Some notes on a presentation by Thomas Friedman, who I’ve somehow managed to unconsciously steer clear of. (Doesn’t help that his stuff is behind the NY Times paywall. If he really wanted to make the impact on this green stuff, he’d get the Times to move that stuff out in the open so us proles can link to it and discuss it.) Here are Friedman’s five reasons why “this is not your father’s energy crisis” (ie the 1970s):
1. With our energy consumption in the US, we’re funding both sides in the “war on terror”. Our oil consumption pays for terrorists and our taxes pay for the armed forces, etc.
2. The world is flat, globalization, opportunities to consume at first world levels are available to China, India, Russia, etc. And they’re seizing the day.
3. Clean power and green energy is the #1 growth industry of the 21st century.
4. What Tom referred to as the First Law of Petropolitics: the price of oil has an inverse relationship with the pace of freedom. Oil prices fall, freedom goes up; oil prices rise and Iran starts talking about the myth of The Holocaust.
5. The new economy companies (Friedman namechecked Google and Yahoo specifically) are going to drive clean power and green energy because every time you do a search on the web, it costs them a little bit of power and they are going to want to drive that price down.
He finished by saying that green has been marginalized as being sissy, liberal, and Unamerican, but Friedman says “green is the new red, white, and blue”.
Speaking of ecological footprints, Personal Kyoto lets your track your energy usage and reduce it according to the Kyoto Protocol. It only works for NYC residents…just grab your ConEd bill, punch in your account number, and PK will display your energy usage for the last year, along with averages and your Kyoto goal.
Update: PK’s creator tells me that he’s looking to bring the project to cities other than NYC. Good stuff.
Wal-Mart wants to sell 100 million CFLs (compact fluorescent lightbulbs) in the next 12 months. “Compact fluorescents emit the same light as classic incandescents but use 75% or 80% less electricity.” Between this and the organic food, Wal-Mart is agressively pursuing green initiatives. (thx, brock)
The Oil We Eat. “With the possible exception of the domestication of wheat, the green revolution is the worst thing that has ever happened to the planet.”
Update: Here’s a Wired article on super organics, smartly breed foods that will “that will please the consumer, the producer, the activist, and the FDA”. (thx, andy)
According to this chart, the price of a gallon of gasoline in NYC rose about 70 cents in the 5 days after Katrina…that’s one of the steepest increases I could find.
The Morning News interviews James Kunstler about our energy-scarce future. I think Robert could have just asked him one question and let him roll. Also fun…a Google ad at the bottom says “the myth of peak oil, read the truth!” Heh.
A table of gas prices from around the world. A gallon of gas in Amsterdam is $6.48 while it’s only $0.12 in Venezuela. It’s always so weird to see these types of lists where the US has more in common with Third World and non-democratic countries than with Europe, Japan, etc. (via rw)
And what the heck is “peak oil” anyway?. Peak oil “predicts that future world oil production will soon reach a peak and then rapidly decline”.
James Kunstler lays out a gloomy and depressing energy crisis future in The Long Emergency. “Our lives will become profoundly and intensely local. Daily life will be far less about mobility and much more about staying where you are.”
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