energy policy

The more I look into the energy issue the more optimistic I become that we can solve our problems. Theoretically at least the solution seems straightforward and simple. We are consuming resources in an incredibly wasteful manner and we are living life-styles that are seriously out of touch with our surroundings. If we simply paid more attention to our energy use and did not attempt to live artificial lives, we would be able to reduce our resource consumption to levels needed to stave off long term ill effects. What that means is serious cutbacks from where we are, but not the type of cutbacks that would send us back to the stone age.

Although I feel much more optimistic about our ability to fix things, I am also increasingly pessimistic about the prospect that it will really happen. I fear that we will just continue to hold on to our life-styles for as long as we can, and thereby forego our only chance to solve problems before they go out of control. We will cling to the promise of technology much like the ancients clung to their religious icons. It will prove to be equally ineffective.

History shows that civilizations tend to run almost unchecked until they hit the wall and collapse. The premise of Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" was that some civilizations manage to avoid disaster by taking action, while others do nothing and fail. But upon closer inspection of the case studies we see that those civilizations that survived, did so not by changing their wasteful life-styles, but by finding new resources to exploit and new places to dump their waste. Those that failed lacked that option.

Unfortunately, these types of solutions arew not available once the problems are planet-wide. We are faced with global crises now: global warming, global deforestation, global destruction of ecosystems, global shortages of food, water, and oil. There are no outside places to dump and no other planets to mine. At least not within the reaches of our current technology. Even if that technology grows exponentially fast.

Furthermore, the real situation is a bit worse. We are faced with mechanisms that exhibit long lag times and have the potential for autonomous growth and positive -in the engineering sense that is- feedback. Our problems too can grow exponentially as Mr. Kurzweil forgot to point out.

We have set in motion processes that will affect us for centuries to come. Even if we stopped polluting, the CO2 that we have already put out will continue to exert long term effects. Some of these effects are still unknown to us, but at least some are active processes that may amplify or cross thresholds without any further intervention. It is clear that we have already crossed the threshold of CO2 homeostasis. We have started a fire. Now we are making it worse by feeding it some more.

What it means is that we have to act quickly and decisively. We have to drastically reduce our consumption in absolute terms. All the talk about efficiency is meaningless. It is meaningless to discuss whether flying cross country is more efficient than driving. What we need to ask is whether we honestly need to travel there. What counts is not CO2 per capita, but CO2 in absolute terms.

Unfortunately, all proposed solutions are to phase out pollution over several decades, and they are not sensible. These are politically palatable band-aid "solutions" whose aim is to defer actions that voters find objectionable. These will not work even if they are implemented and the likelihood of that happening is actually quite small. Experience shows that when politicians approve actions that affect future generations, these generations quickly undo such actions when their time comes. And that is the bad news.

The good news is that you, dear reader, can do something about that. And you can start right now. You can reduce your energy consumption right away. No alternative energy or other kool-aid. Reduction is the only option. It will make a huge and lasting difference and it maybe the best thing you can do for humanity.