Alternate Route

Mar 17, 2008 - Blarney

On this greenest of green days, I ran across an editorial by Patrick Deneen in the Dallas Morning News that I have to share with you. 

Everyone seems to be going green now. It's as if we're celebrating St. Patrick's Day all year round. Gone are the days when to be "green" meant that one was a Birkenstock-wearing anarchist. Now, even our bourgeois bohemians are hugging trees.

But our embrace of green bears a resemblance to St. Patrick's Day in another important respect: On that one day of the year, everyone suddenly claims to be Irish whether or not that claim bears any relation to reality. A few years ago, even Ireland started holding parades on that day, not to disappoint the American tourists who made special trips to Ireland to celebrate (quite a bit like all the revelers at Mardi Gras who have no intent to observe Lent, nor possess even the knowledge of what Lent is).

Our greenness is as substantial as our March 17 Irishness: Neither bears any relation to reality.

A case in point: I attended an auto show not long ago and wasn't remotely surprised that every auto manufacturer prominently advertised all the ways that they are embracing a "green future." Signs bragging about the bright future of cars running on biofuels and electricity all sought to induce the collective illusion that we can continue to behave exactly as we've been doing and pay no costs.

What this feel-good advertising campaign in fact promises is that we can continue to pay absolutely no attention to what it is we are doing. It's quite evident that we are all rushing to embrace the "green" label so that we can avoid actually thinking about what would be entailed to slow our destruction of the natural world.

The leftist environmentalists, the bourgeois bohemian centrists, and the Schwarznegger Republicans – along with various automobile manufacturers – all share a great deal of excitement about the prospect of a "clean" biofuel-powered or plug-in electric car. No more dirty emissions; no more addiction to oil! Just fill it with vegetable oil, or plug it in and save the planet.

Alas, if only it were that easy. It turns out that biofuels and electricity aren't exactly great ways to save the planet. As a new study reports, there is growing evidence of the enormous destruction and carbon emissions of biofuels, the boom in which is resulting in the destruction of huge swaths of carbon-consuming rainforests and nature preserves. It turns out our rush to adopt this new, "clean" energy source – which, incidentally, is also resulting in the starvation of poor people who cannot afford the related rising price of food – is contributing mightily to the ravaging of the Earth.

Further, enthusiasts of the electric car can spare nary a thought to the question of where electricity comes from. Electricity is really another dirty energy: We generate half of our electricity using coal, followed by natural gas and then distantly by nuclear, water, wind and solar. Our "clean" electric car future is going to be powered by a different (and still limited) fossil fuel, one that is considerably dirtier than refined oil and is mined in ways that destroy the land and unsettle communities.

Once we begin to reflect on our desperation to continue our current rate of consumption and reckless addiction to profligate energy usage, it's quite clear that all the "green" that is being embraced is as genuine as the Irish heritage of many of our St. Patrick's day revelers. It's a fun day without any of the hard times.

If we truly intend to go green, we have to fundamentally change our current way of life. We must make changes to our built community so that we can walk more, buy goods from more local sources, and live smaller and less wastefully. My money, alas, is on a big self-delusive continuation of our St. Patrick's Day party.

Rather than luxuriating in our self-satisfaction over being green, why not do the difficult thing and start acting responsibly?

Boy did he nail it on the head. There are a bunch of folks running around promoting hybrids, alternative fuels, and electric cars not because it's the right thing to do or even makes sense, but because they think it says something about them or makes them better than other people somehow.

Worse yet, these greenies will accuse you of wanting to destroy the planet if you don't agree with them or have legitimate questions and concerns about problems that might result from a blind rush to their green nirvana.

Everyone wants clean air. Everyone would like to find a more efficient fuel or vehicle. But this is a lot like losing weight. It took time to put it on, it's going to take time to get it off.

4:32 am | Categories: alternative fuels, commentary, electric vehicles, hybrids Permalink | Alert Administrator

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