Articles by David Roberts

Politicians could use some short, punchy energy talking points

I can't count the number of times I've heard people express gut support for green energy concerns but a completely scattershot conception of what the solutions might be. In particular, I worry about hearing this stuff from politicians. They may speak forcefully about the danger of oil, but the next paragraph is too often a grab bag of buzzwords: some combination of hybrids, ethanol, compact-florescent light bulbs, conservation, natural gas, bicycles, markets, clean coal, hydrogen, and either "moon shot" or "Apollo project."

That's from the politicians that don't have a horse in the race, anyway. From a Mike Sessions or a Chuck Grassley, you'll hear nothing but laser-targeted energy advice -- targeted toward projects that benefit financial interests in their states.

And that's the rub: As long as the civic sphere offers no consistent alternative, money and provincialism win the day.

If the feds respond to energy concerns merely by shoveling subsidies at ethanol and nuclear power -- without also pushing for energy efficiency, reducing subsidies to oil, taxing gas, discouraging sprawl, research (and deployment) of renewable energies, etc. -- all we'll have is another set of bloated, politically connected corporate interests on top of the ones already mucking up all attempts at progress. Nothing will substitute for a good-faith effort to comprehensively address our energy problems. Nothing will substitute for a real energy program.

All solutions are not created equal. There are easy and difficult, cheap and expensive, technological and political. It would be nice to have priorities, so everybody could throw their shoulder behind a few consensus short-term goals. A consistent, oft-repeated, emotionally appealing message is crucial.

That's the thinking behind the index-card manifesto, anyway. Just to get the ball rolling. I think I'm going to try to shorten, soften, and sex it up for the next draft.

Facts are inert

We just got a letter to the editor repeating what seems to be conventional wisdom among environmentalists: If Exxon would stop suppressing information about global warming -- if the facts got out -- people would demand an instant, total effort to combat it that dwarfed the "war on terrorism."

This faith -- if people just had the facts, they'd think like we do -- seems immune to refutation. Nothing seems able to dislodge it.

But it just ain't so.

The facts about global warming are all over the place. There's an endless cascade of stories in the country's biggest media outlets. Allegedly censored scientists are all over the papers and TV, screaming the facts from the rooftops. The facts are not hard to come by.

The facts alone just don't move people.

Why that is would be an excellent subject for sociological study. I'm sure it's complicated. But here's one thought: It is human nature to want -- nay, need -- human enemies. Evil people, who can be demonized. And tortured. And killed. And -- most importantly -- seen. People understand people. That's one reason terrorism has such an iron grip on both domestic and foreign policy, despite the relatively low risk anyone in this country has of being affected by it in any way. It fits easily into the natural human cosmology of territory and territorial threats. It goes straight to our lizard brains, our fight-or-flight instinct.

Global warming doesn't. It's vague, and large, and slow-moving, and the enemy is structural and pervasive, and we're all complicit. That kind of shit is just no fun to think about. It does not stir the blood.

I go back and forth on this, but at this particular moment I'm back to thinking that maybe the emphasis on global warming is overdone. We need to offer something closer, more human, more attainable. Some sort of intermediate steps. That is, in part, what the whole index-card thing is about.

Segway creator aims for bottom of pyramid

Interesting:

Dean Kamen, the engineer who invented the Segway, is puzzling over a new equation these days. An estimated 1.1 billion people in the world don't have access to clean drinking water, and an estimated 1.6 billion don't have electricity. ...

To solve the problem, he's invented two devices, each about the size of a washing machine that can provide much-needed power and clean water in rural villages.

The energy machine creates power from "anything that burns" -- cow dung is envisioned as the primary input. It can also run on the sludge created by the water machine, which can allegedly purify any water put in it, no matter how dirty.

As intriguing as the devices themselves is the business model:

From Hilton to Honey

Plaster of Paris Paris Hilton got covered in white powder, and no, she wasn’t partying with Kate Moss. Instead, the famous-for-being-famous socialite was walking next to fashionista Julien Macdonald, whose fur-heavy designs aroused the ire of PETA. So they pelted him with flour, hoping he’d “rise to the occasion.” Dude, you got antique‘d. Elle in […]