We're all in this together

I'm constantly surprised by the inability of some groups to accept the necessity of giving up a bit of free will, their own ability to exercise their own rights to do whatever they feel that they want to do, for the greater good of local, regional, national, and world society. (Say society and they think "socialism" -- keep that in mind). Take recycling; it seems to pain some people to take the modicum of extra effort required to pitch an aluminum can into a recycling container instead of the trash. This surprises me; seems like there is some sentiment out there to "drill, baby, drill", not realizing how much energy could be saved, obviating the need for drilling, by conserving.

[ A brief aside on aluminum recycling; how much energy does it save? Quick Google searching and quoting: "It takes 12 to 20 times more energy to make aluminum from bauxite than making it from recycled aluminum". "only about 33 percent of America’s aluminum in 2001 came from recycled scrap and much of the credit goes to industry". "Recycling a ton of aluminum uses just 5% of the energy required to make virgin metal. Every ton of recycled aluminum that Alcoa uses saves about 14,000 kilowatt hours of electricity." So what's good for Reynolds and Alcoa is good for the American economy and good for the environment. I wish some T. Boone Pickens fellows, one in particular who apparently doesn't think much of big blue recycling bins, and who confesses an "antisocial recycling opposition", would read this. ]

But let's take this in a different direction. It seems that there can be a change of heart when a vital commodity becomes scarce. And there is more than one dimension to this change of heart; one is the acceptance of government-mandated restrictions on individual rights in the name of community good to maintain the availability of the vital resource becoming scarce; the other is the acceptance and implementation of personal conservation measures to maintain the availability of the scarce resource; it is the latter that I term the "we're all in this together" mentality.

A current illustration of this principle is now taking place in the U.S. drought-stricken Southeast. For the past three-four years, it hasn't rained very much in the quad-state area: northeast Georgia, western North and South Carolina, and eastern Tennessee. Western South Carolina is the current ground zero; an area of exceptional drought. This isn't good, for one thing, for nuclear power plants, which need a lot of water for cooling, and Duke Power has several nuclear power plants. Metro Atlanta is dependent on Lake Lanier for water supply, and Lake Lanier is 17 feet below normal. I doubt that the Chattooga River has had enough water for whitewater for a couple of years. Water restrictions, voluntary and increasingly mandatory, are widespread. And even the Free Willians are accepting such restrictions, because they have to. Without water, there is no garden, no lawn, no shower, less hygiene, unwashed dishes, less power, less cooling, and ultimately we need water to drink, to survive. So even in this vaunted bastion of conserv-- I vowed I woudn't use the "con" word -- bastion of right-wing politics, the politicos (even Jim DeMint!!!!) accept the need for conservation, for government-mandated and enforced conservation.

And there's another aspect, of course, highlighted by the article below; personal and household conservation measures.

Rain barrels

People are putting in rain barrels, collecting hundreds of gallons of water from a single light rain shower. Some people are tearing out brown withered lawns and replacing them with gravel. Gardeners are using drip irrigation rather than sprinkler systems. Plumbers and home-do-it-yourselvers are putting in water-conserving shower heads, even flushless (or flush-less) toilets. Result; water use is down. The dwindling water supplies are getting stretched. It wouldn't hurt AT ALL to have a late season tropical storm wander over Atlanta and Greenville-Spartanburg and dump 8-10 inches, and the problem hasn't gone away, but because they're all in this together, community efforts (voluntary socialism) is helping. Quite a bit.

Which brings me to energy. And carbon.

There is a stunning level of opposition from conserv... er, those persons with right-leaning political views, against any form of carbon consumption regulation. These are the people protesting "An Inconvenient Truth" as political propaganda when its shown in schools to their kids (inconveniently, the science in AIT has passed muster quite well). These are the people who think that any economy built on any energy foundation other than the burning of Carboniferous and Cretaceous carbon is preposterous. These are the people who might not even vote for John McCain solely for his views on this issue despite the level of anathema Barack Obama represents. Carbon at all costs -- and the costs are considerable, and growing. But I won't go into that quite yet.

What I will go into is the "we're all in this together" principle. Energy conservation makes sense for economic reasons, and as we're seeing, a stable economy is desirable for a whole lot of national self-interest reasons. "Drill, baby, drill" will take time to deliver anything to the pump and to the home. Rapid implementation of conservation measures -- with incentives to defray those upfront costs -- can deliver in months. It would be interesting to see how much the need to drill could be obviated with a national, concerted, dedicated, "we're all in this together" effort. It goes beyond keeping tires inflated. It means more efficient lighting, refrigeration, home heating and cooling, business heating and cooling, the entire transportation sector. It also means many different forms of generation: more wind, nuclear, biofuels, etc.

In fifteen years, I expect to see solar power cells (probably far more efficient than those today) as common on rooftops around the country as rainbarrels in Georgia and South Carolina are becoming now. I expect to see windmills sprouting everywhere; I've already seen them in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. It will be interesting to watch this transition. And it will be interesting to see how many Free Willians climb on board the electric- or natural gas-powered bus.