As far as i can tell there are about 0 people (ok sure some lefties, hippies, survivalists but they have more of an agenda)  in the US that have any intention or ability to sacrifice their lifestyles to save the plant from global warming.  Why should they, given the masses who refuse to acknowledge the problem, let alone sacrifice to solve it? Why should the individual give up their things, their travel, their lifestyle to be 1 billionth, or less, of the solution?  I can’t see why, it flies in the face of both consumerism and self interest.  Why give up everything, if ice caps will still melt?

So, how do we solve the problem?  Well it’s really quite simple a combination of law and the marketplace. The coordination of laws, tax policy and the marketplace can encourage consumers to make the switch to green technologies as the financial sacrifice to do so decreases.

The leading example of how this can work is the German approach to moving the country toward solar power.  The German government requires that power transmission companies connect alternative power sources as a priority and pay a minimum rate per Kilowatt hour, locked in for a period of 20 years.  This guarantee, has encouraged german entreprenuers and homeowners to install over 1,150 megawatts of solar photovoltaic generating capacity in 2006.  It is this sort of methodology that can jump start the move to more expensive, less carbon intensive technologies.  This early adoption will, as with all technological products, will increase the demand and bring more capacity and ultimately the lower prices.  These lower prices will further speed the switch to renewable energy sources.

So can we save the world without sacrifice?  In reality, we will have to sacrifice some cash, but frankly with the skyrocketing price of oil, the marketplace is reducing the cost of us changing the infrastructure that powers our lifestyle. If you consider the modern, consumer lifestyle, only airplanes and ships seem unable to move without traditional fuels or in the case of ships nuclear power plants.  All other aspects, including cars, can be powered by electricity or carry sufficient hydrogen to be pratical.  Once everything is electric, the game has changed. In an electric world, we only need to replace carbon generating power, with carbon free electricity and that can be achieved thru non-polluting renewable sources, solar, wind, waves, etc. or carbon based fuels if the industry can truly sequester carbon.  In an ideal world, we could take CO₂, use bacteria to break off the O₂ and expell carbon fibre, that can be used to build the consumer products that generate the pollution of our the modern lifestyle.

So can we save the planet without sacrifice? Without individual sacrifice, yes, but as a society, we need to make laws, tax policies and grants, a a shared sacrifice to help rapidly change the infrastructure of our modern world to be sustainable.

Funny how environment and business interacts.  In the case of the earth, until recently, business always ruled over the “natural world”.  As long as business wanted to dump their waste in the rivers, they could.  As long as someone owned the land (was rich) or had an army (was powerful) they could do as they pleased.  As cities came to be and health became an issue; think of a plague, caused by filthy water and sewage in the streets.  The was the beginnings of concern health and the local environmental. 

Only in the last 60 years has humanity had the knowledge and tools to measure, test and track the impact of human activity. Today the focus on the environment has moved from local to global.  The environmental movement truely took off in the 1960s and since then a worldwide battle between the forces of green and the “anything for money” crowd: Laissez Faire Capitalists/Conservatives rages on. While some people who consider themselves L.F. Capitalist and Conservatives are surely environmentalists, the general belief of these folks is that the richest and strongest in society should act without restrictions, especially on financial and real estate issues.

These people, who have preached that “evidence” proves capitalism is superior, have simultaneously bristled at science that shows that this sort of behavior jeopardizes the environment and humanity.  In fact when such evidence is presented, they deny the science.  They deny the science since it threatens to curb the “freedom” to destroy the environment and put humanity at risk.

How does the battle of Science vs Conservatives get fought? In the US and Canada, it originally took the form of finding “Experts” who initially denied that there was any sort of problem.  As problems became more evident, they argued they couldn’t be proven to endager people.  When science had finally won the day and convinced the world there was a problem, that it hurt people, the fake experts would then explain that changes can’t solve the problem anyways.

More concretely, this has led to reports written by US government scientists being edited by political appointies in order to remove content that puts at risk the conservative agenda of letting business do anything to the environment if it makes someone rich.  The best metaphore here is from Orwell’s 1984, where the Ministry of Truth corrects previous statements and facts to square with the realities (read that politics) of the day. It’s hard to believe that the environment is debated politically, just because it might cost a few dollars more to live in cleaner, more environmentally stable world.

Fact: there is more CO2 in the atmosphere in the last 150 years than all but several periods in earth’s geology.

Fact: As industrial growth and use of hydrocarbon fuels grew, CO2 grew

Fact: The average temperature of earth has increased since human industrialization

Generally accepted as Fact: CO2, Methane increases in atmosphere are responsible for the increase heat.

Theory - reducing or eliminating CO2 from human activity will slow or reverse heating.

We’ve been talking about Germany and how it has become the leading user and manufacturers of solar power solutions.  A trip between Dusseldorf and Amsterdam, will show further demonstrate the adoption of wind power in germany too.  The strangest thing i found in germany, were incandescent light bulbs.  How can a country/people that are so on top of alternative energy still be willing to waste electricity and generate heat with a technology that hasn’t changed much since the 1890s.  I’m the first to admit that i hated the old style, glaring, flashy fluorescent bulbs of the 1970’s.  Who would sit and read a book under that kind of a light.  Today, i use compact fluorescent bulbs virtually everywhere.  They use significantly less power, give off less heat, and last 5 to 10 times longer than old bulbs.  You’d think every commercial property management company would have gone fluorescent, just wanting to save the extra labor of changing bulbs.

Mass Transit, what a concept!  Trains that go between various cities, trolleys and busses within the city, all running off electricty.  The US had trollies in most cities until the late 1940’s when the “transportion industry” destroyed it to sell gasoliine powered buses and automoblies. You can learn more about The Conspiracy to Destroy Mass Transit using that link or just searching for “GM” and “trolley”.  How much easier it is to deal with 1 power plant’s emissions than that of 50,000 autos.

If you follow the news of the world, whether it be politics, health, science, or business, you’ve likely heard of the dwindling supply of safe, clean drinking water.  Throughout the world, growing populations and contamination of watersheds, the air and general stupidity, by the human race, puts millions of people, possibly billions, in jeopardy of losing access to potable water.  And if you’ve gotten to know anything about me, you know i have a solution and you know it’s the SUN!

Solar stills, that is a “water distillation system” that uses the heat and light(arguably the UV light helps kill biohazards) from the sun to evaporate water from sea water or other non-potable sources and condense the pure H₂O into liquid that is collected to drink. The concept of a solar still is well known as a survival tool.  A most basic solar still can be built with a large (1 sq meter ) piece of black plastic, and a can/cup to collect the water.  Dig a hole in a sunny area, 18-36″ deep and place the cup at bottom center of the hole and cover the hole with the black plastic.  With a small stone weighting the plastic down into a cone shape, with the point of the cone directly over the water collector (the can or cup).  Secure the outside edge around the outside of the whole with rocks or wood.  During the day, the heat of the sun will evaporate water out of the ground, it will condense on the inside of the black plastic and drip inside the cup.  A square meter(about a sqare yard) of area can generate a litre of water a day.

Emeril might say “Let’s kick that up a few notches” and that would be a permanent, large scale solar still. Think of a short, glass, greenhouse covering a concrete storm drain with gutters on the side.  So build a concrete “drainage canal”, in the shape of a V, so that we maximize the surface area exposed to the sun, we make this canal 8 feet wide, with 1 foot gutters on each side, cover the today 10 foot width, with a glass, vapor capturing roof.  Then run this canal a few miles thru a desert/hot area and run seawater thru the center canal.  The sun heats the water, the water evaporates, the water vapor, condenses on the glass sealing which peaks in the middle, causing the condensed water to drop to run down the glass sealing to the edges, with then lead to the gutters.  The water captured in the gutters is salt free. 

here is a little drawing:

So, how does solar distilation cut greenhouse gas?  Well, the main cost of producing and distributing drinking water is energy.  It may take as much as 7% of world energy to produce and deliver fresh water to the world.  It takes from 5kWh to 25kWh to desalinate 1000 litre of water.  In theory a system like this could be driven by gravity and use no energy, except that needed to build the facilities.  Anywhere there is unusable desert or semi desert land, there is both space for solar distillation and likely a need for the resulting fresh water.