Energy and True Environmentalism
April 22, 2008 by Joshua Davis
True environmentalism is about preserving life, human, animal, and plant. But it has been toted as more of a feel good ideal, than true action or care. It’s focus has become perverted by corporate interests promoting the ideas of enviromentalism as merely being about making this earth a better place.
Chevy’s current “From gas friendly to gas free” ad campaign is a prime example of the true goals of environmentalism being subverted. General Motor’s idea of gas friendly and gas free, means filling fuel tanks with food. While this campaign was running, the UN was warning 100 million people are at risk at starvation because of rising food prices created by cars and trucks consuming our food.
True environmentalism doesn’t have to mean everyone moves to a compound and lives off the land. But it does require a radical change from 20th century consumption, to a new 21st century economy that is also compatible with preserving the lives of humans, animals and plants. Here are a few ideas I proposed in an essay about how we should use energy in the 21st century:
“Peak oil has been reached already,” says Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulla1. Yet few viable energy alternatives currently exist. Wind power, solar energy, and coal all hold great potential. But how will governments, engineers, and corporations implement these new technologies in a way that benefits all parties?
Currently, the United States government favors two forms of alternate energy that are still based on carbon. The first is coal, which also has the backing of corporations. Coal presents several problems including air pollution, scarred mountain tops, and polluted runoff.
The US government also favors biofuels like ethanol. Plants are renewable, so unlike coal they are a sustainable energy source. But biofuels reduce the amount of arable land available for human food consumption. According to UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, the price of corn, wheat and sugar doubled in many countries last year2. Biofuels also produce nearly the same amount of pollution as fossil fuels3, and actually cause a net loss in fuel4.
That leaves solar, nuclear, and wind energy as the only viable clean and renewable fuels. But wind and solar energy are dependent on weather. No wind, no energy, or cloudy skies and no energy. They also produce far less electricity per dollar.
The future of energy is not within new energy sources, but rather within a change of how civilization operates. This includes changes in business operations, urban planning and how ordinary citizens live.
The key to the future of society is actually in the past. For fifty years American cities have been built to ignore all modes of transportation except the car. Imagine how much fuel could be saved if we used rail based car transporters. For instance, instead of commuting 20 miles by highway, you drove onto a train, the train goes to downtown, and you exit, and then drive half a mile to your office.
Such trains would draw power from an electric third rail. The electricity would power the train, but it could also recharge electric cars. As further incentive a fourth data rail could be added, allowing those on the train to communicate with their office, while they traveled to an important meeting across town.
Developing and building high speed rail lines in dense regions like New England would also cut down on airline trips which consume huge amounts of fuel and generate pollution. Despite that trains are slower than aircraft, when factoring in security, delays, and airports distance from it’s city, high speed rail becomes viable in several parts of the United States.
Another large consumer of energy is agribusiness. Imagine living downtown, but being able to visit the farm we’re your food came from. Towering green houses could provide the solution. On the ground level of a multistory urban farm would be a grocery store where the food is truly farm fresh. Others levels would be a different type of farm, one a cattle ranch, another a slaughter house, and yet another for corn and wheat.
The transportation of food consumes much energy. Take the beef industry for example. Wheat is transported for cattle to feed on. The fattened cows are then driven to a slaughterhouse. Once they’ve been prepared the meat is transported to grocery store warehouses and even food processing centers. Then it is finally transported to the neighborhood grocery store. All this transit takes a tremendous amount of energy which could easily be saved by consolidating the food industry’s supply chain.
The Western of idea of unlimited supply confines our thinking of energy solutions. While clean energy like wind, and solar will definitely become more prominent the true solution is changing our ideas on consumption. The only solution to climate change and peak oil is if corporations and consumers will work together. If they can see more good in change, than change itself, they will embrace new energy saving technology.
References are below the fold.
1 Abbas/Magnum,” How to Bring Change to the Kingdom” Time Magazine, volume 159 number 9.
2 UN News Center, “UN independent rights expert calls for five-year freeze on biofuel production” http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=24434&Cr=food&Cr1 Accessed February 28th 2008.
3 P. J. Crutzen, A. R. Mosier, K. A. Smith, and W. Winiwarter: N2O release from agro-biofuel production negates global warming reduction by replacing fossil fuels
4 David Pimentel and Tad W. Patzek: Ethanol Production Using Corn, Switchgrass, and Wood; Biodiesel Production Using Soybean and Sunflower
In addition to the fact that the use of ethanol reduces the amount of food available to humankind, there are many other reasons to avoid ethanol. It takes 18 gallons of water to make a gallon of gasoline from crude oil, while it takes 12,000 gallons of water to make an equivalent gallon of ethanol from corn. Water is a very precious resource; surely we don’t want to be expending it, and our food supply, at the same time? Additionally, the National Academy of Sciences stated that, even if all of the corn grown in the United States were used for ethanol production, it would only displae 12% of the gasoline now used. Add to these things the fact that ethanol is three times more expensive than gasoline, that growing corn erodes the soil 18 times faster than it can recover, and that ethanol typically requires more fossil fuels to make it from corn than it provides as fuel, and you will clearly see that ethanol is not a sustainable fuel.
I agree with a large portion of your assessments. Wind and solar energy should and shall become more common, and other forms of transportation besides automobiles should be established. Now, there might be a small way to change our ideas on consumption, in the way of changing our tax code. Instituting the “Fair Tax”, a national sales tax (with the prebate feature to make it progressive), might, and I emphasize the “might” here, help to transform America from a consuming nation to a savings nation. The assumption is that having a sales tax on the goods might make us buy less and save our money more. If you don’t want to pay a lot of taxes, then you don’t spend as much money, and therefore your consumption of products is lessened.
Thank you very much for the interesting article. Unfortunately, it is not the well thought-out articles but rather the obtuse and controversial articles that receive most of the attention in this day and age.
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