Polution Problem Solved!
Saw this on Climate Ark:
“Why we never need to build another polluting power plant: Coal? Natural gas? Nuke? We can wipe them all off the drawing board by using current energy more efficiently. Are you listening, Washington”
It had my attention! Their argument ran this way:
“Suppose I paid you for every pound of pollution you generated and punished you for every pound you reduced. You would probably spend most of your time trying to figure out how to generate more pollution. And suppose that if you generated enough pollution, I had to pay you to build a new plant, no matter what the cost, and no matter how much cheaper it might be to not pollute in the first place. Well, that’s pretty much how we have run the U.S. electric grid for nearly a century…”
The article shows that, if the other states were to follow California’s lead, the US would slash their electricity consumption by 40%. Apart from the more obvious improvements in efficiency of heating and air-con units, they also looked at street lighting and changed traffic lights to work with LEDs. And then they did something pretty crucial which was termed “decoupling”. They decoupled the the profits of energy companies from their production of energy and made it profitable to save energy. Unsurprisingly, the energy company’s seemed to know a thing or two about making savings.
I guess the moral of this story is that, not matter how well intentioned we may be as a race, if the big companies are not making profits, our social structure will de-stabalise and break down. We have built our civilized world, our survival on this planet, on our ability to make profit. Those of us who dream of living a sustainable eco-minded life will always be climbing a very steep hill unless someone somewhere can make a profit out of what we are doing. We have more Rules of Acquisition than the Ferengi.
But there is another way, too. And that way comes back to people. People thinking twice; people caring about issues greater than themselves. It involves stepping back and looking at what we are doing from a global perspective. Food production, waste management, energy consumption, and so on. When enough people care about their relationship with the planet, our carbon footprint will come in line with sustainable requirements.
But that is the long road. Until then, we will continue to live on Ferenginar.
PS. If you want to be one of the people making the difference, join the Transition Town movement :>) Chesham in Transition – coming soon to a meeting room near you!