Am I Green Enough?

[AuntiePinko]

Dear Auntie Pinko,

Where do liberals get off jumping on other liberals for not being liberal enough? I just traded in a big old gas-guzzler for a car that runs on ethanol, and was told that if I really wanted to do something to save the environment I’d be biking to work. Apparently (according to this oh-so-politically-correct environut) ethanol is ‘just as bad as’ gasoline because it takes as much oil, or produces as much carbon or something, to manufacture and distribute ethanol as it does to use gas! Is that true?

And even if it is true, shouldn’t we be re-directing those profits away from the old oiligarchy, and can’t we at least take some steps toward developing and using alternatives even if they’re not perfect yet? Can we ease up a little on the ‘you’re not good enough yet’ talk amongst ourselves on the left, and do a little encouraging and appreciating for a change?

Fender,
Cody, WY


Dear Fender,

Auntie understands your frustration, but I also understand the frustration of those who worry about the enormous shell game being played in the hopes of staving off real and substantive change that will save a livable environment for our grandchildren. Our government has shown more interest in making short-term adjustments to preserve the status quo than tackling the tough issues that will spell disaster for our children and grandchildren, and we citizens are far too complicit in letting them get away with this prioritization.

I hope that my highly simplified, very incomplete summary of the fuel issue doesn’t cause too many scientists and engineers to herniate themselves laughing, and I hope that if my understanding is completely inaccurate or misleading, someone will correct me. I’ll pass such corrections on if it’s clear I’ve really misrepresented these very complicated matters. I don’t claim to be a scientist or engineer, but I have been trying to educate myself to be a smarter user and consumer of energy, so here goes.

On the biggest, broadest level of the Universe, energy is all there is, and everything there is, is energy. This energy is stored in matter that has various levels of static stability, everything from minerals which are very stable, to volatile liquids and organic compounds which are pretty un-stable (at least compared with rock!) Energy that is not stable at all is expressed in a lot of ways like heat, light, radio waves, electricity, and so on. As Mr. Carl Sagan once said, “We are made of star-stuff,” and so basically, here we are, star-stuff trying to figure out how to manipulate other star stuff to do mundane things like wash our clothes and get us to work.

And however you measure it, or whatever form it takes, the amount of energy required to move a mass of X kilograms from point A to point B is always the same. It’s just that some of the energy exists in forms that are effectively limited and some in forms that are effectively unlimited. The sun, for example, is an effectively unlimited form of energy to us. Oil is a form that is limited. But since we can’t use any form of energy without processing it in some way, an important equation to consider is how much of what forms of energy do we have to manipulate altogether in order to accomplish our goals?

For instance, how much energy is used in getting a gallon of gasoline to our car’s fuel tank? How much to find an oilfield and tap it? How much to maintain the drilling equipment and operate it? How much to refine and deliver it to a storage depot? How much to truck it to your gas station? And what are the sources and limits on all that energy?

The same questions apply to ethanol. How much energy is required to grow the crops and harvest them? How much to deliver the raw materials to the production plant? How much to process the materials into fuel, and then deliver them to a retailer? What are the sources and limits on that energy?

The same questions even apply to the electric power that charges battery cells for electric cars (and the energy used in creating and replacing those cells,) and —if you want to carry it that far— the costs of producing and delivering the food, etc., that enable a commuter to bicycle to work!

All of this will make you dizzy if you think about it long enough, but it does provide a starting point for understanding the true ‘energy costs’ of various forms of fuel. It gets more complicated still when you move beyond the basic question of whether a source of energy is limited in amount or in the ability of our technology to access it, and factor in the human priorities that dominate the process of energy production. Questions of power, control, profit, etc., confuse and muddy the issues even further.

It is complicated and it can be time-consuming and frustrating to think about all of these things when we’re not used to having to think about it. We’ve had the incredible luxury of thinking only about whether we have enough cash to fill up the tank today, without consideration for the web of long-term tangible and intangible costs and factors. We’ve become so accustomed to that luxury of ‘not having to think about it’ that many of us regard it almost as a natural right, and become angry or even hostile as change forces these things into our awareness. We just want to be able to fill up the tank and drive to work without it being some kind of heavy moral or political or social issue.

It’s taken the prospect of not having enough resources to do that to wake many of us up to the reality that it is a heavy issue, and one that affects us all. It won’t go away, and it won’t get better until each and every one of us makes many small changes, and demands that our leadership make bigger changes.

However, with all that said, Fender, I agree with you that negativity, shaming, finger-pointing, accusing, playing the dozens, etc. among those who are naturally our allies can be a very counter-productive tactic. (Not to mention very bad manners, and Auntie puts good manners right up there on the priority list with preserving the ability of our planet to support life!) While your decision to change to an ethanol-using vehicle may not be as “greenly correct” as becoming a bicycle commuter, you have made an important statement of awareness. It is a step in a positive direction.

If enough people make such steps and statements, there will be great incentive to develop new technologies that manipulate the star stuff to meet our needs without cutting off our planet’s ability to support our species. So thanks for making that step, Fender, and don’t let a little misguided criticism turn you off from learning more, thinking more about these issues, and making more and more choices that will help. And thanks for asking Auntie Pinko!