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Embedded Energy, Life-Cycle Assessments and Greenwashing
Alex Steffen, WorldChanging
How much of a difference do we really make when we take small, personal steps to protect the environment? That’s been a subject of much debate around here recently. Just to throw a little biodiesel on the fire, WorldChanging reader Brad Stone writes in recommending his most recent column in Newsweek, Do Good By Doing Bad in which he lambastes Greener Miles, the new partnership between Ford and TerraPass, which will let SUV-owners offset the carbon they spew while driving the kids to the little league game in a 7,000-pound Ford Excursion:
…Now, I’m of two minds here. On the one hand, given climate crisis realities, I think we ought to be encouraging everyone we can to think about how they can go climate neutral in their own lives. We have a couple hundred million Americans we need to get paying attention to their carbon footprints. TerraPass is a good company, and if they can get people moving in that direction, more (clean) power to them.
But on the other hand, we need to make sure that the efforts which get our praise reflect the reality of how much change is needed, immediately.
To do that, we need to look beyond the gas tank and think about the whole system which GreenerMiles may or may not be perpetuating. A pretty key concept in life-cycle analysis is embedded energy: the energy used to make a given thing, build the infrastructure that supports it, and finally dispose of it. While there is real debate about how much energy is embedded in the production of cars, it is clear that when you count in maintaining the infrastructure to support a completely auto-centric society, the ecological costs are profound and go way beyond the smog belching out any individual car’s tailpipe.
(14 May 2006)
Greening Up With the Joneses
Alex Williams, NY Times
…Conservation is becoming a subject of recrimination and debate inside many American homes, perhaps to the greatest extent since the 1970’s. Whether prompted (or shamed) by rising gas prices, a dependence on foreign oil or dire warnings about global warning, some Americans who have never allied themselves with the environmental movement are taking it upon themselves to drive less, consume less and recycle more, environmental organizers said.
Over the last two years, environmentalists say, they have been fielding more inquiries from people seeking practical solutions to combat global warming.
“I certainly see that the more mainstream, middle-class — really, all classes — are more aware of energy problems, including people who you wouldn’t think of as environmentalists, but will acknowledge that their S.U.V. is burning way more than it ought to,” said Bob Schildgen, a columnist for Sierra magazine, published by the Sierra Club. “There is much broader concern than there was even two years ago.”
But for many, it is not so easy to conserve within a culture of affluence whose environmentally costly components have almost become entitlements: the S.U.V.’s; the dream homes; the remodeled kitchens with double-ovens, double-dishwashers and thermoelectric wine chillers; the second homes (also remodeled); the plasma television sets and surround-sound home theater systems all plugged in and ready to go. Where to begin?
David Brotherton, a communications consultant who lives in Seattle, said he and his wife, Kim, decided to maintain a markedly greener household over the last few years, prompted largely by dire warnings about climate change.
The trick, Mr. Brotherton said, was not to give up nice things, but to buy nice things that were ecologically sound. “I don’t even pretend to be a hard-core environmentalist,” Mr. Brotherton explained. “But I do aspire to be a ‘light green’ kind of guy — one who thinks carefully about the choices I make as a consumer and tries to tread as lightly on the planet as possible, within my chosen lifestyle.”
(14 May 2006)
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Unleashing Abundance as a Community Response to Peak Oil:
Designing Energy Descent Pathways
Rob Hopkins, Permaculture Activist
…We are so dependent on oil for every aspect of our lives, that its gradual (or rapid, depending on who you listen to) but steady disappearance from our lives will force us to redesign everything about our communities and our own lives. We need to relearn the skills that sustained our ancestors: crafts, local medicines, the great art of growing food. This is the biggest challenge.
My introduction to all this came through meeting Dr. Colin Campbell. He lives in Ballydehob in West Cork, where I was living until recently, and sets up and runs the Association for the Study of Peak Oil. He worked in the oil industry for more than 30 years, and since his retirement has devoted himself to researching the real picture in terms of oil availability (how much is left, where it is and so on) through the vehicle of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO), which he founded. It is Colin who has really brought the awareness of Peak Oil to the world’s attention, tirelessly travelling the globe, lecturing governments, investment bankers, energy experts, telling them all the same thing, “We are about to peak, and you need to re-evaluate what you are doing, because it is going to change everything.” His life story and his case for peak oil are set out in his latest book, Oil Crisis.
…This led on to our planning of the Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan project. The term ‘Energy Descent’ was originally used by ecologist Howard T. Odum in his book, A Prosperous Way Down, and was picked up and used by David Holmgren in his Permaculture Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability. It refers to the time beyond the peak, the downward trend in energy availability. Holmgren makes the point that we need to plan for this descent, rather than simply allowing it to unfold in a series of random and chaotic events. This point is also made by Richard Heinberg in his book Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon Future, in which he calls for a planned descent, an international response to peak oil on the same scale as a wartime mobilisation, to begin building a low energy future.
(14 May 2006)
The article first appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of Permaculture Activist which was devoted to Peak Oil. Rob Hopkins’s work has frequently appeared in Energy Bulletin.
