Conservation & Efficiency Before Technology

I recently attended a Symposium sponsored by the Centre for Applied Renewable Energy in Brussels, Ontario. The title was “Merging with the Green Economy” and it was an encouraging look at opportunities for rural renewable energy products and Green Collar job possibilities in Rural Communities. I particularly liked David Blaney’s comment “our sons and daughters can pursue their interests and stay local if we push renewables.”

It was also exciting to hear John Wilkinson, the keynote speaker and Ontario Minister of Research and Innovation, say that we need to rejoin all the other species on the planet in living in a sustainable fashion. He then went on to say that photosynthesis and metabolism are what makes the rest of the world work and that we need to find our way out of the darkness of the choice we made 150 years ago when we began becoming so dependent on fossil fuels. This is good stuff and I’m glad to hear it.

But I did have a concern as I reflect on the symposium. Most of the talk was about technology. Now I agree we need to be shifting to biofuels, and solar panels and wind generators. We need to be making a transition to a renewably fueled society. But I also agree with Richard Heinberg, who in his book, “The Party’s Over”, says there is no one silver bullet that can replace our current level of Fossil Fuel use, only silver BB’s, each a small contributor to meeting our energy requirements. We need to
be thinking about innovative ways to organize our society and economy so we need less energy NOW, not just working on new energy sources and more stuff. The more we can lower our energy useage, the greater our success in shifting to renewables.

As an example, consider a situation where four people are driving daily from a rural township to jobs in a local town. If each gets a hybrid car that doubles the mileage they are currently getting with their existing cars and each continues to drive to work they will cut their fuel needs by 50%. However, they will have the cost of buying new cars and the manufacture of those cars will take a lot of energy and resources. On the other hand, if the 4 decide to car pool to town they can cut their energy use by 75% RIGHT NOW with no additional cost for new cars and no additional energy and resource use to manufacture them.

To make a transition to a sustainable society we need to be thinking creatively about how to encourage and support that type of behavior AND how to design an economy so that it doesn’t crash and burn when the demand for private automobiles drops or products are made so durable that they last decades. We need to develop ways that we as individuals can work together to reduce our energy needs and where we as a society can encourage frugality, durability and simplicity without putting half the population on unemployment. If we replace the cancerous growth of our throwaway consumer society maybe one of the benefits could be a 20 hour work week. Wouldn’t it be great to have that extra time for our families and communities as well as a sustainable economy too!

Tony McQuail