From: wallich@ncd.com (Ken Wallich)
Newsgroups: talk.environment
Subject: Re: Impact is DEAD [was: Electric Vehicles]
Date: 30 Dec 92 21:48:33 GMT
Reply-To: wallich@ncd.com (Ken Wallich)

bqueiser@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Brian J Queiser) writes:

>You see, to me, if you're going to save the planet, you're going to have
>to do it one small step at a time.  A journey of a thousand steps begins
>with just one. 

Well, I agree, and I at the same time, I disagree.  I agree since it
is obvious we cannot in a very short amount of time dismantle the
existing fossil-fuel based, worldwide energy producing machine and
convert to something renewable.  The two most renewable energy
resources, solar and wind, would be expensive to implement in an
ultra-large scale.  This doesn't mean we should just say it can't be
done since it would just take to long and be too expensive, but we
need to actively do something about it.  Let's say you live in an
apartment in the middle of an urban area, and for whatever reason, you
have to live there.  You can't just put up a windmill out your bedroom
window, or install solar cells on the roof, and install a converter in
your bathroom.  You can, however, collect and disseminate information
on more environmentally sound options for generating power.  You can
also reduce the amount of power you consume.  This is more than a
'small step' for some people, and less for others, but it is, I will
concede, a start.  If you can, you should convert to solar.  I have
friends who have done so, all for less than $10,000.  Not cheap, but
the cells will last for a decade or more, and the supporting hardware
should last at least that long.  Maintenance is nil, and replacing the
cells will only cost $1,000 or so.  So, it's got a 5-10 year payback
period over the local utility, assuming the local utility is already
providing service to the area, but it does take you off the grid, and
put *you* in control of your own energy production/consumption.  This
is worth the extra cost to many homeowners I know.  BTW, in more than
one case, my friends couldn't get the local electric company to run a
line up to their house unless they paid hundreds of thousands of
dollars to run the wire several miles, and then promised to consume a
minimum amount of electricity per month.

I disagree with this type of statement since it is all too often used
as an excuse for apathy and inaction on the part of the
semi-sympathetic masses.  "I just *can't* give up <x>, and after all,
we can all only do so much", and we have to start small, we can't
change the world overnight".  While this would work *if* everyone
did a little bit, in fact, only a minute portion of the population of
the planet is doing anything.  This puts an extra burden on those of
us who can do something, and have decided we *must* do something.

Many European countries do more than we do in the U.S., but their
governments are smaller, they have less to govern, and their wild
areas have already been destroyed, so they already know first-hand the
result of rampant consumerism.  In Germany, for instance, you can't
find white first-run copy paper.  Recycled paper is much more common,
and companies like Hewlett-Packard carry nothing but recycled paper
for printing.  In this country, where HP prints a lot more stuff as a
whole, try finding a ream of recycled paper in any of their (or anyone
elses') corporate copy rooms.  It's a rare occurance.  My point here
is that in America we do, at best, only a token amount to reduce our
consumption of the planet.  Just a for instance, we do not require
(despite all the public assurances) lumber companies to use the trees
they claim to have been planting all these years instead of natural
growth forestland.  The trees they plant are inferior in every way,
and just don't grow as well or produce as good of a product.  It's
more profitable, therefore, to cut down everything natural, then
retire, and let the youngins' deal with the problem.  This also means
that when they 'replant', they are actually consuming.  Taking
something of a higher value, and replacing it with something of a
lower value.  This cannot continue forever, and it must stop sometime.
Why not now?

Third world countries do not have the economic freedom to be
ecologically correct in a world where dependancy on others for food,
sanitation, and some sort of currency to obtain *stuff* is the norm.
If all around you are starving, worrying about what type of container
you throw in the town dump is hardly an issue worth thinking about.
Villages who have been "converted" to "modern" farming (since they can
longer hunt or gather since *their* habitat has been destroyed as
well), and cannot raise crops because of soil depravation or draught,
are living with no hope.  They must depend on someone else to provide
them with food, shelter, and clothing.  People living in conditions
like this cannot also be expected to be concerned with the
deforestation of the remants of the forests that used to surround
them.  There are a lot of people in third world countries, and they
need to do things like cut down the rainforest, and kill off all of
the wild elephants and rhinos just to keep their families alive.  They
are not concerned with their grandchildren, just themselves and their
children.  I'm not condemming them.  If they don't feed themselves and
their children, they will have no grandchildren to worry about.  Those
in an economic position to alter this balance, are responsible to do
so, especially if they caused the lifestyle change in the first place
(can you say Peace Corps?  I knew you could), no matter how
well-intentioned the change was.  Ecological ruin does not respect
national boundries.  Mexico's decimation of their environment directly
effects the U.S.  The loss of the Brasilian rainforest will have a
detramental effect upon every nation on the globe.

>EVs are a nice idea, but a strong majority of the people
>are not yet willing to give up what they have for something that would
>essentially lower their standard of living.  Plus, these vehicles don't
>necessarily have a margin of benefit over their internal combustion
>engine counterparts; if they do, it is highly debatable.

I agree with you wholeheartedly that EV's do not today meet what most
people have come to expect from motorized transportation.  I, for
instance, travel 60 miles to and from work every day.  This is if I
take the freeway system, requiring me to keep a minimum speed of
60mph.  15 miles of this is a climb of 2000 ft.  These factors
eliminate today's EV's as a potential alternative vehicle for me (I
most often drive a motorcycle or carpool).  This doesn't mean that we
should't promote their development.  I know a lot of folks who drive
less than I, and whose primary use of a vehicle is for relatively slow
city driving and shorter distances.  For these people, an EV of today
could be practicable.  Of course, we need some way to reuse/recycle
the batteries, and not just toss them in the landfill when they've
expired, but progress is being made here as well.

It's also foolish to think that a new technology (like EV's) will make
people change habits overnight.  The only new technology that I can
think of that replaced an existing technology virtually overnight is
CD's replacing vinal LP's.  Of course, CD's existed for several years
before they caught on, and they were in nearly every way superior to
the technology they were replacing (high-end sound quality aside.  The
majority of the populous can't hear a significant difference, and
wouldn't care if they did).  If we had super-efficient solar cells,
and electric engines capable of outperforming today's econoboxes,
allowing people to drive further than they can today, with no loss of
convienience, then EV's would have a shot at the mass market.  As it
is, they have a shot at a much smaller market, but one that exists
nevertheless.  If I could buy a solar array to charge my car, and have
as much power as my Mazda B2000 pick up (arguably a dog), and be able
to see an elimination of tuneups and oil changes, I'd go for it.  I
don't see that as too many more years away, technology wise.  EV's
will be slow to catch on, and it will be a long time before the
internal combustion engine sees a major decline in popularity
(especially with the high efficency, low emissions engines being
manufactured today).  Eventually though, we will no longer be able to
produce fuel for these vehicles in the quantities necessary to keep
them all running.  The sooner we start working on a replacement, the
sooner we'll have a replacement.

>It's fairly obvious that the technology is lacking, the market is lacking,
>the efficiency is lacking, and the benefit is lacking.  These issues are
>hardly ever addressed by the environmental elite.  They focus like a
>laser beam (shudder) on something, like spotted owls and EVs, and refuse
>to listen to talk about the overall efficiency, the overall practicality,
>the overall benefits and pitfalls. [... more good stuff deleted ...]

Well, I don't think the "environmental elite", as you call them, are
really "environmentalists".  I've known many people who are vocal and
rabid about recycling, public transportation, saving trees, banning
flourocarbons, but have never even visited the wilderness.  They often
live solely in cities, and just need a 'cause' to belong to.
Environmentalism is the 'cause' of the 90's, but many of these people
are shallow, vocal sheep who may have some part of their being in the
right place, but don't really realize what they are fighting for.

>You edit quite well.  I didn't say "only 'freaks' feel passionately about
>wanting to save the planet."  Are you the perfect example of someone who
>blindly sees only what he wants to see?  Blindly follows his feelings,
>however misguided?  Blindly reads what he wants to?  Do you not just have
>a soapbox...do you have a mission?  I doubt it.  Just read it again.

Thanks.  It's a godgiven talent :-).  Your statements when taken as a
whole (I don't have the original article to misquote here) indicated
that you considered people who wanted to save the earth at any cost
'eco-freaks'.  You then went on to say you did things that were
convienent and didn't "cost" you anything.  Perhaps your
interpretation of 'at any cost' and mine is different.  I think we
should be willing to do without, reduce the population, change the
global food distribution network, reduce power plant output, strongly
encourage companies to promote telecommuting.  We should do anything
we can possibly do to turn resource overconsumption around, and to
promote a synergy and cooperation with what is left of the "natural"
world.  This does not include shutting down all the running power
plants in 1993, or banning the use of fossil fuels withing 18 months.
That is not going to happen, and we all know that.  You have to fight
for changes that can be made, with an eye on what eventually needs to
happen though.

What you probably meant is that these 'eco-freeks' or the
'environmental elite' are those who do not rationally look at the pros
and cons of a particular technology or practice and decide what should
be done about it, but rather blindly attack anything that seems to
have the slightest environmental impact, and blindly support anything
that *appears* to have less of an environmental impact, even if in the
long run, it would be more of a detriment than what they are fighting
to replace.  Is this more accurate, or am I putting words in your
mouth?

Do I have a mission?  Well, yes, in fact, I believe I do.  My overall
mission is to try and raise peoples' awareness to the world around
them.  Both the natural world we are trying to elliminate at
astounding speed, and the technological world which is simultaneously
full of wonderful and horrific things.  I'm passionaltly concerned
about the loss of what remains of our wilderness.  This is something
precious to me, as precious as my own life.  I am saddened more than I
can express by the elimination of both habitat and species for the
continued expansion of man on the face of the earth.  Our
technological advancement has far outstripped our emotional
advancement.  I feel that these plants and animals are sacred, and
that our extermination of them only reinforces our inferiority.  I
feel the most advanced civilization is the one that has learned to
utilize its environment, not the one that destroys what exists and
replaces it with its own inferior creation.  We have the gift of
making tools.  This is a good gift, but we use it in totally
inappropriate ways.

We abuse, consume strip, and often exterminate everything that the
earth provides at a rate that far exceeds its ability to replenish.
The earth is capable of regrowing plants, producing more animals,
filtering air and water pollution.  All of this has evolved over eons.
But we continue to pollute until we outstrip the earths ability to
filter, we kill off the animals far faster than they can reproduce, we
choose some species we feel are beneficial to *us*, and kill off those
which threaten them (take, for instance, the extermination of the
Mountaion Lion, the Coyote, and the Wolf in favor of the Sheep and the
Cow).  We decide all of these things, causing rapid and obvious
imbalances in the ecosystem, and ignore the result (deer, beaver, and
porcipine overpopulation, due to the ellimination of natural
preditors, for instance).  We reproduce rapildy, and eliminate
anything we haven't built ourselves (take the entire L.A.  basin or
the island of Manhattan as "small" examples).  How many urbanites
today have ever spent a week away from man-made objects?  How many
backpackers, who spend much of their free time in the woods have spent
a week without their backpack, their stove, their utensils, their
freeze-dried food?  Most people who claim to be environmentalists have
no idea what the environment is.  For them, it is air conditioning,
central heating, florecent and incandecent light.  How can one be an
"environmentalist" when they have never immersed themselves in the
environment they are proporting to save?  In other words, how can you
fight to save something you have no clue about and have never
experienced first-hand?

Is recycling an aluminum can being an environmentalist?  How about not
*consuming* products packaged in aluminum.  How about drinking water,
fruit, and vegetable juice rather than Coke(tm)?  Well, no, we'd
rather have our sugar water, and to be practical, with the destructive
farming practices that the large farming conglomerates use, it is
probably less of a drain on the earths resources anyway.  We like the
taste, and we like the convienience.  We don't think about what it
costs in terms of resource consumption to manufacture, recycle (which
uses more energy), and remanufacture that can your soda comes in.
This has to change.  It will, sooner or later.  It will be a lot more
pleasant for future generations if we start the change now.  I will
grant you that recycling is a lot better than not recycling, but in a
way recycling give people a false sense of having "done something".
They feel they've done their duty by separating recyclables from their
trash, and then leave it to others to do anything else that might need
to be done.  It may sound cynical, but having talked to a lot of
'average Americans', it's far too often true.

>Yes, I am a normal person.  Yes, I do what I can.  Yes, I do what makes 
>sense to me.  Yes, I think I've earned my luxuries (if you can call them 
>that).  No, the weight of the world doesn't fall on me.

Well, I don't feel myself 'normal', where my definition of normal here
is 'like the majority'.  I've worked for the luxuries I have also, but
then I've come to feel having a permanent structure to live in and
indoor plumbing as luxuries.  I have been trying for years to consume
less (difficult when you're brought up in the middle of an urban area
(San Francisco), but traditionally consumeristic parents), and feel
I'm finally getting to a level of consumerism that is more
appropriate, and I am working towards a lifestyle where I can reduce
my dependance and consumerism even more.  The weight of the world?
Well, sometimes I feel overwhelmed, but I've learned that there is
only so much you can do without loosing site of what your fighting
for.  If I do nothing but rant and preach, spending none of my time
enjoying what is left of the wild areas I so much love, I am less than
I could be.  I try and balance my passion with my enjoyment, and try
not to loose hope and to not feel overwhelmed.  I find it much more
beneficial to spend time learning what I can from the wilderness and
sharing that knowledge with others.  I've found that nothing changes
peoples attitude faster than learning what the wilderness is really
like, and that destroying it is irrational.  You only fear what you do
not know.  I think people fear wilderness, and see no use for it
because they've never been introduced to it.  I was certainly that
way.  So, that's my passion, my mission in life.  It's the best I
feel I can do to change things.  One person at a time.

>>I personally feel 
>>it is all of our responsibility to do *something* to reduce our 
>>consumption, and when we've gotten comfortable with that, to reduce 
>>something else.

>I agree.

>>But I guess that's just me...

>Not necessarily.  Don't be so cynical.

I spend a lot of my vacation time in what's left of the New Jersey
wilderness taking classes on wilderness living.  Seeing what the
"ordinary" East Coast person does when they visit the wilderness is
enough to make you give up hope.  I'm not nearly as cynical as I
probably should be.  I've seen what were once pristine areas turned
into impromptu trash dumps for no reason whatsever.  People just drive
into the woods, and toss their bottles, cans, and plastic packaging
out their windows.  They abandon, burn, and shoot cars and boats on
the sides of the 'roads'.  They throw used clothing of all sorts in
the once crystal clear rivers.  They drive their trucks off the trail
and through the trees, knocking them over as they go, just for kicks.
Dozens of them drive out at night, cut down a few trees, start a huge
bonfire, and sit around drinking, with their stereos blazing.  I fear
that this is the future for more of our wilderness areas unless we can
somehow turn around this destructive addiction to consuming.  Cynical?
Yes, all too often.  On the other hand, I have met a lot of people
even more passionate about turning things around than I, and I meet
more people all the time who are truely concerned and want to change
things.

Well, I've rambled a lot, and I've written way to much.  If you
actually read this far, sorry I wasn't more eloquent and didn't have a
big finish.