What is to be Done?

No KXL, no tar sands extraction. Most definitely, most absolutely.

Houston, we have a problem.

The problem is, we're running out of "easy oil". And energy consumption is, in the big picture, rising. In 2012 world energy consumption rose by 3.7%  over 2011 while world energy producton rose by 2.1%. "The International Energy Outlook 2013 projects that world energy consumption will grow by 56% between 2010 and 2040." (www.eiu.gov) Although the U.S. is still the largest consumer of energy, the fastest growth is among people who haven't had access to what we in rich countries do, and we can hardly tell someone that high consumption is acceptable for me but not for you. The problem is, for everyone to consume as much as we do (not just energy this time but everything), we would need 5 earths. Plus, we are not the only species on the planet.

So, no tar sands extraction. Instead, fracking? Nukes? Coal...mountaintop removal? Um, no.

Alternative energy? I just finished a book, Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy is Undermining the Environmental Revolution by Heather Rogers. She devotes a chapter to biofuels from, in her example, palm oil. The use of palm oil as a biofuel contributes to deforestration in Indonesia (and, not incidently, to climate change).

Since one of the demands of the Chevron action on August 3 was that they switch to renewables, I searched their website to find out what they're working on now. They discussed two projects, neither of which uses foodstock, which they're trying to avoid. One is a 50/50 partnership with the Weyerhauser Corporation (Catchlight Energy) to interplant tree farms with "perennials, short rotation trees, understory and residuals". Weyerhauser compared cellulose based biofuels with cellulose based paper, though I wasn't sure if they were using the same plants for both. Chevron's other project involves the use a certain type of algae. This has potential, for small businesses as well, as a more sustainable source of energy, though it's not practical yet. Industrial algae (also a source of human nutrition, i.e. a food) is at this point grown most efficiently in the desert in ponds and is a heavy user of water. Need I say more?

Electric cars don't emit carbon directly but they use electricity, which comes primarily from coal. They also require heavy batteries, which requires extra light bodies to offset the extra weight, which requires the use of metals such as aluminum, which is destructively mined in open pits...

The bottom line is that there are a lot of humans on this planet who are locked into the use a lot of energy,  and without sharply reducing both population and consumption, when we demand and end to tar sands extraction and all other unsustainable energy sources, we're putting the governments of the world in a terrible bind. The fact that we're encouraged to use the energy needs to be addressed, but doesn't negate the problem. It's yang and yin,  production and consumption.

Hydrogen escaping from hydrogen fuel cells into the atmosphere could make the ozone hole larger.

Some of these or other alternatives could mitigate some of our impact but none of them are cure-alls and they're sure not sustainable substitutes for tar sands now.

The bottom line is, to keep the carbon in the ground we need to not depend on that carbon.

It's that simple. And that complex.

Possum