Use less or use better?

One of the debates within environmentalism is this question of whether to solve the planetary crisis we will have to use fewer resources or whether we will just have to use them more efficiently and cleanly.

There are those, in other words, who seem to believe that we will get to keep driving around in SUVs and to keep our AC turned on all day, but that the vehicles and air conditioners will just be part of a much more efficient and cleaner energy system. Technology, they believe, will solve all our problems.

Personally, I believe that technology will solve some of our problems. But to achieve the 80% to 95% reduction in carbon emissions we need to achieve, we will ultimately have to make lifestyle changes, too (unless, of course, you believe that our economy can operate as a perpetual motion machine).

I'm not talking about returning to caves, but I am talking about things like higher reliance on public transportation, eating less beef, and maybe even hanging clothes out on a line instead of throwing them in a dryer. And personally, I don't see the debate between the efficiency and the reduction models.

There is so much to reduce that wouldn't feel in the least like deprivation. Who, for example, would miss all the packaging that we have to hump to the garbage the minute we get a new purchase home? Which of us would really miss much if we turned the lights and the air conditioning off in empty houses and buildings?

Even Amory Lovins, one of the gurus of the energy efficiency, accepts that consumption reduction will ultimately have to be part of the equation. The extract below comes from "Mr. Green: Environmentalism's Most Optimistic Guru," an article in the January, 2007 New Yorker by Elizabeth Kolbert (emphasis is mine):

I asked Lovins how his plan to save the world through energy efficiency could accommodate the open-ended nature of human desire. If, as he claims, conservation is profitable, what was to stop the profits from going straight toward more consumption?

"It doesn't automatically prevent that," he said. But, he added, "you might plow the money back into more efficiency rather than more powerboats and helicopter skiing. After all, you don't rewash your clean clothes in the cheaper-to-run washing machine, because your clothes are already clean. At some point, I think you get jaded by continuous trips to Bali.

"Your neighbors might point out that what you're doing is increasingly antisocial," he continued. "On a moral or spiritual level, at some point you may discover you're not all that happy having more stuff or more travel. Trying to meet non-material needs by material means is stupid and futile. Every faith tradition that I know decries materialism.

"Markets are meant to be greedy, not fair. Efficient, not sufficient. They're very good at short-term allocation of scarce resources, but that's all they're good at. They were never meant to tell you how much is enough or how to fulfill the higher purpose of a human being."

Comments

[Leslie]

It seems like people in the past did more creating than consuming. Maybe we need to move back in that direction.

Cook, sew, write, paint, garden, woodwork, play music, stuff like that.

[Anne]

I think that the answer is going to be something like moving backward without moving backward. For example, I think that in the next cycle, the conversation about the Food Bill is going to be less about veggies and more about oil. I think oil prices will be approaching something like $200 a barrel and sill exceeding inflation. When that happens, imports will become prohibitively expensive and I think Canola oil will replace Cotton as the fifth commodity crop subsidized by the government.

Voila! Instant reduction in the number of clothes we buy. Luckily we have quite the stock pile.

[jewishfarmer]

I agree that we will both use less and to some extent, use better technologies. But that doesn't mean there's not a considerable amount to say about a. how much technological change we will do and b. how much less we'll be using. I get the sense, reading your reader comments that a large percentage of your reader honestly don't know what kind of changes would be entailed in making a 95% reduction in emissions - they are still envisioning that "conservation" could be a small part of the project. I hate to say so, but I think here you are inadvertantly continuing that impression.

I'm honestly not sure you do anyone a service at all by making overlight of the amount of "lessening" we'll be doing - it is true that you can have a wonderful quality of life using very little - you've obviously proved that. Now the question becomes whether you will continue to have this wonderful quality of life, and continue to keep your impact and emissions at a 90-95% reduction. It also raises the question of whether you will advocate it for others - not just that they eat a little less beef, but that they make reductions in their impact that actually match up with what we have to do to arrest climate change, like you did.

I think one of the deepest problems we have here is a profound lack of awareness of what kinds of changes are required - the reality is that Colin's project is not that far off what is being described in a 90% energy reduction. This is not a matter of just using a little less of something and bringing a reusable cup places - this is matter of making massive structural changes in both personal lives and society as a whole.

We will replace some of this with green power - but not as much as I suspect many of your readers believe - renewables still constitute a minute fraction of our total energy reserves, despite the fact that their use is doubling and tripling. The best estimates I've seen suggest we could replace 20% of our energy in a decade or more - which means we'd all have to use 75% less of *EVERYTHING* in addition to that. And to do as much as 20% (which would be a huge increase) we'd need a World War II style build out, with a massive investment of two trillion dollars - money we're currently spending on the War in Iraq. And to dump boondoggles like our ethanol investments, which are environmental disasters and contribute more greenhouse gasses than the save.

In order to make the changes necessary in the decade or so that we have to reduce greenhouse gasses, the majority of our changes are going to have to come in the realm of conservation - and not all of them will be entirely pleasant - which I believe you know, or you would be planning to continue living exactly this way for the rest of your life - there are things you've presumably been doing that you intend to stop doing, and pleasures you haven't had that you intend to enjoy. Which is all fair enough,
but I think the emphasis for the painlessness of our transition does the environmental movement a disservice - better, perhaps, call for some sacrifice.
I know you don't intend this, but that's how it comes across, I think - that your drive towards the positive includes an attempt to elide how difficult things like cutting back on visiting family far away and reducing economic growth might actually be.

Because while overall quality of life may improve, that doesn't mean that in the transition to a better overall quality of life there won't be some real unhappiness and suffering - and we need to tell the truth there. I think the right message is "we're working hard together and making some sacrifices for an overall improvement in our lives" rather than "it'll be easy."

Sharon

[Sunshine]

A litte (OK, a lot) off topic

You explicitly avoid discussing your "toilet" concerns - probably a wise choice - and I haven't been to your original toilet post in a while, so I figured I'd put this here. I'm not sure how usefull it is to you and maybe you've seen it already, but I'm including a link to the Humanure book. You can read the entire book online, but I'm linking to a specific section.

Check this link out for composting human waste:

http://www.weblife.org/humanure/chapter8_2.html

Enjoy!

[Riana]

I have been doing the no impact life for almost four months now and plan on making it a way of life. We do not buy anything except for food and even that is limited to the farmers market and organic store. It is as if a veil has been lifted from my eyes.

When I see people justifying to themselves that they need a new appliance because its Energy Star and that is going to "save the planet" and makes them a "eco-friendly" consumer it makes me shudder. If you clean your fridge's coils and turn down your themostat you will save just as much electricity as the energy star. They are adding waste to the world and buying into the green marketing that is selling like hotcakes right now.

[Susan Och]

"Use Less or Use Better?"
"Should I Change or Should They?"

This must be false dichotomy week. Of course the answer to both questions is a resounding "YES!"

[meepster]

Oh, sure, some reduction is inevitable - but I'm not sure that reduction = deprivation. I do not feel "deprived" when I use cloth grocery bags. What am I deprived of? Flimsy plastic bags that litter my house that I don't know what to do with?

I use a car-sharing service instead of owning a car. Such services reduce driving dramatically; I barely ever drive these days. But when I need to drive, I have a car parked two blocks away, I do not need to pay for gas when I drive it, and after I'm done with it, I no longer need to worry about it. Am I deprived? Sure - I'm deprived of worries about parking, car repairs, insurance payments, and oil changes.

A lot of the "conveniences" of the society we live in are really not all that convenient. People perpetuate them because they don't know any different; because their parents did it this way; because they're worried about what their friends will think. Reducing those things feels like liberation, not deprivation.

[asrai]

I've been working on further self-suffciency. Growing food, "making" my own food instead of buying it. I can't same I'm fully self-reliant because I still have to buy the raw materials.
It amazes that we can get things so cheaply given the labour put into it. Growing a head of lettuce is worth more than the dollar i pay for it in the store with weeding and watering etc.

I made my daughter a dress yesterday and it was fairly labour intensive (and I did a crappy job on the hems if I say myself). I can't imagine what people sewing jeans go through and we can get them for $10!?!? It's amazing to me. There's a hell of a lot of work invovled in my jeans (i know becuase I ripped a few apart to make cloth bags from once the knees were ruined or whatnot). That's some serious exploitation going on of other people not to mention the impact on the Earth from whatever the material is made of.

Everytime I refrain from buying something needlessly although I can afford it, I remember that the less I spend the less I have to work, the more time I have to pursue things that I find enjoyable like gardening and writing.

[Zannie]

I just wanted to say thank you for the inspiration. I lead a fairly low impact life compared to most of the people around me, but I still have a lot of ways I can improve, and reading your blog has been a regular reminder to keep trying, to keep plugging along and eliminating sources of waste in my life.

My boyfriend does all of our cooking, and although he used to be vegetarian he has been rather meat-centric over the last several years; I recently proposed reducing our meat intake to no more than three times a week as a result of you post about eating less meat. So far it seems to be working out well. He's picked up a couple of vegetarian cookbooks at the local used book store, and in the last week I think we've had meat once.

Anyway, thanks for the reminders and pointing out various angles from which we can attack this problem.

[...]

i'm not so sure i agree with the opinions regarding travel... i mean, i think that trips to resorts or to theme parks are a little frivolous, and certainly can be cut back on/eliminated. but i wouldn't say that if i stopped traveling it would enhance my life morally or spiritually. in fact, i would argue the opposite. i live for travelling, and i don't think that that makes me a bad person, nor does it make me immoral, unspiritual, or any less of an environmentalist. i wouldn't be the person i am if it weren't for all the things i've seen. i really feel that my morals have been shaped by my experiences abroad. i have also come to understand more about the world; you can't get any real perspective sitting at home and getting your information from where you live, everything's one-sided... and how can we respect and love this planet without actually seeing it? i don't know about other people, but i need to see and feel and live other places. i think people really need to get out and see the world before they can have any true understanding of what goes on elsewhere, and i think that this is really a responsibility of all global citizens. what kind of a world would this be if everyone just stayed in their hometown? don't the benefits of travel outweigh the costs?

[Michael S]

Susan Och is such an excellent writer that's it's almost ridiculous to be more clever. But here's my angle.

Should I this or should I that?
Lets invoke the reptile brain in everyone to get their attention. Then lets expect them to use their reasoning brain after such incessant conditioning

[emmer]

i have questions and a comment.
questions for the last unnamed commentor. how do you travel--by jet or tramp steamer or bicycle? do you stay in 4 star hotels or hostels or with local people? do you eat at a chain restaurant or a locally owned cafe? are you employed with a local company where you are travelling or perhaps you travel with a medical mission? do you in some way use your skills to make the place you a visiting better than it was? the answers to such questions determine to what degree travel "costs" are mitigated.
and the comment--i am currently reading george monbiot's book, heat: how to keep the planet from burning. i'm not finished with it, but am finding his ideas useful. he tries to show how we might achieve the 90% reductions that we likely have to make. he acknowledges that the numbers vary from source to source, but has clear explanations and is, i think, worth reading to understand what kind of limitations we likely face and why we need to start yesterday.try to get it at the library. mine didn't, so i got it used thru powells' books on line.

[Least Footprint]

I heartily agree. A new technology to solve a problem usually ends up just creating some other problem. There needs to be a major shift in thinking as well. i.e. Many neighborhoods prohibit hanging laundry outside since it is "an eyesore". We've just all become spoiled and we're spoiling the planet as well.

[Possum]

I too was disappointed by the Anon commenter who felt entitled to world travel, and sensed that seeing the world comported with being a good environmentalist. When you're seated on the 747 carrying 500 passengers bound halfway around the world, and it is revving up four massive, fuel hungry, jet engines, how it is possible -- without a severe lapse in cognition -- to think you're not doing more harm than good?

Travel to far and distant lands, by far and away, is the most harmful, frivilous act we could engage in against Mother Earth. She deserves a break, and often we don't take the time to see the beauty in what is just around the corner.

Yes, travel helps us learn about other cultures, but that is mainly OUR egos we're looking to satisfy -- and in the process, taking far more of the earth's resources than is sustainable.

I hope those of us who are accustomed to and enjoy international travel will think seriously about giving it up.

[Possum]

I too was disappointed by the Anon commenter who felt entitled to world travel, and sensed that seeing the world comported with being a good environmentalist. When you're seated on the 747 carrying 500 passengers bound halfway around the world, and it is revving up four massive, fuel hungry, jet engines, how it is possible -- without a severe lapse in cognition -- to think you're not doing more harm than good?

Travel to far and distant lands, by far and away, is the most harmful, frivilous act we could engage in against Mother Earth. She deserves a break, and often we don't take the time to see the beauty in what is just around the corner.

Yes, travel helps us learn about other cultures, but that is mainly OUR egos we're looking to satisfy -- and in the process, taking far more of the earth's resources than is sustainable.

I hope those of us who are accustomed to and enjoy international travel will think seriously about giving it up.

[Christina]

I can't believe how many things in history that we have unlearned with the advent of new technologies. How DID people live without air conditioners years ago [trace of sarcasm]? Maybe houses were built smarter, something as simple as south-facing windows. Maybe the human body is actually made to adapt to changes in the environment, and we can learn to trust our bodies to get used to a bit of summer heat and winter chill, maybe our indoor climates don't have to be strictly controlled to a constant 72 degrees, and maybe we can learn to truly enjoy the seasons by spending a little time outside our climate-controlled zones. I would also like to say that I truly wish more people in our country would use their brains and not just accept the way things are, because that's what we're used to. But this is terribly difficult if we've all been raised on t.v.'s and have been robbed in our childhood of our brain capacity. [I say "we" in a very general American culture sort of way - slightly cynical view of our country, I suppose.] Hooray for everybody here who is thinking about this stuff critically and trying to find a way!

[Jace]

Right, so, Christina - air conditioning is frivolous, sure. But, without that new technology, the Earth would still be in its stable 16th, 17th, maybe 18th century state, with sustainable energy use and far less human impact on the environment. Of course, we'd all be dying far earlier, suffering from more disease, starvation, and general calamity. And we'd have no ability whatsoever to deal with natural events - weather, earthquakes, space events. Yeah, arguing against technology is going to get you real far.

[Diane Gandee Sorbi]

I think that in this country we are being encouraged to believe in the myth of perpetual abundance. In the not-too-distant future it will become evident that many of our resources have reached their peak and are beginning to decline. The sooner we can all see that we're in this together, the better. Change isn't easy. I've spent the last few years changing some bad habits with regards to excessive consumption and waste. It's a process, but once you get on a roll, it becomes less of a struggle. I find that as time goes by I can't imagine ever going back to my old ways.

[Susie Hammer]

Recently on the History Channel they had a program on sugar. People in South America have been using sugar to run their vehicles for years now at about 30 cents a gallon and the Co2 is the same Co2 that plants give off when "they die on the vine".If the massive companies don't change their packaging back to eco-friendlier packaging, it's on our backs. Why arn't we boycotting these companies for the way they sell their products?

[anon but frightened...]

Meanwhile, Georgia is almost out of water:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/17/us/17water.html,

and if the number of honeybees keeps declining, we'll all be eating gruel.

www.vanishingbees.com

If we're going to do something, we'd better do it now.

[meepster]

Ah, but was the Earth really in a stable state in the 16th, 17th, and 18th century? Or even earlier? There's a reason why the Sahara is a desert, after all. It used to be a forest.

[jeff]

"Stable state" is a fallacy. We must understand systems as existing in dynamic equilibrium. The Sahara was a forest and everywhere else was something else sometime during the time we've been on this earth. Like change or not, it is so we'd may as well learn to love it and live. (one of the meanings you could take from that is that the change we are currently driving is maladaptive and probably won't allow us to live very much longer but we could drive or simply allow adaptive change)

re: travel - if you accept the dominant hypothesis that our species originated in Africa then spread across the globe, it is impossible to escape the objective fact that we move around and we've done so for untold millennia without catastrophic stress on the planet. Rather than arguing about whether or not that's a good thing, it seems to me our time would be better spent wondering how we can get back to that.

Did you know there are a couple of companies working on airships again. With a thin film solar array on top driving an electric motor and a little attitude adjustment back to the days when a ride on the QE II seemed like a good idea, we could cross the pond while reconnecting (even sitting down and eating) with other human beings around us and cruise with zero emissions.

New technology or back to the future? The answer is both.

[Susan Och]

Trains! Coming back to southern Montana?

Trains! We need to write our House reps and tell them to support Amtrak, as the Senate has.

Most of the fuel burned in short-hop air travel is burned during the takeoff. "Cruising at altitude" is relatively efficient. We would do better to move the short-hop travel to the railways.

My husband, who served in the Air Force, reminds me that military planes have an endless appetite for fuel. practicing "touch and goes" for hours on end, dumping surplus fuel at the end of a run, and that's just in peacetime. I can forgive folks for wanting a vacation now and then, but I'm not sure if we will ever be forgiven for letting this war drag on without so much as a comment.

[jessica elgin]

amen!

[Susie Hammer]

The outgoing message on my machine says Be Green Think Green and a lady I work with asked me what that meant. It was so disheartening. She doesn't even know what green is. When I go grocery shopping and take my own cloth bags, I'm the only one in the store using them. the net sounds gung-ho for all the "great greenies" but in everyday life, people are still STUCK IN THE PAST OF PLASTIC.