Not Green Enough

By Ron Beasley

I have made it clear that I don't honestly believe that enough can or will be done to significantly alter climate change.  I posted some of my thoughts here.

• While the climate is indeed changing anyone who thinks they can predict what's going to happen is as delusional as those who thought Iraq would be a cake walk. There are thousands of variables most of which we don't even know about and the rest we don't understand.
• Any really effective short term solutions are just as devastating as the long term impact of doing nothing.
• Carbon Credits are a delusional scam
• Hybrid automobiles are like kissing your sister.

We have further evidence of that today from McClatchy today.

U.S. consumers rank last in world survey of green habits

WASHINGTON — Americans rank last in a new National Geographic-sponsored survey released Wednesday that compares environmental consumption habits in 14 countries.

Americans were least likely to choose the greener option in three out of four categories — housing, transportation and consumer goods_ according to the assessment. In the fourth category, food, Americans ranked ahead of Japanese consumers, who eat more meat and seafood.

And I have another example a little closer to home here in the "green" state of Oregon.

German solar expert sees gaps in Oregon's green ethos

HILLSBORO -- In their German hometown, Gunter Erfurt and his wife, Anja, could walk most everywhere. Their Mercedes-Benz ran on vegetable oil, and a geothermal pump heated their house.

But in February, the solar company manager, his wife, a geologist, and their two small children said goodbye, for a time, to the comforts they'd carefully cultivated in their native country to take on a new opportunity.

Now in Hillsboro, Gunter Erfurt, who's 35 and has a physics Ph.D., leads SolarWorld Group's development of a manufacturing plant that the company projects will be the highest-producing solar plant in North America by 2009. It is expected to eventually make enough solar cells to provide power for the equivalent of 100,000 Oregonians every year.

[......]

As Erfurt speaks about solar energy and his work, his excitement -- and the pace at which he rattles off figures and dates -- never lets up.

"It's a huge chance," he says of the burgeoning sustainable revolution in the United States.

The Erfurts are impressed by the green ethos they've seen in Oregon, but they also wonder:

Where are all the simple fixes that Europeans seem to have institutionalized long ago? The curbside compost pickup? The diesel cars?

"The Americans, I would say, they have never been really forced to change," Gunter Erfurt said.

I think he gets it half right.  Americans are not being given the opportunity to change.  The large corporate energy establishment is firmly in control of energy policy in the country.  The alternate enrgy options are not in their best interests so they fight them both overtly and covertly.  At the same time we continue to build bigger and bigger houses further and further from where we work and shop.  Hybrid cars aren't going to solve the problem, carbon offsets are not going to solve the problem.  The only thig that will make a difference is using considerably less energy which will require a major life style change.  I don't see that happening in time to have any impact on climate change.

Comments

[Sisyphus]

Americans have substantially reduced their energy use. As a measure of BTUs per dollar of GDP, our energy usage has been declining since WW2, and is considerably below where we were even in 1979.

Here in California, we have green waste pickup, as well as recycling, curbside. But that's not very helpful from a climate change perspective, because lots of recycling methods use more energy than initial production.

The reality is that going to 20% of CO2 emissions today probably requires per capita carbon emissions below that of 1776 Americans. That's unlikely, to say the least. We'd be better off reducing emissions some, and mitigating whatever harms there are elsewhere.

[Ron Beasley]

Sisyphus
I'm inclined to agree with you. If we were to reduce carbon emissions to a point where it would make any difference millions of people would die now. If we don;t it is probable that millions will die latter. But if we recognize the potential impact of climate change now we may be able to minimize the deaths.