John Michael Greer -- The Archdruid Report
Sept. 21, 2006 -- Last week’s Archdruid Report post sketched out the future that the shortsighted choices and missed opportunities of the last thirty years have made inevitable: a future in which energy of all kinds will be less available, more expensive, and increasingly uncertain with each passing year. At this point in history, that can’t be prevented, and today’s governments are so blinkered by the myth of progress and so beholden to the existing economic order that the chance they’ll pursue a constructive response to our predicament is slim at best. The one remaining option is preparation on the personal, family, and community level.
This offers more possibilities than a casual glance might suggest. One of the many ironies of our present situation is that today’s energy-squandering lifestyles actually give us more room for maneuver as energy supplies decline. Especially in the United States, we waste so much energy on nonessentials that a large fraction of our energy use can be conserved without severely impacting our lives. Consider the suburbanite who mows his lawn with a gasoline-powered mower, and then hops in a car to drive down to the gym to get the exercise he didn’t get mowing his lawn! From Christmas lights and video games to three-hour commutes and Caribbean vacations, most of the absurd extravagance that characterizes energy use in America and other industrial countries only happens because fossil fuel energy has been so cheap so long.
It’s been pointed out many times that the average American uses between two and four times as much energy each year (depending on your choice of estimate) as the average European. It’s much more rarely noted that the standard of living Americans buy with this extravagance isn’t significantly better than the one Europeans enjoy at a quarter of the energy cost. This means the average American could theoretically cut her energy use by up to three-quarters without seriously affecting her standard of living. Most European countries have infrastructure and urban design that supports relatively low-energy lifestyles, while most of America lacks these, so that theoretical possibility isn’t a practical option for most people. Major cuts, though, are well within reach.
Mature technologies and proven lifestyle changes already exist that can save half or more of the energy the average American family uses in the course of a year. Nearly all of them were already on the shelf by the late 1970s. At this point it’s simply a matter of putting them to work. Since most of them require modest investment, and prices for many of the materials involved are likely to soar once energy prices shoot up and conservation becomes a matter of economic survival for all but the very rich, getting them in place as soon as possible is essential.
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