I continue to read about how electric cars and renewable energy are going to save the planet from Global Climate Change (or whatever incarnation of the climate idea you prefer). My questions are always, “How is all this electricity that will be needed being created?” “How does using renewables alone get us to net zero?” and “How will this stop the Climate from changing?” It is all predicated on one erroneous belief that Carbon is the one factor to control. I know this is a popular belief with most environmentalists that believe burning fossil fuels is the main contributing factor in changing the climate. The facts look compelling until one looks closely at these facts. As usual I have talked about this before – see link and successive five posts after that one.
The climate is changing – no doubt about that. When I meet with environmentalists, I do not challenge heir beliefs, rather I ask questions that made them think about the beliefs and as importantly, where did these beliefs originate. Those that are open to critical thinking will usually understand that I am not some traitorous denier. Most of this blog is about me trying to open up ideas that we must discuss and not about me propagandizing environmental views. To true believers I can seem iconoclastic, but I think it is critical to our future to think outside the beliefs and consider the bigger picture in which ‘facts’ are crouched. All too often I see political and financial agendas that obscure the truth with cherry picked ‘facts’ that meet those agendas.
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate” Noam Chomsky, Excerpted from The Common Good, 1998. The agenda ridden mass media coupled with the algorithms of the social media system has created a polarization that is tearing us apart (a great explanation of the failings of the internet linked) – the internet has been a boon and a bane and is not yet truly understood by most people. We need to be able to talk openly about difficult topics and learn to listen attentively.
Our socio-cultural systems are changing. It amazes me that change seems so abhorrent to so many people. It’s the norm for life. When people fear change, they are fearful of things they cannot control. Yet, this past 80 years has been a whirlwind of incredible changes unseen in any era of recorded history. What is coming is going to change our socio-cultural systems, but its nothing to fear. Yet, it will be as different as today is from 1945. The carbon released from burning of fossil fuels isn’t the problem, it’s the pollution. The more we minimize the pollution the better our health and the health of the planetary ecosystems will be. So, renewables do that, but they are just a small part of the solution. They still require inordinate use of fossil fuel energy to obtain minerals and develop the renewable-energy capture technology (and disposal).
If you were to go back to pre-industrial revolution Britain, you would find a country of villages, towns and smaller cities that were all relatively self-sufficient – few people travelled outside their main community, except for merchants with their pack-animals. Shipping between towns was difficult and very expensive. Shipping and travel internationally was only for the wealthy elites to enjoy with minor imported exceptions such as Tea. Mercantile trade worked because of exploitation in the colonies. At first there were extensive canals across the country to move goods created by the extensive cottage industries of the ‘self-sufficient’ towns and villages. The great change of the industrial revolution was the steam engine. It powered factories and also the locomotives that ran between towns. The ability to manufacture and ship goods more cheaply was the beginning of modern capitalism that led us to our modern world. That kind of change terrified many, but as the cottage industries and agricultural lifestyle of centuries fell away to rapid urbanization and factory manufacturing, our modern world of travel and hyper-consumerism was created.
The advent of steam trains allowed extensive travel and commercial shipping. The creation of individualized automotive ownership gave us the freedom to go places whenever we wanted – a convenience that we all love but is actually quite a pervasive aspect of modern living in all the pollution it creates. We now live in a world where auto traffic and traffic jams are an all-too-common problem. The Gadarene rush to Net Zero and electrification of most transportation is still framed from this petroleum mindset. For instance, this push for electric cars is not a solution. Don’t get me wrong, both of my cars are electric hybrids that are more efficient and less polluting than the traditional petroleum driven car, but they are only better, not a solution. And the pollution aspect is not much different than an electric vehicle which requires electricity from a polluting mega-power station or perhaps from better renewable energy sources that still pollute in their own way.
A big challenge will be for us to rethink how we travel, and for that we need to rethink public transportation as we navigate the options open to us to greatly reduce transportation pollution. In the USA, public transport outside the main urban centers is pitiful. In my Colorado town I would have to walk 1.6 miles (2 Km) just to get to a bus stop with one bus an hour (maybe) and then that would take me 45minutes to get to the other side of town (a distance I can drive in 12 minutes). In my travels I have used public transportation in many countries and even here in the USA, which in the cities is better than the semi-rural area I live in. I often will ride my bike using bike lanes and bike trails to get places in my area. I don’t relish the notion of having to do it in a snowstorm, a rainstorm, or in high wind; that’s why other options are needed. A wonderful graphic shows how other options with numbers of people can reduce pollution substantially. In the first frame are 69 people stood on an empty 4-lane urban highway. The second frame shows that number next to a typical urban bus. The third is of that group next to a similar number of cyclists. The last is that group in front of just 60 cars. I think it speaks for itself.
What we need for now with increased public transportation is bike/e-bike/moped friendly roadways and bike trails, with
renewable-energy-option mass transit that is clean, reliable and intensive enough to reach even out-of-the-way places. It isn’t that big a deal but it is a big psychological one for many people. We can see smaller scale systems that work all over the world. Cities like Curitiba, Brazil, have shown us how large urban centers can revamp their mass transit to meet everyone’s needs. Many large cities have excellent urban rail systems, and even small towns have efficient mass transit systems. Getting people out of their individual cars is the task we have to face up to. And it isn’t just here in the USA. I have been through large congested traffic jams all over Europe, Britain, Australia, and even Taiwan, and the task is not just the transportation issue, but how we actually travel and when. Rush hour in most places is now more continuous with peaks of two-three hours at work starting and ending times. Our work is still framed around an industrial revolution model – maybe it is tie to rethink how we do work and labor.
To Be Continued ……………
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