Global Warming

Patrick Ellis patricke at jps.net
Thu Apr 5 11:48:56 PDT 2001


James Heartfield wrote:


>All in all it strikes me as hypocrisy to demand a reduction in
>consumption and then complain that you didn't mean that you wanted to
>reduce living standards.

As Wojtek pointed out this is a false premise, not to mention a red herring.

But I'm more than happy to concede a "reduced" living standard is part of the package if we consider reducing energy waste as a "reduction" in living standards. In fact, some of us here in California have been doing a pilot project on this recently. Turns out it just ain't that big a deal, for those of us who have bothered to try. For instance, we've reduced our living standards by:

- Having lights on only in occupied spaces

- Heating to 65 degrees and cooling to 80 degrees, with heat turned down to 55 degrees when sleeping and off when at work

- Setting computers to 30-minute sleep modes and turning them off overnight

- Unplugging "always on" devices when not in use (which has been calculated to equate to 10% of California electricity use, more than enough to end the current "crisis" by itself)

A few other living standard "reductions" the US might consider to meet the ridiculously minimal Kyoto standards could include:

- Use of more efficient personal vehicles (how many of the new hybrid gas-electric cars would $1.6 trillion buy, and what that would mean in reduced CO2 & other emissions?)

- Less use of personal vehicles by more short-distance walking and greater use of public transit (funded & made more attractive by a gradual rise to European-level fuel prices?)

- Use of rail for long-distance freight transport instead of trucks (move much of the highway subsidies back into the railroads, although I'm only guessing this would make a significant emissions difference)

- Increased use of "alternative" non-polluting energy sources (given the fast-rising cost & demand of less-polluting natural gas, payback on these has got to be improving fast)

- Etc.

Yup, it's true, each one of these measures would "reduce" the living standard, and if did them all we might even notice it. Somehow I think we'd muddle through. Admittedly there'd also be some economic dislocation from that second set of suggestions, but I think it'd be a tad less of a problem than the flooding of coastal cities and subsequent glaciers moving down the Hudson Valley when the climate reverts to an ice age as it always has after a warming cycle.

Sure, maybe we just happened to be heading into a global warming cycle that was merely coincident with a vast increase in human burning of fuels. Maybe it's all hooey. Maybe we should all just buy waders.

Patrick



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