Even if the technology is developed in the next couple of years, there is no guarantee that it can be retro-fitted to existing stations. Nor is there evidence that so-called clean air legislation and NIMBYism can be overcome to utilise the full efficiency of fossil fuel burning, combined heat and power in which the waste heat is cycled through district heating systems. The last one to use that in London, Battersea, closed many years ago.
For once there do seem to be genuine proposals to move towards green taxes. That is going to hurt some people. The ordinary tungsten lamp is goingto have to be priced out of the market. When you have to pay the same for an ordinary bulb as for a compact flourescent or similar lamp, people are going to change. My own preference would be to have a form of transport carbon emmission scheme for individual tax payers. Bascially that would involve putting very large carbon emmission charges on vehicle fuels, including aviation kerosene, while giving everybody a large personal cash rebate to offset it. It would get over the problem of the lack of public transport in rural areas and the poor but at the same time penalise Chelsea Tractors. Longer term we could even move to a sort of personal carbon emissions trading - maybe even finding in it a use for those personal ID cards Blair is demanding we carry. High carbon users - whether in cars or planes - would be forced to buy carbon units but those who use public transport would be able to sell them back, in a similar way to the existing schemes for industry.
This may seem a casual point to some, but it is key to understanding why Americans are not more concerned about global warming, and why so little is being done to reduce consumption of fossil fuels. In two words, comfort and inertia. I can recall only one time when America really became interested in renewable energy and alternatives to gasoline and other fossil fuels and that of course was during the protracted 1973 gasoline shortages and accompanying large price increases. After that was over it was business as usual. Roll out the custom monster vans. This year's price increases were nowhere near sufficiently large or lasting to start the ball rolling. Up the price of a US gallon to $5.00 plus and close enough stations to make lines form. Americans with no relief in sight will finally get the picture and start pushing their elected representatives, as well as quickly selling off their gas guzzlers. Of course, this series of events is not likely to originate from within the political system. Gradual price increases and an adequate supply are an opiate gladly furnished by big oil, coal, the automotive industries and their political allies. I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell. _ Blood Sweat & Tears
This may seem a casual point to some, but it is key to understanding why Americans are not more concerned about global warming, and why so little is being done to reduce consumption of fossil fuels. In two words, comfort and inertia.
Our most cherished myth is that technology has an easy solution for every problem. The history of the twentieth century, as interpreted by our corporatist media, has given us every reason to believe the inherent truth of that myth. We are conditioned to think that we can master any challenge with a minimum of discomfort or sacrifice. Not to worry, technology will save us in the nick of time as it has so many times before.
Not that we are unique in that. I think most Europeans share the myth to some degree, but we have made it our own. Now where are we going and what's with the handbasket?
Meanwhile, the primordial forests of Europe and Asia have been completely destroyed by preindustrial civilizations. This stopped with the advent of industry. Life expectancy is longer today, the standard of living is higher, food is more healthy and more plentiful, water is cleaner, once deadly diseases are extinct or curable. All thanks to modern industry.
Surely industry will be our undoing, and soon. I can most clearly see it! (When on LSD, which is an industrial product, too.)
And in that sense, I stand by what I wrote. I believe one of the foundation myths of the American experience is the fundamental belief that there is a technological answer to every problem. In a very real sense, the history of America has proven the truth of that belief. But our history has also proven, particularly in the last few decades, the limitations of that belief. We are facing any number of serious problems which have no technological solution. And in some cases, our technological solutions -- real solutions to real problems -- have produced new problems of their own.
The history of agriculture is intertwined with the history of humankind. Each increase in the size of human settlements was accompanied by further sophistication in the cooperative effort to produce, store, and distribute ever-larger quantities of food. New technologies, like the plow and the irrigation ditch, led to new abundance but also new problems, like soil erosion and the buildup of salt in the soil. Progress was slow but steady. Through the centuries, the ratio of population to food supply remained relatively stable, with both growing at a roughly equal rate. But with the scientific revolution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the human population began surging, and for the first time it seemed possible that the population might soon outstrip the ability of the environment to yield enough food. This fear was articulated at the beginning of the nineteenth century by the English political economist Thomas Malthus; that he was famously wrong has been due to a series of remarkable innovations in the science of agricultural production. Malthus was right in predicting that the population would grow geometrically, but he didn't foresee our ability to make geometric improvements in agricultural technology. Even today, with several countries in the world suffering massive famines, there is little doubt that a commitment to use more land and newer agricultural methods could vastly increase the amount of food produced on earth. The problem we now face is therefore more complicated than the one Malthus identified. In theory, the food supply can keep up with the population for a long while yet, but in practice, we have chosen to escape the Malthusian dilemma by making a set of dangerous bargains with the future worthy of the theatrical legend that haunted the birth of the scientific revolution: Doctor Faustus. Al Gore, Earth In the Balance
Al Gore, Earth In the Balance
Gore hints at an even greater dilemma that we may soon face. Our planet now supports a human population that would have been unimaginable even a century ago, thanks to modern, high-tech agriculture. Yet that agriculture utterly depends on massive inputs of fossil fuels, primarily petroleum. Modern agriculture uses petroleum products for everything from fuel to run its machines, to artificial fertilizers made from petroleum. The Green Revolution runs on oil. Absent an uninterrupted supply of cheap and plentiful petroleum, the Green Revolution comes to a grinding halt. And absent the petroleum powered Green Revolution, no known viable agricultural models are likely to support a human population even half its current size.
But not to worry, technology will save us. It always has. What will it be this time? Ethanol? Hydrogen? Solar powered tractors? Atomic combines? I think not. Perhaps there is some miraculous breakthrough in a lab somewhere, some easy answer to the imminent demise of the petroleum economy. I certainly don't know of any. Yet we are conditioned to assume that some such breakthrough is out there, that it is viable on a global industrial scale, and that it can be deployed in time to avert any impending crisis. I am certainly conditioned to make that assumption, or I wouldn't sleep at night. That is what I mean by myth. Now where are we going and what's with the handbasket?
Actually, I think I might be able to make a diary out of this. I could add some thoughts about my father, Apostle of the Green Revolution, technological farmer par excellence. I'll see what I can do. Now where are we going and what's with the handbasket?
