Provocative Questions on Energy from the U.K.
Yesterday morning I did an interview for a young man in England, James Alcock, who writes for a consumer-oriented website called TheGreenAge.com. In a period of about half an hour, I answered various questions ranging from electric transportation to fossil fuels to energy storage and renewables. It’s a delight to get a chance to answer good questions on the subject, as I always leave such discussions with some realizations and new viewpoints.
Here’s something I found thought-provoking: James asked me if I recalled the precise moment that I decided to get involved in renewable energy, and the thoughts I was having at the time. Eventually we got around to the challenges facing this whole evolution away from fossil fuels, which I summarize as follows:
The world has very little appetite for short-term pain, even with the knowledge that its behavior is causing a global catastrophe in the long-term. People are unwilling to make sacrifices for the public good, and leaders are elected by promising the people exactly what they want: in this case, cheap energy. The fossil fuel companies, the most profitable industry in the history of humankind, exacerbate all this by dumping huge sums of money into public relations campaigns that promote an elaborate web of half-truths and outright lies.
The 58 million people who watched last week’s presidential debate in the U.S. saw all this hit them full blast. The leader for roughly half of Americans openly ridicules the concept of clean energy and climate change mitigation, and the leader for the other half essentially avoids the subject.
But our antipathy towards a sustainable energy policy won’t last forever; in fact, it can’t. As I told James, “The 21st Century will see a wholesale change in the way we think about our responsibilities to one another, how we behave as citizens of the world. This is emphatically not happening in the U.S. right now, but I predict it will at a certain point. Selfishness has been the hallmark of human civilization since it took root about 11,000 years ago, but ignoring the needs of others, coupled with the products of the Industrial Revolution, has brought us to the edge of an abyss – face to face with the catastrophic collapse of our ecosystem. I predict that humankind will realize what’s happening and make the changes it needs to before it goes over the edge. I hope I’m still on the planet to witness it, because it will be a thing of profound beauty.”
craig, This “WordPress” is terrible. your links simply dont work if I try to read the article you tease us with the firdt paragraph of on the first page it tosses us (i’m sure they screw up everyone) to a page it is not on with the last hundred topics so we will flounder around and see other advertisements. Your old (Former) software worked very everytime but this “WordPress” isn’t working. do you wonder you might get one comment or two and that is all? they are commenting on the first sentence because we cannot read the remainder. You have one week to get the bugs out or go back to the old format or I am gone and I recommend everyone else stop commenting also so you know you are no longer being effective. also I read only one e-mail from you daily the others I delete without reading because your quality is suffering by the proliferation of less important items. please edit yourself down to ONE IMPORTANT TOPIC each day, or on a very exceptional day, perhaps two.
I’m sorry but I don’t know what you mean. I’m guessing it has to do with the “read more” button. Can you email me a screenshot of what you’re experiencing?
You are the only one who mentions this out of tens of thousands of monthly visitors. Btw, the site has been on WordPress since its inception, and there have been no changes in its structure at all in the past year or so.
The new generation of tea party infused GOP seem so short sighted with environments but with many things as with Scott and the republican legislators in Florida have in the past two years striped a good deal of the laws that prevented rabid expansion without concern of the environment that took years to put in
Craig, thanks for your concern I actually was impressed that you phoned me this morning. I ran my virus checker thru the system on “Automatic ” last night and it must have restored some settings because sudenly the blog looks like its old self again.
Good stuff, Dennis.
Craig,
I have mentioned the following ideas several times before in my responses to your columns. You say that [1]”The world has very little appetite for short-term pain, even with the knowledge that its behavior is causing a global catastrophe in the long-term.” Then you say [2] “People are unwilling to make sacrifices for the public good, and leaders are elected by promising the people exactly what they want: in this case, cheap energy.” Here is how I explain these behaviors.
First off, we. meaning all of us, are genetically designed not to see change. Instead we are built to see the change in the rate of change as part of our survival coding. If the change is fast enough, like we are currently experiencing in California’s history making gas prices, that gets people’s attention and demands to remedy the situation abound. Changes in behavior are made. When the change in the rate of change is constant, that is flat lined, we don’t experience the changes around us and the end result is that we ignore them. Global warning is a case in point.
Beating the drum or changing the message doesn’t help, but changing the rate of change will. The change in the level and intensity of storms may do it, as it happened to New Orleans due to Katrina, but the gradual rising of tidal surges, will not be addressed until its too late.
Second, cheap energy along with air/water pollution, ground water use, reduction of the rain forests, and use of prime agriculture land for development all stem from the same “tragedy of the commons”. This is the case where the unmanaged, unregulated resources are used for private benefit at the expense of the public good.
We have made some progress towards managing air and water since the 1970’s but that’s been nearly 50 years of incremental efforts. We have recently been making progress in other arenas (such as the efforts to introduce a cap and trade program for carbon), but until government manages resources to the benefit of all, rather than some (such as changing the tax code that benefits the fossil fuels industry), the inevitable destruction of the commons will continue. However it may take another 50 years before institutionalized regulation becomes as accepted and common as mutual defense is today.
Lastly, environmental change while incremental is not static, but rather its dynamic. A dynamic equilibrium defines most systems. Think about a water bed. Sitting on the bed depresses one area, but raises another area of the bed. If your sitting on the area that rises, well you are in for a bumpy ride. However when a dynamic equilibrium goes beyond its carrying capacity (an old, but explanatory term), then the defined system reaches a tipping point. The the next equilibrium point will be reached with greater comparable randomness (that is usually one with more entropy). In the case of the water bed, having one too many bumps makes the bed burst.
We can only save our way of life before we reach a new equilibrium point by mitigating the bumps in a planned way: through changes in infrastructure, governmental management of the “bumps”, and technology innovation. My belief is that all three processes are in play today and that ultimately we will survive as a result. Yet to paraphrase one of my old professor’s sayings, we will have our freedom to act but only in a rocking boat.
The more we rock the boat by changing the rate of change, the more likely we can mitigate the inevitable tragedy that follows.
Craig,
In the US, as you mention, one party is the Party of Rabid Denial, and the other the Party of Ignorant Condescention. Both have within the past 40-50 years or so began to willfully destroy the credibility of their parties through an illegal, unethical and immoral externally controlled (and wholly unconstitutional) encroachment of fascism combined with propaganda. This external controlling entity is made up of the domonant personalities within a small group of NGO’s like the G-8, G-20, the United Nations (yeah, I know) as well as the owners of private & public financial institutions, “Royalty” the world over and the US Intelligence Community literally gone rogue against the nation that created it. Also a group of the “most special” special interests frequently called, Big Oil. Make no mistake here. Yes, there definitely ARE a number of large scale conspiracies with the common goals of “depopulation”, installing a single global government (a la hegemony) and the literal enslavement of who is still alive. There are no “conspiracy theorists”. However, there are conspiracy analysts almost everywhere.
All of these impending and completely manufactured crises have common motivations, money, power and ego. The reality is that humanity is soon to be victimized for it’s own success so the very few can profit without any regard for the human lives this new paradigm will consider disposable. Want proof?
Google this term and read: Agenda 21
The basic details including what, how and where as well as maps of the political regions intended for the future:
http://www.democratsagainstUNagenda21.com
I am a bioenergy industry insider. The primary reasons I left Aerospace for Bioenergy were Climate Change and my having biomass production “tribal knowledge” that (in an even remotely ethical business environment) gave our company at least a five year competitive advantage over literally everyone else in green energy. Unfortunately the capital necessary to prove what I have known as fact from personal experience has from every potential source been offered but kept just outside our grasp. Otherwise, the green jobs promised (with no intention to deliver) by the global politicos would be spreading like the oil in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
The part that makes no sense to me is that when non-ethanol biofuel production reaches a given level and has earned a trading board at the CBOT, Big Oil plans to warm up their checkbooks and buy these companies regardless of price to then monopolize biofuels as petroleum is now. Big Oil is also under the false belief that when biofuels go mainstream that the days for petroleum will be numbered. The vast majority of the materials necessary for biomass production from which biofuels are made is plastic, which we all know comes from petroleum. If Big Oil were to partner in an honest fashion with the emerging biofuels industry, over the next 25 years their profits would only increase.
It is this type of short-term thinking and actions as habitually demonstrated by Big Oil and the US Federal Government at the expense of the common man that converts the possibility of the vast majority of those in elected office and executive suites are increasingly psychopathic, to an undeniable fact.
Open revolt is their goal because they know how to deal with violent people. What they can’t fight effectively is reason, publicly displayed.
YouTube videos of every time they exhibit psychopathic behavior (regardless of position, none of them can be allowed immunity) is the best way I can think of to begin a non-violent counter-coup d etat by the people.
Hi Craig,
Just to say a massive thankyou again for taking the time to speak to me – It was really interesting hearing your thoughts on the range of subjects that we discussed. I will be in touch shortly as to when we will be going live with the interview, and will let you know.
Kind regards
James
I enjoyed it immensely. Keep up the good work.
Craig, you said, “The leader for roughly half of Americans openly ridicules the concept of clean energy and climate change mitigation, and the leader for the other half essentially avoids the subject.”
I haven’t seen too much of the debates, but the latter part of this sentence is certainly “non-debatable” to most of us (I assume you’re referring to Romney – correct me if I am wrong!).
I cannot cite much that either candidate said since I have only watched a few clips of the debate, I nonetheless must say that – having very strong, “real” libertarian leanings – I did appreciate the part Obama said about Exxon getting 4 billion dollars in subsidies each year (at least, I think that is what he said – it certaily sounds right).
The problem is that while politicians have said these things in the past (Hubert Humprey, LBJ and other Democrats back in the “old days” certainly talked a lot about getting rid of the oil depletion allowance) and it was finally replaced (most of it) in 1975 with the even more lucrative “Oil Investment Recovery Act”), there has never been any real popular support for removing Corporate Welfare, even by those who admit it is a crime not to.
Most Democrat voters/supporters simply vote the straight ticket (or close to it) and then just sit down and – for all practical purposes – “die.” Apparently to them such rip-offs by the collusion of government and Corporations are happening on some other planet, just like the brutal wars – both covert and overt – that we are chronically afflicted with . . .
Thanks for your views. Re: “The leader for roughly half of Americans openly ridicules the concept of clean energy and climate change mitigation, and the leader for the other half essentially avoids the subject,” the first half was Romney, the second half Obama.
In regard to the reply from Hayward D, do you suppose that, if other Fortune 500 companies begin to make traction in renewables (particularly waste-to-energy and biofuels) that that Big Oil might sit up and take notice?
Omar
I don’t see it. I like waste-to-energy, as it addresses a number of problems simultaneously. But it can’t scale to provide competition to fossil fuels, given the world’s current and future energy consumption.