle. I drive a 94 metro that I converted to electric because I think polution is gonna cause us problems. Yes there is problems with electric, so it can be discounted, but when i get solar panels at least there wont be smog from power plants as well as the gas engine that I already took out of the car. The big question is: are people so caught up in power and look good that they don’t want to change for the sake of increasing the chances for our children to live where smog days are low and fishing and hunting trips are great? We live in a society that practices individualism instead of thinking about others, so I don’t think people in general will change because change is hard and we want is easy. I do like what you said about realizing that there is a better way. The corperations have the technology to propel us down the road by way of many different sources of energy, but other sources don’t bring in as much money as oil and buying a new car brings in. Watch “Who killed the electric car” and decide for yourself, but if you’re not willing to look at both sides then you might not be making the best decision. I’m aiming at what i think is best for me and you. It’s the harder way, but doesn’t hard work usually pay off?
Hi Craig,
You raise some very good points. Green is the mantra of consumers today, because it has to be. Oil is finite and man-created pollution, whether it causes the polar ice cap to shrink or not, has got to stop. There are more and more of us on this dirt ball we call home and we have to share this air. I personally think Al Gore is a casuist, but he did help to get people to “Go Green.” Anyway, I too see people shedding their “minks” for hybrids; but not fast enough. But it will happen. It HAS to happen.
Scott
Scott: Thanks for commenting. You sent me running to dictionary.com to look up a word I actually should have known: “casuist.” But is it necessarily a bad thing?
Don’t get me wrong, Craig. I want us to go green, but the “inventor of the Internet” beats a casuistic drum. That’s all; but that’s my opinion. Check out http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=64734 if you want to see an interesting article.
Best, Scott
Yeah, I’ve followed the debate at some level. You probably know that 0.1% of the 31,000 were climatologists, blah, blah, blah. As I conclude in my book, after interviewing many real people at the top of the investigation, I’m compelled by the GW theory. But in the end, it’s moot since there are so many other good reasons to get away from oil, coal, etc.
Right. We plan to get solar cells on our roof within a couple of years and our next car will be a hybrid or electric. We are for less pollution. So we try to do our part. Keep up the great site!
Thanks, Scott. Well, the beauty of this transition, it seems to me, is that no one suffers (except the traditional energy companies). Coincidentally, a post I’m writing just now speaks to that. Clean energy means millions of jobs, electric vehicles boast incredible performance, etc.
The paradigm shift is going very slowly. I own a 1981 Jet Electrica (escort) that was converted at birth to electric, It gets about 50 miles on a charge (30 to 40 is normal) and costs about a dollar to recharge. It will do normal freeway speeds but no AC. This is state of the art 1981 technology and we hadn’t progressed significantly past this point until recently. The changes are coming faster now (not fast enough but faster). Electric cars aren’t the only answer. Hybrid electric is also happening and will be implemented mostly because the military would love to have 100 mpg humvees and tanks that do better than 3 gpm (yes, that’s 3 gallons per mile). After the military applies the technology it will spin off fast into the civilian market. This will be a wonderful advance for vehicles that have range or weight limitations in a pure electric application such as semi trucks, delivery vehicles and service vehicles. Combined with decent mass transit and electric trains we could have blue skies again. Don’t do it for global warming, do it for your lungs. the benefits will be immediate. An estimated 25000 people a year die due to particulate pollution, and many more suffer from chronic bronchitis, irregular heart beat, and more. Our vehicles create about 50 % of the particulate pollution that exists. (Particulate pollution is defined as 10 micrometers down to below 2.5) Particles below 2.5 (fine particles) are the most deadly. It is what you see in the air in LA. We can eliminate most of it now with existing technology, or even 1981 technology, all we need to do is decide to.
I’ll roll with you on shifts in attitude. They are, however, notoriously difficult to predict. I don’t particularly give such a shift good odds when it comes to cars. What people drive would seem to follow its own particular “laws of physics”. The long explanation herein, would unfortunately be just that – long. Without a complete wave of disruption such as gasoline going to over $10/gal, I’m not yet a believer that people will come to embrace the little ducklings of our industry such as the original Insight, the Smart, i MiEV, etc. And even if such an event happens, there will be a general disgust rather than embrace. Note that the Priuses are stacking up in the lots at the moment. In Japan there is a waiting list.
Living in Santa Ynez must be really tough, getting around and all with those Bently’s and top-shelf jags/mercs and 6-digit priced horses. Pontificate on in the valley of the ultra rich.
Electric cars may be the way to go, with hybrids being a transition technology. Surely their development and use should be encouraged. However, it is too soon to know for sure that batteries will be the final answer to power vehicles.
It may be that a synthetic fuel will be the final answer. With plentiful energy available, ammonia could become a suitable fuel. With some more research and development, internal combustions could be made to run well using ammonia as fuel, and it may be that ammonia could also be used for fuel cells. Obviously both engines and fuel cells can run on hydrogen, but hydrogen has problems for which it may be that solutions will never be found except perhaps in certain special applications.
Ammonia is NH3; it can be broken down into nitrogen and hydrogen, with the hydrogen providing energy. Because ammonia can be liquified at convenient pressures at normal temperatures, storing it is not a problem.
Burning boron has also been proposed as a fuel for cars with turbine engines. That also could become practical, but it would require more research and development.
To summarize, battery electric vehicles look promising and are already practical and economically justifiable under certain circumstances, but it is too soon to know whether they will become the final solution to power vehicles.
I agree that there is a paradigm shift coming, there is pretty much no choice, the shift will be away from the use of the automobile, not the switching of the fuel to electricity, although that will likely have to happen.
It is really a stretch to call switching from the pump to a plug a “paradigm shift”. It is like trying to lose weight by just switching from butter to margarine in stead of eating less and getting exercise.
This switch is already starting to happen in many cities around the world. For example, Vancouver, where I live, is now starting to dramatically improve cycling routes by taking road space away from the automobile.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/vancouver-driven-to-reallocate-road-space/article1559699/
The big story from the Olympics (that were sponsored by GM), was not the “Hydrogen Highway” (an idea of the Govenator), it was how well transit worked and how many people took it as well as people reclaiming downtown streets as social space.
Before deciding that electric cars are “green”, people need to take into account the full life-cycle impact of the fuel, the vehicle AND the infrastructure needed to use the vehicle including roads and parking. Once all the impacts on health and the environment are taken into account, any marginal benefits of converting to electricity are really insignificant.
This is all assuming that given less expensive energy, people just won’t start buying larger and larger vehicles and driving further and further. This is what happened as a result of cheap gas, there is no reason to expect that this won’t happen in the off chance that electric vehicles actually do catch on. These increases in vehicle miles travelled and weight could overwhelm the minor benefit of switching to electricity.
More on the impacts:
http://dogandlemon.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/the-emperors-new-car.pdf
A real paradigm shift is transforming our cities and our transportation system so it is better for people, the environment and the economy. The real solutions are high-speed rail, rapid transit, cycling and walking. Slow speed golf cart like electric vehicles may play a role as well but it is pretty obvious that electric vehicles that look and act like the cars of today, are really not the big step forward that we so desperately need.
I love your analogy of switching from butter to margarine, and you make a terrific point — one that a number of others readers have brought up as well: we really need to drive less. Btw, the paradigm shift I’m talking about here not gas to electric; rather, it’s that people cease to identify themselves with the cars they drive. I believe I see a movement afoot in which people divorce themselves from the car as a statement of social status. I could be wrong though; there are precious few who agree with me on this.