Eco-Arogance and Eco-Hyporisy: Owning Up to Demonization

Eco-Arogance and Eco-Hypocrisy: Owning Up to Demonization

When I hear Naomi Klein joke about herself being a ‘climate criminal’ by flying around the world all the time, although she tries to use skype when she can, I can’t help but think that that gee, that excuses her excessive carbon footprint. After all, do we really need people using up fossil fuel to travel around advocating the death of fossil fuels? Yeah she would take solar jets if she could but such things don’t really exist. Then there is Bill McKibben driving around the country in a bus fueled by used vegetable oil. Of course, there is only so much of that to go around and it ain’t much. Then there is Bernie Sanders heating with wood which is putting carbon and pollutants in the atmosphere with his fellow Vermonters praising their own renewable energy use – which is mostly hydro-power imported from Canada that had to go somewhere. Of course, there is only so much of that to go around too, and it ain’t much more than is produced at present. It is the same with geothermal energy, although there is some room for geothermal to grow, both deep and shallow. Overall though, the room for growth is not a lot. Then there are the wealthy people of Boulder, Colorado who have spent millions of dollars to try and avoid getting their energy from one of the most sophisticated coal-burning power plants ever built with state-of-the-art pollution controls – mainly because they don’t want to be associated with fossil fuels and commit to a multi-decade power purchase agreement to buy that “evil” energy. 

Fossil fuels are being demonized. It is true they make pollution and they put CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Coal-burning power plants are the largest single source. Gasoline and diesel burning vehicles, boats, trains, and other engines are the other big source. Millions of people unrealistically believe we can almost instantly stop using fossil fuels and switch to renewables. They are misinformed to the point of being ridiculous. It is also true that fossil fuels have powered our civilization and all of its benefits. They have made it possible for us to thrive and populate to the point that we threaten the stability of ecosystems. Population leads to energy use which leads to more population which leads to more energy use. Alas, that is the real conundrum. We have adapted quite well so far but how much further we can adapt is uncertain. We have little choice though but to keep at it.  

Subsidization of EVs and rooftop solar panels disproportionately favors the wealthy – those who can afford to pay extra for the upfront costs of such things and deal with the slow payouts. I have friends, well mostly friendly acquaintances, who are into sustainability. When I told one about my rooftop solar system, he noted that now I have “bragging rights.” Really? For me I had an ideal rooftop orientation and angle and wanted to see what I could get. I am satisfied with the system but the economics really kinda suck. Even with the direct subsidization and ideal roof I could have made more money on other investments any day. I was one of the wealthy ones who benefited from the 30% tax credit which I got in the bank about six months after my system was installed. I also get state renewable energy credits that trickle in over time and will probably add up to about 7% of the system costs. I think the panels look cool and it is fun to track their production which ends up covering close to half of the electricity in the house if you add in what is discounted through net metering. Basically, you are just paying that much of your electric bill ahead – that is one way of looking at it.

I like to be frugal and energy efficient – I mean it saves money too so that is useful. I like getting good gas mileage. We have had a hybrid, a Prius, since January of 2006. It has over 350,000 miles and still runs good. I used to travel quite a lot and that helped the economics. The money we have saved in gas over the past ten years over the previous SUV has paid for the car. I also got a great tax credit for that car at the time. Overall, the Prius was one of the best financial decisions I ever made and I would buy another one now. Gas-electric hybrids are still considerably more economic than both EVs and plug-in hybrids. I would consider a natural gas vehicle, an NGV, if there were any local and more overall stations around at which to fill up. I think the ultimate would be an NGV-gasoline-plug-in hybrid! 

I do like to be green but I don’t care for the “greener-than-thou” attitude that is common among some crowds and places. We live near a college town that has a very liberal population overall. It is a haven for fossil fuel haters, sustainability advocates, and greener-than-thou preachers. The local free newspaper probably has more articles, op-eds, letters, and features favoring “anti-fracking” than any other subject. Greenies and anti-brownies are put up as model citizens, doing the right thing, saving the earth – while those who do less are somehow not as exalted. One local small business has spent well over a hundred thousand dollars (though far less with all the subsidies, including some kind of grant that is given to companies in rural areas to install renewable energy) to outfit their small restaurant with green energy. They’re food is good but their prices are too high and the hipster-ness of the place is a bit nauseating. A local brewery that has decent beer but is among the highest priced beer in any store where it is sold also just announced they will add solar energy – with the same rural business grant in addition to all the other taxpayer-paid subsidies. Thus these businesses are disproportionately bilking taxpayers (including low income ones) to pay for their greenness which gives them those “bragging rights.” Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t also bilking us with their high prices and I didn’t have to read news stories about their awesome greenness. I can’t see fit to eat at the restaurant anymore as their advocacy against fracking and oil and gas, the industry in which I work, is extreme. One of the owners, one of the most vocal anti-frackers in the whole state, was “chosen” to ask Hillary Clinton a question recently at an event in Columbus. She asked about fracking, of course. Why the hell did she get “chosen?” Poor Hillary has been inundated by anti-frackers and has capitulated (a bit too much) but I suspect she will turn back the other way when she (likely) will face the Republican contender. 

I guess the rich jet-set greenies like Al Gore can ease their climate guilt by buying carbon offsets while the poor greenies can only dream of buying a solar panel as part of some community solar project. I have a friend who is very poor. He lives in an old bus on a hill top in West Virginia. He has two solar panels on the roof which charge up 6-volt batteries that basically run his interior lights and radio. It helps him out a bit and he appreciates that since he doesn’t have to buy gasoline for his generator – he doesn’t have grid electricity. He is off-grid because he can’t afford electricity not because he hates fossil fuels. But he is happy with what he has and that is OK.

The local university here just converted their power from coal to natural gas – with significant protests and newspaper story complaints that demanded more renewables. The people in charge of the transition failed in a great opportunity to make a more efficient and sensible transition to a cogeneration, or combined heat and power (CHP) facility which would have ultimately saved money and reduced energy wastage. The reason they did this is that they were worried about having a “stranded asset” if renewable technologies vastly improved in the next 10 years – which according to most scenarios is unlikely. Other universities such as Penn State recently announced a conversion to gas and CHP. In the future we will see which was the wiser choice. 

I think it is great to be green and promote clean energy, sustainability, energy efficiency, clean tech, and waste reduction. However, I do not think it is great to demonize those who utilize fossil fuels in order to save money relative to renewables and to meet their energy needs and those of society. I don’t think we need climate criminals nor climate heroes. Whatever is the real level of threat of global warming we can only do what we can reasonably and feasibly do. Energy poverty is real around the world and people need access to reliable and inexpensive energy to survive and prosper. We also need to try and reduce our emissions of carbon and pollutants. There are practical and feasible ways to do this and there are impractical and unfeasible ways. What we do need are intelligent and non-ideological people who understand the issues, particularly the science – of climate change, of industrial processes, of the effects of policies. What we don’t need are the loud voices of ideologues drowning them out.