Tuesday, April 17, 2018

The Ball Is In Our Court

I am well past the age when I feel any real hope for the future of our species. Far too many of us are content to define our lives by the ease and conveniences afforded by technology, technology that is leaving us with an increasingly unstable environment and climate. And now, of course, we are beginning to see the effects, worldwide, of our self-indulgence. Hurricanes, tornadoes, unseasonable weather, fire and rain are but a foretaste of what is to come.

Nonetheless, like many others, I believe that we cannot abandon hope completely and must fight the good fight no matter its ultimate outcome. I read an article the other day which suggests a way that we can substantially reduce our collective carbon footprint. Unlike the ignoble lies told by people like Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau and, here in Ontario, Doug Ford, there may be a way to have our environmental cake while we more or less continue to consume as our prodigal lifestyles dictate.

Patrick Brown offers a partial solution to our woes:
Massive savings in carbon emissions are possible worldwide if governments adopt the highest energy efficiency standards for lighting and household appliances such as fridges, freezers and washing machines, researchers say.
Unlike the hot air Mr.Trudeau is happy to regularly release, this could go a long way toward the Paris agreement goal of keeping the global rise in temperatures as close as possible to the 1.5°C maximum world leaders agreed upon.
Many countries have already adopted higher energy efficiency standards, including the entire European Union (EU). But if the best standards were applied globally, more than 1,100 average-sized coal-powered generating plants, each producing about 600 MW, could be closed.

If low carbon electricity production were used to generate the remaining electricity needed, and fossil fuel plants were closed, then a reduction of 60% of all emissions from buildings would be possible by 2030, CAT [Climate Action Tracker]says. This is 5.2 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide, more than the EU’s entire current emissions.
Since we seem inextricably wedded to our convenience and comfort, this approach yields much and demands little. A good example is to be found in India, where efforts to boost the use of LED lights has led to dramatic reductions in energy use:
It meant at peak times that India needed 6,000 megawatts less electricity to satisfy demand than if ordinary bulbs had been used. The government was able to negotiate for better prices for mass orders of LEDs from the manufacturers, lowering prices and increasing jobs at the same time.
The trend to government intervention to cut energy use is catching on:
Other countries are also producing excellent results with different policies. In France lighting installations in non-residential buildings must be switched off at night, to reduce both energy waste and light pollution. The resulting energy savings are comparable to the annual electricity consumption of 750,000 households, lowering CO2 emissions by 250 kilotonnes and saving French businesses €200m in energy costs.

Professor Niklas Höhne of NewClimate Institute, one of the three members of the CAT consortium, said: “We found examples around the world where people are reaping the benefits by switching off lights in cities at night, switching to LEDs, smart lighting and smart metering, apps provided by energy companies to encourage customers to save energy or to use appliances at off-peak hours.”
As a species, we are very good at playing the victim, embracing a willful ignorance and helplessness, seeming to prefer that to an active participation in dealing with our self-made problems. It doesn't have to be that way.

The ball is now in our court.


  1. Imagine, Lorne, if governments mandated that household appliances should last not five years but fifteen? Manufacturers would be obliged to maintain adequate inventories of parts to make that lifespan feasible. Think of the energy required for the production of a refrigerator or washing machine plus its delivery, warehousing and installation. Now think of all the energy to convey it to the dump, for recycling (of some preferred parts) and disposal of the rest. Why not incur those energy costs on a fifteen year cycle instead of five or seven years?

    John Galbraith dealt with the problem of our disposable society in 1958 when he wrote "The Affluent Society." It has done nothing but worsen ever since. When you take the wealth lost to this premature obsolescence and imagine other uses that money could be put toward the irresponsible squandering of so much wealth is revealed.

    1. We are wastrels who are encouraged to be such by corporate and government imperatives, aren't we, Mound, all in the name of serving the economy.