Almost every day there is an article about global warming, and a demand for the government to do something about it.
A rational person would tackle the problem by approaching it at a basic level, and that would be cutting demand for the products that cause pollution. But this is political suicide, so governments approach it by promoting the concept we can solve the problem by cracking down on pollution from manufacturing products, whether it be electricity or making a widget. A “we can have it all” concept. This only attacks a small part of the problem, and the problem is us, and we must all sacrifice to reduce our consumption. The U.S. has 5 percent of the world’s population, but consumes 20 percent of its resources. This is not sustainable in the long run.
So here are concepts to demand of our government:
Industrial pollution: Increasing regulations to reduce manufacturing pollution causes costs to increase. These costs are passed on to the consumer, and at some point the cost of the product becomes too expensive and consumers turn to cheaper imports. The company looses money and then moves to another country. We then export jobs and our money to another country. Pollution is reduced in U.S. but worldwide pollution increases or stays the same. We must balance costs of the need for more regulations with keeping a viable industry alive, as this is vital to maintaining well paying jobs.
Electrical generation pollution: Whether electrical power is generated from coal, nuclear, oil, gas, wind, solar or hydro, there are varying degrees of environmental negatives to all of them. So the best bet is to cut the need for electricity. Here is some low-hanging fruit to consider:
If you have ever been in an airplane at night you have seen how our cities and towns are lit up like day. The billions of bulbs that are burning use a lot of electricity, and suck money out of taxpayer’s wallet. Are all these lights necessary? Can we help save the planet by using a street light every 300 feet rather than every 100 feet. If buildings are not occupied turn off the lights. Not every homeowner and business needs their own yard light. Keeping homes and business at 75 in the winter and 70 in the summer is just wasteful. Each decade home sizes get larger, although family size does not, requiring more resources to build and maintain.
Vehicle pollution: When the price of gas went above $4 per gallon people drove less, started to carpool, rode mass transit, and looked at replacing the gas hog with a more efficient vehicle. Now with gas near $2 per gallon they are buying the gas hogs again and clogging up the roads with single occupancy vehicles. If people really cared about global warming there would be protests for the government to increase the tax so fuel costs $4 per gallon, as it does in Europe does. The increased revenue could be used to fix the failing road infrastructure.
Airline pollution: Plane travel is six times more polluting per passenger mile than driving a car. To make it worse, planes pump the pollution directly into the upper atmosphere. Yes, they are getting more efficient, but air miles are expanding at a record clip. Currently there are more than 100,000 flights per day worldwide. That is a lot of carbon-based pollution. Yet how popular would a yearly flight quota be?
Overpopulation: Each person alive on the planet has a certain pollution number attached, depending on their country. The concept to reduce world inequality translates to increasing the consumption of the poor to be closer to the middle class. This means an increase in energy and widget production to serve their demands. Think China now versus China 25 years ago. Assuming everything stayed the same, if the population grew 20 percent in the next 20 years, we would have to decrease our consumption by 40 percent to achieve a 20 percent reduction in pollution. Very few are willing to roll back their standard of living and pay increased prices for getting less.
Leadership: People think first with their pocket books and then with their comfort levels. To reduce pollution we need political leadership to explain why the “we can have it all” concept will not work in the long run. Just like the case has been made in the West to conserve water, we need a case to be made to conserve water, electricity, fuel, clean air, natural resources, land, the oceans, and other items of everyday use. Even Elon Musk says this planet can not support 9 billion people.
Curt Young is a resident of Snohomish.
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