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First Amendment to the US Constitution:
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THE US HAS NOT BEEN ABLE TO DECIDE ITS FUTURE COURSE IN ENERGY DEVELOPMENT, IN PART BECAUSE IT'S EASIER NOT TO CHANGE COURSE, BUT THE TIME IS NOW 29 July 2007 The US Congress is still working on producing legislation that would bring together federal law and executive regulatory policy in one comprehensive national energy strategy. The special consulting group organized in 2001 by the vice president wanted nuclear plants and "clean coal", but both carry huge costs for preventing or reversing high levels of contamination, and neither is broadly considered the "future" by scientific consensus. Environmental groups are pushing for "green fuels", such as wind turbines, solar-voltaic power, undersea wave-harvesting, and geothermal energy capture, but industry giants have been slow to develop solutions for producing these resources in mass quantities on a national scale. Since the Iraq invasion of March 2003, there has been a steady rise in the call to overcome "America's dependence on foreign oil". The call was championed at first by proponents of drilling in Alaska's National Wildlife Refuge and in other federally protected nature preserves. But with the ongoing escalation of chaos in the Iraq conflict, a steady increase in the number of terrorist incidents worldwide, especially in the region, destabilization of economies, and the constant rise of oil and gasoline prices, the call has been transferred in popular culture to a resistance to the idea of financing an oil-based future. What popular culture has not yet come to terms with is which, if any, of the existing technologies, could help get us to an alternative future. Over the last few years, there has also been a steady increase in popular awareness of the climatic irregularities which science has demonstrated are attributable the global burning of carbon-based "fossil fuels". A federal judge has ruled that the current plan to deposit the entire nation's nuclear waste under Yucca Mountain, on federal land in Nevada, does not meet basic safety or public health standards, and that the facility should be guaranteed hermetically sealed for up to one million years or more, to avoid destroying the surrounding environment. This means contamination itself is becoming a catch-phrase, a prime issue-parameter in the public consciousness. Why, it is now being asked, if we can use clean energy sources, are we using dirty ones? Why, if we can prevent harm to future generations, have we not acted sooner to do so? Why, if there are safe alternatives, should we expand use of technologies that can open civil society to unthinkable terrorist threats? And pressure is on, as the Democratic-led Congress gets wind of the sweeping national majority that favors moving toward clean and/or renewable fuels. In the book, One World, we find that public surveys repeatedly show that such environmental and anti-pollution concerns are not partisan or ideological issues, but have the interest of some 90% of the national population. It's politics in Washington that has slowed progress and distorted the public interest. Now, part of the problem has been the unpleasant fact of who is pushing for what, and how. Major energy producers have backed initiatives to disprove the global scientific consensus that climate change is already well underway and attributable to human behavior. And those energy producers have sought public funding to continue research and extraction, arguing they are needed as supports for a system whose existence is part of the nation's long-term economic and political security. What does this mean? That politicians in Washington will be unable to show they are serious about the nation's security if they don't give billions of dollars to some of the wealthiest and most profitable corporations in the history of the world? No. But that's what a very well-paid network of lobbyists is trying to persuade them to believe. There is, ultimately, no reason whatsoever why any existing energy-industry giant should fear a transition to renewable resources. The solutions going forward require major technological expertise and innovation and will be major industrial undertakings. The economy may need to be overhauled and altered in fundamental ways, but this does not mean losing all the profits of a major corporation to research and development. Public funding will (and already does) benefit anyone pushing major innovations in those new technologies, and doing well with renewables what these entities claim to do well now with fossil fuels or nuclear power, will secure for the industry leaders a position not unlike what today's energy giants are all too happy to enjoy. The problem is not that oil is easy or that nuclear is cheap. Neither is really true. Not as a business model and not as a practical process. The problem is that what is coming is a major paradigm shift. Energy companies will not be merely resource-driven. They must become service-driven, and manage complex networks of producer-to-end-user energy swapping and grid re-alignment, and be agile enough and present enough of mind to ensure that in a new age of multiple-resource local-generation energy technologies, they can provide the services and maintenance the public needs. Solar power may ultimately work best as a single-point resource, but filling out onto a grid where surplus energy can be shared and re-sold to the service provider. Wind power may turn out to lend itself more readily to major industrial "farming" and large-scale production, but have a similar end-user production network, where saleable current flows in two directions. Wave energy, harvested underwater near shorelines with intense tidal activity, and geothermal, which extracts energy from volcanic heat vents in geological faults and other formations allowing the earth's own heating processes to be energy sources, without resource extraction as with petroleum or natural gas, has its practical perils, but also promises a vast expansion of renewable energy availability. Biofuels have a lot of drawbacks, including the obvious threat posed by energy-destined crops to the global food harvest, with already dwindling available arable land area and a population boom. And Reuters reports the estimate made by scientists in Indonesia that orangutans may become extinct within 20 years' time if palm-oil plantation-owners do not stop slaughtering them to prevent harm to their crops. The entire planet is heading into a period where energy resources must and will change, the industry taking on new shapes and forming new alliances with the public at large and with government policy. What is needed, clearly, is a governmental policy aimed at ensuring that the way forward is the safest, cleanest and most efficient human ingenuity can develop, and not merely an extension of a status quo rooted in 18th century technological standards and industry's preference for staying the course. [s]
BACKGROUND: In a lawsuit brought by 12 states, several cities and a dozen pro-environment organizations against the federal government, the US Supreme Court has handed down a narrow 5 to 4 ruling reversing Bush administration policy that avoids regulating carbon dioxide emissions. The Court says the Clean Air Act specifically authorizes the EPA to enforce such regulation in order to protect the public and effect clean air standards. [Full Story] FEDERAL JUDGE STRIKES DOWN BUSH POLICY LOOSENING CONTROLS ON PESTICIDE USE U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour has struck down a Bush administration policy loosening regulation of toxic pesticides. He found the rule change "striking in its total lack of any evidence of technical or scientific support for the policy positions ultimately adopted" and further chastised the government for failing to properly apply the Endangered Species Act. [Full Story] BILL PRESENTED TO PREVENT GOV'T TAMPERING WITH SCIENCE Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) is to introduce an amendment to legislation currently under debate, which would restrict the executive branch's ability to gag scientists, manipulate their findings or demote those who disagree with official policy. The legislation would also require that scientists appointed to investigatory panels be selected for their credentials, not their political views. [Full Story] SCIENCE ABOVE TECHNOCRACY, FOR A FULLER FUTURE Science is in many ways an artform, but it is specifically and most importantly, the art of knowledge. It is not philosophy, not a study of how knowledge comes about, what it is, whether it can be trusted or whether we need to adjust our thinking; it is, instead, a direct study of the natural world, its tendencies, its evidence, and its capacity to work with us, for us and around us. [Full Story] GOV'T POLICY UNLAWFULLY CRIMINALIZES COMMENT ON SCIENTIFIC FACT The global environment is, of course, a global issue, one that touches every life on the planet, and the science about it should be open and available to all. Past government policy and existing federal law mean that such scientific evidence should be readily available to the public. But now, it appears that several agencies are laboring to silence scientists who are researching climate trends and alterations. [Full Story] POPULATION, LAND, AND CONFLICT As land and water become scarce and as competition for these vital resources intensifies, we can expect mounting social tensions within societies, particularly between those who are poor and dispossessed and those who are wealthy, as well as among ethnic and religious groups. Population growth brings with it a steady shrinkage of life-supporting resources per person. [Full Story] |
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