Today's WSJ has an editorial by Steven Hayward. Mr. Hayward is a Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and judging from his incidental comments, he is not a democrat. He is also not a "believer" in global warming. Or at least not in a sensible solution. Mr Hayward discusses the Real Cost of Tackling Global Warming and the scenario he paints is one of absolute doom for the average American. He says such scary things as:"you can forget refrigerators, microwaves, clothes dryers and flat screen TV's. Quelle horreur, mes amis ! Surely the end of the world is near !
And how does Mr Hayward come to these anxiety provoking ideas ? He simply calculates how much energy a household would be able to use if we are to meet the called for greenhouse gas reduction goals. He starts, quite logically, from where we are now but he also assumes we won't change our habits. And maybe there is some truth to that. It is hard to change people's habits. And that is why we have mortality. So the people with the old and inappropriate habits, who can't possible change, die out and are replaced by new people, who can be trained to have better habits. Or at least that is the intention.
Mr. Hayward does not consider that we waste more than 75% of the energy we use today. We do so because we are lazy and because it does not matter to us financially. Energy is cheap so why should we care? We have always had plenty and so we think we will always have plenty. America as a whole has never seen real hardship. It has never experienced wars. Sure, we fight wars and we have been fighting wars continuously since the beginning of the last century, but we have never seen war at home. Wars are things that happen far from home. They are also an odd form of mass entertainment. We can stare at the "shock and awe" our military inflicts on other countries. It is like a giant Fourth of July fireworks parade and some people respond accordingly.
But war at home is different. When those airliners flew into the World Trade Center, people were scared and shocked. Something like it had never happened in America. But, bad as it may be, two airliners don't come close to matching what happened to Tokyo, Dresden, and other cities in World War two. To say nothing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That type of horror is a bit different from not having a flat screen TV.
Trouble is bound to happen if we follow Mr. Hayward's lead and do nothing. Because as he says, how on God's green earth will we make up the difference? The difference between our ambitious goals and a realistic 80% reduction. For starters we could try to use less energy. That is really not that hard at all. Given that we outright waste more than 75% it should be easy to take step one. Just try to cut out the waste. The waste that does nobody any good, like those porch lights that stay on all day. Or those satellite-DVRs that spin around the clock.
Turn off your lights, disconnect your appliances, and don't use electricity for something you can do manually. That is easy to do. It does not take much effort and kids can be trained to do this so they will do it automatically without thinking about it.
You won't have to ditch anything. You can have a refrigerator and you can have a flat screen TV. You just need to turn that TV off when you aren't watching it. And keep the refrigerator door closed unless you take something out. You need to decide beforehand what you will take out. That too is not hard. And you could stop stuffing all those sodas and beers in there. That will also do wonders for your health and your weight. You will be happier and live longer.
All this is easy unless you live in suburbia. And the further your suburb is from the city the worse off you are. Because not only does your house use more power, you do too. And you are using it for no reason other than to do what others do without using power.
You may have to move to a more sensible location though. Just like people should not live in flood plains, they also should not live in deserts or far away from their jobs and hobbies. All that contributes to traffic jams, waste, and pollution. It also causes high blood pressure, obesity, depression, loneliness, and scores of other ills that are easily avoided by living closer. Live where you can walk to work or ride your bike. If you do so, you will be healthier and feel happier. Time to ditch the SUV and all those other useless things that people try to sell you by preying on your insecurities and weaknesses. Those things that are just there to show off and burn energy and money. Better shape up.
Time to stand up and fight America !
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