Global warming: personal vs political responses

This was originally written in October, 2006. It was written in response to suggestions on the church list of combatting global warming by recycling, using less air conditioning, and walking instead of driving.

When I watched Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", I noted that in the "what you can do" section the first several items were about reducing your own energy consumption, and only then was the idea of political organizing raised. I found that disappointing, because my sense is that even if the entire population of ecologically-minded US citizens cut their energy use to zero it would make very little difference. It's a good thing if an individual installs energy-efficient light bulbs. But if that assuages their conscience and lets them happily check off "did something about global warming" on their list and go on with life, I'm not sure that's so good. If on the other hand it becomes the first small step that leads to getting an energy audit on their house to save heating costs or buying a hybrid car, that is good. I don't know which reaction is more common. But I do think we need to eventually get a fairly large number of us to act in the political arena or we're going to have trouble making progress.

While giving up air conditioning can make us feel virtuous (and in fairness also be a real savings), contemplating such a step can lead in another direction. You might simply say that you don't have the discipline to make the sacrifice, so you're going to forget about it. Combine this with the "tragedy of the commons" [individuals reap the benefits but everyone bears the cost] and it is a recipe for inaction.

The way to avoid commons-tragedy issues is to pass laws that apply to everyone. If for instance a law said that no air conditioner could be set lower than 78 degrees, I would feel much better about being on the warm side than I would if I felt others weren't sharing my discomfort.

There are a great many things we as a society can do without causing much pain. Raising fuel efficiency standards on vehicles is an obvious first step. Subsidizing wind or solar power is another. Requiring stringent scrubbing mechanisms on burning of coal is another. The idea of carbon sequestration was a new one to me until recently --actually taking the carbon dioxide out of the air and storing it somewhere. Research on it could be generously funded.

Actions that people take as individuals seem to me to cut both ways. You may feel virtuous to the extent you are giving something up rather than the extent to which you really are saving energy. Then if you fall from your virtuous program you may be more demoralized than the lapse warrants. I for one have decided not to worry much about leaving the lights on around the house. When I feel bad about what I'm not doing to help with global warming, it's those missing letters and calls and visits with politicians that I feel guilty about, not leaving the lights on or taking that trip to Cape Cod that I really didn't need to take.

In an earlier energy crisis, one solution the US adopted was the 55mph speed limit. I don't know how much energy it saved, but it strikes me that it was profoundly irritating to a whole lot of people. Minute by minute people were aware of what they were giving up on roads that really were designed to handle higher speeds. At the time there was something akin to mass civil disobedience in ignoring the limit. I think in the future we need to choose our public collective acts of sacrifice more carefully.

I was heartened to read somewhere (I think it was MIT's Tech Review) that if the price of electricity were a mere four times what it is today, we could get as much as we wanted from solar cells. I hope it's true. That price increase would represent a major change in our economy, but not the end of moderate affluence. None of these measures alone will solve global warming, but putting them (and others) together might do the job.