alternative energy: drink the kool-aid before it gets warm

It is amazing how powerful the belief in alternative energy really is. And how much people are banking on it. Perhaps it is not surprising, but it never seems to occur to people that cutting back on energy and resource use is the only sensible solution. We are using too much and we are wasting too much. This is not sustainable. It is not so much a matter of what energy source -or even what resource- we use, but how much of it we use and how much of it we waste. That is what really has to change. And it won't be easy.

There is no such thing as "clean energy." Some forms are cleaner than others and some have a ways to go in filling their specific pollution niche, but ultimately all forms of energy are polluting. By pollution we mean, all forms of energy create byproducts that end up harming us. Some forms, like fossil fuels produce gases that are now accumulating at high rates leading to serious consequences. But other forms, like solar or wind, will have other consequences that are equally damaging. It is just that these forms have a ways to go before they get there. But if we attack solar and wind like we did oil, it won't be long before we are faced with another crisis. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

For some obscure reason, people seem to believe that using more energy means progress. They equate the size of their mansions, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, the size of their refrigerators, the number of cars, boats, and jet skis parked in their garage, with success. Ironically enough, it is fairly easy to show that these measures are largely meaningless. They do not correlate with happiness, and if anything they strongly correlate with deteriorating health. Obesity is but one sign of deterioration.

All that is happening here is people taking advantage of an abundant resource by using as much of it as quickly as possible, irrespective of whether such use provides any benefit. Sure, some people do benefit but they are a very small minority. The rest are suffering the consequences.

As a species we are opportunistic. That much is similar to other species. Unfortunately though, we found ourselves with sufficient technology to exploit an abundant resource, called fossil fuels. As any opportunistic species, we "exploded" in numbers and in appetite to quickly absorb whatever there was to absorb. The world population skyrocketed. Energy use per capita did too. We built entire infrastructures around this waste. We colonized uninhabitable areas such as deserts, and arctic regions. To say nothing of distant suburbs. All this infrastructures was built based on the premise of a never ending supply of cheap oil. It is all dependent on abundant cheap oil.

Now we are bracing ourselves for the coming collapse. Sadly, our longevity and the longevity of our infrastructure means that any retreat will be extremely painful. The longer we postpone, the more painful it will be. And the higher the price we will pay. Not surprisingly, few are willing to face up to it. They would prefer to keep going. They are driven to strongly resist any movement towards a sensible solution. They are quite likely, afraid of what might happen. But in doing so they are only making matters worse. Time to wake up America. Time to cut back.