Rethinking Lifestyle

We are headed toward a day not too far way when the system as we know it will break down. We will not have enough transportation fuel to sustain our way of life. Denial is not a strategy. ~ Alice Friedemann

In discussions about the merits of a Carbon Tax as a policy response to the threat of climate Change, one frequently hears the comment that this tax, or one similar to it, is basically a “stick”. The Carbon Tax, they say, essentially punishes people for the use of oil and coal. Wouldn’t it be much better, these people say, if people were offered a “carrot” as an incentive to get people to use less petroleum. Subsidizing the addition of insulation to buildings, subsidizing the development and purchase of electric vehicles and promoting the development of renewable energy such as wind and solar are the most common examples of carrots, but there are many more.

Although there is merit in these “carrots” they are all fail in one respect. They overlook the fact that we are over-consuming – particularly energy. The “carrot” does not speak to the fact that we need to find ways of living that will consume less energy.

This reality was highlighted for me recently when I came across a white paper titled “Pulling Back the Curtain on the Energy Transition Tale” prepared by The Real Green New Deal Project. That paper is well worth reading, but let me just draw attention to a few points raised in that paper.

According to this paper, liquid fuel accounts for 81% of the energy being consumed globally. So, yes, there is renewable energy – hydro, solar, wind. Most of that is converted to electricity before it becomes useful. Currently our dependency is on liquid fuels. The vast majority of our cars, all of our trucks, all of our aircraft and most of trains are powered by liquid fuel. The tractors our food system depends on need liquid fuel. Most of our homes are heated with natural gas. Manufacturing too, requires large amounts of heat. Most of that comes from liquid fuel.

Let’s look at our food production system. Fossil fuelled agricultural inputs are the only reason we’re able to feed 8 billion people.

The synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides, not to mention the petroleum-fuelled heavy machinery, responsible for what is known as The Green Revolution, have allowed for much higher than normal agricultural outputs per unit of land area than under normal conditions (at a massive ecological cost). Remove fossil fuels from the agricultural system and we’re left with significantly reduced output.

Even if a global one-child culture were to emerge soon, we would still have 8 billion mouths to feed. Failure to achieve fertility reduction would spell an even more dire scenario. This means that virtually every inch of arable land must be dedicated to growing food, leaving ethanol and biodiesel as possible niche products only.

Even assuming massive reforestation and afforestation with a dedicated harvest for energy consumption, woody biomass will contribute primarily to heat generation – likely not liquid fuel production.

A part of the problem is that as long as liquid fuel is cheap, there is little incentive to pursue alternative options. The “carrot” will not provide that incentive. Were energy users – you and I – to pay for the actual cost of liquid fuel as seen by those who will be wanting to use it a generation from now, we would be more frugal in our use of it. We would welcome policies that discourage the use of these scarce fuels.