Folks;
Thirty-some-odd years ago, I was a speaker at one of the first Earth Day gatherings. I've been environmentally conscious ever since. I'm not a tree hugger, or a PETAphile, or any other brand of extremist. I just believe we must practice sustainable use of our life support system, the planet Earth.
We've missed many opportunities to improve our performance in that arena. Cheap(federally subsidized) oil has kept us in thrall of the petroleum economy, and sapped our will to explore and develop viable energy alternatives. The technology to exploit any of the alternatives is directly within our grasp or could be developed with committed investment.
Within the next several years, Iceland will be totally free of dependence on petroleum products. Their's will be a hydrogen based economy. Granted, they are blessed with abundant geothermal resources, but they have made the investment in creating the infrastructure to enable the shift.
Ours is a history of stifling efforts to change the status quo. Once, GM explored totally electric powered travel with their FEV-1. The cars were never sold to the public, only leased. Now all the remaining cars sit in a heavily guarded compound, destined to be piecemealed for recycling. This is but one example of the petroleum-automotive industrial complex's strategy for dealing with technologies that threaten its primacy. The will to exploit the technology wasn't there, the power brokers killed a nascent effort to shift the paradigm of energy consumption in this country. It has become our Achille's Heel, the figurative balls the producing countries have got us by. We are victims of our own greed, short sightedness and inertia.
A variation on the Think Globally, Act Locally axiom comes to mind. Of late, locally, in my immediate daily life, I'm generally an optimist. But in my global perceptions, I'm generally a pessimist. I despair for the future of the earth. I read an article the other day projecting what would happen to the Earth if humanity were to disappear suddenly. The thinking was that within a couple of hundred years, Earth would revert largely to what it was before we were here. I found that oddly comforting. (Un)fortunately, I don't think we'll be leaving any time soon.
Ambivalently yours,
Hank
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