<<If consumers refuse to cut back, then I can only assume they are not really very concerned, but wanting someone else to "fix" the problem>>
You hit the nail on the head, but there is really no one to fix the problem. To cut back on energy use we would have to "reverse progress", defined as power tools of every sort, yard tools from weed whackers to leaf shreaders and everything in between that cut till or move earthly matter, recreational toys that transport us for thrills in water, land and air, vehicles that take us faster, heavier, and with every gadget that can be conceived, and on and on. I am amused when I go by the park and watch the city workers with their leaf blowers blowing leaves out of whole parks and then a front loader coming to load them into a dump truck and drive them away. The citizenry never asks why the park workers no longer can rake, lift and load leaves (probably prohibited in the contract). My point is, there is a huge amount of energy consumed and pollution generated on this one simple function (one that somehow we used to manage to do without all these devices), and you can find examples of this every place you look in our society. We all see it as progress and there are precious few of us that are willing to give it up and go back to simpler times. By the way I don't think that the answer is more efficient leaf blowers. One possible solution would be to start taxing, probably through fuel taxes, the use of energy consuming devices. But the taxes would have to be severe, like a couple bucks on a gallon of gasoline, and our politicians, a)don't have the courage to do that, and , b)would not be re-elected if they did. I can only conclude that we will never take any meaningful action to solve the problem and will end up choking the earth to the point that our survival will be lost. Pretty alarmist, but draw the trend line yourself and see where you come out. By the way, factor in the newly arrived countries like China and India, and this energy consuming, global warming/polluting lifestyle of ours is only getting started worldwide. |
