[MCN] There's no place like home for an energy revolution : Would that be too much to ask?

[Lance Olsen]

Home-grown energy revolutions

Reducing our lifestyle demand for renewable energy can reduce the mining for materials to build vast square mileage of wind farms. It can likewise limit copper mining required to build solar farms in wildlife habitat. 

Consumers obviously can’t do all this alone, so putting the pressure on politicians is and will be irreplaceable, but there’s no place like home for starting to make a difference.

Nobody needs to wait for an Act of Congress to get this ball rolling.We can start by reconsidering everything plugged into a wall outlet. 

Will our lives suffer excruciating pain if we leave vacuum cleaners unplugged, and reach for brooms?

Would that be too much to ask? 

Would it be once again possible to open a can of beans without an electric can opener? Electric toothbrushes, electric shavers, anything plugged into a wall outlet needs as hard a look as we can give. Would that be too much to ask?

We can start our own home-grown energy-revolutions simply by remembering that the shift to solar and wind energy generation isn’t a matter of just keeping the lights on. Among many other things that need to be weighed, it’s also a matter of how much home lighting we truly need. Any 60 watt light bulb will demand less energy than a comparable 100 watt bulb.  

Building and buying of efficient bulbs will of course make a difference, but even there the wattage demand will matter. There will be mining in order to build these bulbs, but the wattage demand is largely in the hands of the buyers. Is reducing that demand too much to ask? 

All things considered, I have to agree with the irony in 16 year old Greta Thunberg’s calmly eloquent, “We live in a strange world. Where we think we can buy or build our way out of a crisis that has been created by buying and building things.”

<<https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/21/renewable-energy-the-switch-from-drill-baby-drill-to-mine-baby-mine/ <https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/21/renewable-energy-the-switch-from-drill-baby-drill-to-mine-baby-mine/>>>


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Financial Times - March 28, 2018
Special Report <https://www.ft.com/reports>

How to make a carbon pricing system work
Compensation for those who lose out and sanctions on non-compliance are needed
MARTIN WOLF <https://www.ft.com/martin-wolf>

<<https://www.ft.com/content/2d9490f2-1291-11e8-a765-993b2440bd73 <https://www.ft.com/content/2d9490f2-1291-11e8-a765-993b2440bd73>>>

1st 2 sentences

“Carbon pricing is a good idea whose time has not yet come. But it has to do so.”

Closing 2 sentences

“The chances are high that the effort will fail. If so, our goose will be cooked.”

==============

Financial Times - March 28, 2018
Special Report <https://www.ft.com/reports>

How to make a carbon pricing system work
Compensation for those who lose out and sanctions on non-compliance are needed
MARTIN WOLF <https://www.ft.com/martin-wolf>

<<https://www.ft.com/content/2d9490f2-1291-11e8-a765-993b2440bd73 <https://www.ft.com/content/2d9490f2-1291-11e8-a765-993b2440bd73>>>

1st 2 sentences

“Carbon pricing is a good idea whose time has not yet come. But it has to do so.”

Closing 2 sentences

“The chances are high that the effort will fail. If so, our goose will be cooked.”




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