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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (7608)	5/12/2008 6:09:44 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24213

Energy guru to discuss oil alternatives By LARRY KLINE, Independent Record - 05/11/08 Longtime energy insider and alternative-energy proponent S. David Freeman believes the United States can completely wean itself from oil, coal and nuclear energy sources in 30 years, and he says the technology exists to do the job. He’ll tell Helenans how on Monday, when he’s set to give a free speech at 7 p.m. at the Civic Center. Freeman is the former head of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, the New York Power Authority and Los Angeles Water and Power. He’s also author of the book “Winning Our Energy Independence (An Energy Insider Shows How).” In a wide-ranging interview last week, the affable Tennessean discussed the country’s energy woes and potential solutions. America’s current energy resources will only spell doom, he said, and it’s time to move on. “Between the fossil fuels and nuclear, we’re in deadly peril,” Freeman said. “We’re being poisoned and there’s an urgent need to go on a new path, even recognizing that it may take 20 or 30 years … it’s really important to make a sharp turn to the future. “We need to start harnessing the clean stuff, sooner not later,” he added. Freeman advocates building large solar plants and increasing wind-power investments to power the grid. While those energy sources can be unstable — with dipping output on calm or cloudy days — Freeman said the nation’s power infrastructure can be stabilized with natural gas power plants. Eventually, he wants to see technology developed to use hydrogen as a backup to solar and wind power. He also wants Detroit to start turning out plug-in electric cars to cut emissions and the country’s reliance on oil. “The problem is that we’re getting excuses from industries that don’t want to (change),” Freeman said. “The oil companies will become renewable companies. Believe me, they’re not going out of business. “People didn’t think they’d buy the (Toyota) Prius, and they’re selling like hotcakes,” he added. Freeman said he advocates “mainstream, can-do Americanism,” and said the shift to clean energy sources will signal the beginning of a second industrial revolution. Though he considers Gov. Brian Schweitzer a personal friend, the two don’t agree on the concept of clean coal. Freeman stoked his Chattanooga, Tenn., childhood home’s furnace, and he later bought 30-million-ton shipments for the Tennessee Valley Authority. “Ain’t no such thing as clean coal,” he said. “You can’t call it clean with a straight face. “I view (clean coal and carbon sequestration) right now as a way to make it possible to talk about more coal,” Freeman added. In order for changes to get under way, Freeman said, Americans must demand cleaner cars from automakers, get serious about conserving energy use, and push the government to require real changes in the energy and automobile industries. “It will take a new president, and I think any of the three of them have this issue in mind and can provide that kind of leadership,” he said. “If we don’t lick this problem, all of the education and all of the health care put together ain’t going to help us,” Freeman added. Monday’s free event is a cooperative presentation by The Policy Institute, the Sierra Club of Montana and Helena’s new Climate Change Task Force, a city advisory board developing ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from city government sources. Reporter Larry Kline: 447-4075 or larry.kline@helenair.com helenair.com

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (7608)	5/13/2008 3:34:14 PM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 24213

DRUM roll......

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (7608)	5/13/2008 5:57:17 PM
From: SiouxPal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24213

Climate Policy: From ‘Know How’ to ‘Do Now’ by Herman E. Daly Recent increased attention to global warming is very welcome. But much of it is misplaced. We focus too much on complex climate models, which ask things like how far emissions will increase carbon dioxide concentration, how much that will raise temperatures, by when, with what consequences to climate and geography, and how likely new information will invalidate model results. Together these questions can paralyze us with uncertainty. A better question for determining public policy is simpler: “Can we continue to emit increasing amounts of greenhouse gases without provoking unacceptable climate change?” Scientists overwhelmingly agree the answer is no. The basic scientific principles and findings are very clear. Focusing on them creates a world of relative certainty for policy. To draw a parallel, if you jump out of an airplane you need a crude parachute more than an accurate altimeter. And if you take an altimeter, don’t become so bemused tracking your descent that you forget to pull the ripcord. The next question we should ask is, “What causes us to emit ever more carbon dioxide?” It’s the same thing that causes us to make more of all kinds of wastes: our irrational commitment to economic growth forever on a finite planet. If we overcome our growth idolatry, we can then ask, “How do we design and manage an economy that respects the limits of the biosphere so economy and biosphere both will survive?” But we are so fixated on maintaining an ever-growing economy that we instead ask, “By how much will we have to increase efficiency to maintain growth in gross domestic product?” Suppose we answer, “By doubling efficiency,” and succeed. So what? We will then just do more of all the things that have become more efficient and therefore cheaper, and will then emit more wastes, including greenhouse gases. A policy of “efficiency first” does not give us “frugality second” — it makes frugality less necessary. But if we go for “frugality first” — sustainability first — with a national tax on carbon, then we will get “efficiency second” as an adaptation to more expensive carbon fuels. Efficiency cannot abolish scarcity, despite what politicians say, but it can make scarcity less painful. We must throw out our assumption that economic expansion is always good. There is much evidence that GDP growth at the margin in the United States is uneconomic growth, growth that increases social and environmental costs faster than it increases production benefits. It is not hard to see how the reality of uneconomic growth sneaks up on us. We have moved from a world relatively empty of us and our stuff to a world relatively full of us, in one lifetime. In the empty world economy the limiting factor was manmade capital; in the full world it is remaining natural capital. Barrels of petroleum extracted once were limited by drilling rigs; now they are limited by remaining deposits, or by the atmosphere’s ability to absorb the products of combustion. But we continue to invest in manmade capital rather than in restoration of natural capital. In addition to this supply-side error, we have an equally monumental error on the demand side. We fail to take seriously that beyond a threshold of income already passed in the United States, happiness depends not on what we have, but on what we have relative to what our friends, co-workers and neighbors have. What we need is a stiff severance tax on carbon as it emerges from the well and mine. Besides discouraging everyone’s use of climate-altering fossil fuels, this would enable us to raise enough tax dollars to replace regressive taxes on low incomes. Let’s tax the raw material, not the value added to it by processing and manufacturing. Higher input prices bring efficiency at all subsequent stages of production, and limiting depletion ultimately limits pollution. Setting policy by first principles still leaves some uncertainties. It will require provision for making midcourse corrections. But at least we would have begun moving in the right direction. To continue business as usual while debating the predictions of complex models in a world made even more uncertain by the questions we ask is to fail to pull the ripcord. Published on Tuesday, May 13, 2008 by CommonDreams.org