So Many Ways to Fight Global Warming

If we are going to sell skeptics on doing something about global warming, we need to find the cheapest, most pleasant solutions, solutions that don't require excessive red tape and bureaucracy. And keep this in mind: once the citizens of the U.S. realize that we're talking 75+% cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, we'll have a lot of skeptics to deal with.

So which are the cheapest solutions? The options are many:

1. Insulate homes and offices more.
2. Change thermostat settings and clothing to yield to the seasons.
3. Use waste heat from electricity generation for other purposes. (2/3 of energy used to make electricity ends up as waste heat.)
4. Turn off lights in rooms not occupied.
5. Turn down the amount of lighting in stores, especially when closed.
6. Use more efficient lights, such as the new white LEDs.
7. Install skylights in homes and businesses that are used during the day.
8. Drive smaller cars—or drive big cars instead of even bigger SUVs.
9. Drive hybrid cars, electric cars and or carbon fiber cars.
10. Carpool.
11. Live closer to work, or telecommute.
12. Take public transportation.
13. Ride a bicycle or walk.
14. Go back to small neighborhood stores instead vs. big regional shopping centers.
15. Use biomass energy (ethanol, methanol, charcoal, seed oils, etc.)
16. Build windmills.
17. Use photovoltaics.
18. Use active and passive solar heating systems.
19. And more!

Which of there are best? Do we mandate smaller automobiles? Hybrids? Compact fluorescent bulbs? Do we build windmills or nuclear fission power plants? Do we wait for economical solar power? Or gamble on nuclear fusion?

Each has costs. Windmills are ugly, unreliable, and kill birds. Nuclear power plants are compact, but produce radioactive wastes and raw materials for terror. Nuclear fusion plants are still a pipe dream, and they too would produce radioactive wastes. (Fusion produces fast neutrons which transmute the containment apparatus into radioactive isotopes.) Bicycles are efficient—until you take into account the lost fuel efficiency of the cars trapped behind bicyclists. Ethanol is clean burning, but corn fields are hard on the soil and displace wildlife habitat. Compact fluorescent bulbs are more efficient than filament bulbs, but they are ugly and contain mercury.

We could commission more studies. Hold major conferences. Do surveys. Enlist the greatest minds in the land to think on the problem. And still get the wrong answer.

There are too many variables, too much dispersed knowledge. The experts do not and cannot know which solutions are best for each person. People have different preferences, abilities, situations.

Bruce drives a hybrid car that gets 40 miles/gallon. Thurston and Amanda ride together in a luxury car that gets 20 miles/gallon. Earl has an old pickup truck that gets 12 miles/gallon, but most of the time he rides his motorcycle.

Muffy just bought the newest Energy Star washing machine with Pancake Clothes Turbo Spin Technology^TM to wring out an additional 10% of the moisture from her clothes before putting them in the dryer. Peggy uses an old fashioned washing machine and hangs her clothes out on a line.

Ralph just added four more inches of insulation to his attic. Bill turns the heat down to 50 and wears long underwear.

The cheapest, most pleasant ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are a matter of individual taste! Any “comprehensive plan solution” to the problem is guaranteed to please only some. Others will find the loopholes in the new 5 pound tomes of regulations. Central planning will give conservatives and other voters good reasons to deny, delay and call for more studies. To get the ball rolling we need to turn the decisions over to The People .

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Copyright 2004,2008, Carl S. Milsted, Jr. All rights reserved.