The UN Dispatch-Grist collaboration rolls on today with a discussion prompt submitted by On Day One user teiki:
A key to the massive use of fossil fuels in the U.S. is gross overconsumption. We use way more than necessary, through a combined dependence on the automobile and an infatuation with big, gas-hungry cars, trucks and SUVs., through wasted energy consumption in our homes and offices in everything from their construction to "phantom loads" and light bulbs, and through the amount of green house gas emitted by livestock supplying an overconsumption of food. We must learn to use less.
David Roberts, Tony Kreindler, media director of the National Climate Campaign at the Environmental Defense Fund, and Timothy B. Hurst respond below the fold.
I think you need to be really careful on this one. There's no benefit in framing over-consumption as an issue of American greed or gluttony. If you come out preaching about sin, trying to make people feel guilty and repent, you play to stereotype, get mired in a culture war, and quickly end up preaching only to the choir.
It is true, via accidents of history, economy, and geography, that Americans have incredibly high per capita resource consumption. We're an extraordinarily rich country with lots of land and access to cheap energy, so we've designed our material environment somewhat thoughtlessly. When things are cheap, they get used in heedless ways. It's not a moral defect, it's just human nature.
Now those things are getting expensive, and the damage they're doing to the environment is unavoidable, so it's time to address high per capita consumption. There are two ways to do it. One is through voluntary reduction in quality of life -- give up vacations, turn the thermostat down, live in a smaller house or apartment. The other is to get more out of each unit of input, maintaining quality of life while driving down net resource consumption. In other words: sacrifice or efficiency.
Pushing the first will get you blowback and very little net gain, in my humble opinion. The second is a gold mine. People don't really understand yet that quality of life and resource consumption are not tightly linked. Plenty of European countries -- and California! -- have per capita consumption lower than the American average and quality of life just as high. With concerted effort, we could slash our resource consumption dramatically and still be perfectly comfortable.
Now, as an addendum: There are plenty of behavior changes I'd like to encourage -- riding bikes, living in dense, walkable cities, growing food, or joining a community supported agriculture program, etc. But I don't think of those things as sacrifice, or as "less." They are more: more exercise, more community, more health. The point to make to Americans is that we can improve our quality of life and reduce our ecological footprint simultaneously. Nobody has to shiver in the dark.
Tony Kreindler, media director of the National Climate Campaign at the Environmental Defense Fund
I'm with David: The best way to look at energy efficiency is not as a reduction, but as an increase in supply. It's a new source of power all by itself.
It's also one of the fastest and most cost-effective ways to begin reducing global warming pollution, particularly in one of the sectors highlighted here -- residential and commercial buildings.
Greenhouse gas emissions (mostly CO2) from buildings and the appliances in them are expected to rise by roughly 50 percent by 2030. But according to the consulting firm McKinsey & Company the sector offers significant low-cost opportunities to reduce consumption and pollution, primarily because residential and commercial buildings are relatively inefficient, and projected growth provides a lot of opportunities to build in efficient technologies during initial construction (which is cheaper than retrofitting).
McKinsey says pursuing efficiency options in the sector could reduce emissions by 710 megatons to as much as 870 megatons by 2030 -- the largest pool of "negative-cost" reduction opportunities among the options it looked at across the economy. Among them are advanced lighting, increased efficiency and reduced stand-by loss in electronics, more efficient HVAC equipment, combined heat and power, building shells, and improved residential water heaters.
But McKinsey also warns that the longer we wait to put the right policies in place, and from EDF's perspective that's a mandatory national cap on greenhouse gas pollution, the more of those low-cost options will slip away. They are "time perishable."
I second Dave's response, especially his critique of environmental prostelytizing. Being preachy fuels the fires of resentment towards environmentalists -- they come off as elitist. It would be absurd to bad-mouth consumption altogether. A strictly anti-materialist position does not work: The fact of the matter is, people need things. I also support Dave's effort to reframe individual environmental behavior as smart rather than sacrificial. As my colleague Licia Peck, a PhD student in politics at U.C. Santa Cruz says, "environmental sacrifice isn't."
Dave frames the possible remedies for American over-consumption as improvements in efficiency and changes in individual behavior. All I would like to add is that there is an important third consideration that these solutions do not adequately address: distribution. Regardless of how much we tout making green choices and improvements in efficiency, vast economic disparities also explain global patterns of resource (mis)use.
Part one, two, three, and five of On Day One: UN Dispatch-Grist collaboration.
Weatherizing Portland
Comments
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sindark Posted 5:51 am
26 Jun 2008
Now may not be the time to reveal the full character of what needs to be done, but the risk must be borne in mind that people who make token sacrifices will see themselves as having done their share.
a sibilant intake of breath
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Earl Killian Posted 6:51 am
26 Jun 2008
Perhaps it would be better if such lifestyles were changed, but you have a lot of work to do to convince anyone they are economically impossible. Saying it doesn't make it so.
I currently fuel my cars with sunshine. It heats my house too. What is uneconomic about this? In fact, once the rest of the nation switches to electricity to fuel passenger travel, it will actually be saving a lot of money. The 2002 Toyota RAV4-EV costs 2.4 cents a mile to drive using 8 cents a kWh. Compare that to the 2002 Toyota RAV4 at 17.7 cents a mile, or the 2008 Toyota Prius at 8.9 cents a mile. It only takes 13,631 mi2 of wind farms to power U.S. 2050 vehicle miles if they are electric, and only 682 mi2 is not dual use (e.g. you can farm or graze the same land).
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hapa Posted 6:56 am
26 Jun 2008
this is why his organization supports caps and reduction curves that would destroy us all. they practice magic.
meanwhile the heavier rising costs killing the "bottom" 80% -- medical, housing, taxes, child care, education -- go unaddressed. those prices are ok; all we need to do is grow faster, without paying people more, and every home's accounts will go back to black.
gas prices are a straw on a camel that's carrying a piano. energy productivity doesn't help with the piano.
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birdboy Posted 10:21 am
26 Jun 2008
That said, I agree that asking them to change for the environment is a waste of breath. It's going to take high prices and a depressed economy- comin' right up!
a liberal in redsville
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Biodiversivist Posted 10:38 am
26 Jun 2008
I'll pass on the gardening and I also would not want to live in most densely populated cities. I'm happy not taking vacations that fly me to the other side of the planet, to keep my thermostat at 70, and live in a small house.
The Europeans and Japanese live in homes that make ours look like castles.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Biodiversivist Posted 10:40 am
26 Jun 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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hapa Posted 11:44 am
26 Jun 2008
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vincentcarragher Posted 9:52 pm
26 Jun 2008
I am from Ireland and do not really mind what you call it: greed over-consumption, 'super size me' bla, bla, bla.
I do mind other terminology. you discuss avenues into the american psyche - how the footprint of the average american might be reduced with behavioural remedies etc. You continually use the word energy efficiency - this conventionally refers to technology and guess what we are back to consumption again buying technology.
The word and the emphasis real debate shoud use is energy conservation. conservation can be met through energy efficency remedies or renewable energy technology remedies both purchase related behaviour.
we need to work however on an argument that is touched on very little by government for obvious reasons and that is sufficiency and habit type beahviour also contributing to energy conservation. Vested interests, egos and leading by example might all be reasons why we rarely see this argument.
please call it what is is energy conservation because energy efficiency in our use of that term normally refers to technology remedies. we need to talk deeper than this, we do not have to reinvent language because the words are there - energy conservation.
We do however have to reinvent - ideas, thought, beliefs, values, attitudes and maybe finally behaviour. American ans Canada are stop number one on this trip!
Nobody expects a meaningful debate to ensue where terminology is used so loosely.
Energy conservation and sufficiency are words you need in these debates.
a website detailing research where the community uses meaningful discourse/debate can be found at http://www.ul.ie/lowcarbonfutures
regards to you all
vincent carragher
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archigeek Posted 11:02 pm
26 Jun 2008
The mellotron is your friend.
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vincentcarragher Posted 11:13 pm
26 Jun 2008
agree to the bulk of what you said - but you have to have faith.
a community in ireland has reduced its emmissions by 15% through behavioural change. some of that has been less consumption like reduction in car miles, reduction in energy use in the home etc.
it is possible but like the study i quoted intimates we must start over agin and educate the values and beliefs of the youngest generations - ASAP.
you will find that study at www.ul.ie/lowcarbonfutures
there are many projects in europe now showing impressive and willfull and painless change in consumption behaviour.
regards
vincent
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