I've always had an interest in environmental "stuff", not necessarily because I'm enlightened or anything, but because environmental things can lead to greater efficiency and health. I am a bit of a lefty but only a bit.
Environmentalism also interests me because done sensibly it can be done by the general public (without great disturbances to their lives) and by good government planning.
Examples being simple things like dual flush toilets (common in NZ but rare in the UK - queue more ranting about British plumbing), public trash cans with three compartments instead of one (for bottles, cans and the rest - common in Germany), anti-GM sentiment (all through Europe despite the chemical companies "owning" the governments), and general recycling.
However you get silly things too (we've all seen the "don't generate jobs for thousands because it will destroy the Northern Spotted Ant" stories) and it isn't always black and white either. Sometimes one environmental victory causes another environmental defeat. Recent examples here include species of butterflies dying out (well, they are photogenic) because of people (of course) AND replanted native woodlands.
But when you see a story like the Montana Governor suggesting Montana's coal as a cure for America's oil addiction which I recently saw reported on the BBC you get some strange things happening.
The governor outlined his side of the story: no reliance on horrible places with dictators; keeping payments within the US; generating jobs; Montana is full of coal, etc.
Then, to balance the story, the BBC got comment from an environmentalist (which are probably just like economists - each have a different story) and he pretty much said pretty much "no, we all need to conserve energy".
This immediately sounded like a Christian fundamentalist (and the American government these days) saying the cure to teenage pregnancy, STDs, etc is abstinence. You all know it has as much chance of working as George Bush's plans for Iraq.
So why, given the small sound bite available, didn't he actually come up with something practical? Even I, from my casual but interested observer status, know about Ethanol.
The BBC have had a number of stories on it and how it's worked in Brazil - 2 million cars running dual fuel with Ethanol being much cheaper than imported oil and cleaner too.
And if you're thinking "yeah, but that's them", Google recently had a lecture by Vinod Khosla who as an obvious bumbling amateur (he founded Sun Microsystems!) saying that it could be done in the States for around $30 - $70 a car (some notable cars are already capable of running dual fuel but nobody realises it), and a state the size of Montana (he actually used the Dakotas as an example) could generate enough raw material to replace oil almost entirely - eliminating the need for a lot of expensive wars, propping up very evil dictators (in the name of supporting the spread of democracy), and also eliminating America's expensive (to your tax payer) agricultural subsidies.
So all around good news (except maybe the oil companies - whose refineries could actually make ethanol).
His video is here and it is HUGE so only click if you're on broadband, have a lot of spare time, have a tolerance for un-flashy presentations (needs Steve Jobs's help), and an interest in this.
So to badly sum up this waffling post: "just say no" doesn't work for sex or the environment. Making it easier to say no (either to sex or to driving gas guzzling SUVs) or say yes in a less destructive way (contraceptives or cleaner fuels) is a much more pragmatic idea - one that has a hope of working AND doing good.
[I need to edit more - and to get a cleaner line of thinking]
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