Suppose I were to offer the world a new natural resource that costs roughly the same as oil, requires some fossil fuels to create and has the exact same effect on the environment as oil. This resource will run out in 250 years or so, similar to the life span of oil. Functionally, I am proposing a replenishment of worldwide oil supply. Would we as a society accept this offer? Have we moved beyond the scare of a diminished oil supply, characteristic of the 1970’s? I believe that the world, at least the west, now evaluates energy on innovative metrics of environmental sustainability.

“Whole Foods” environmentalists feel warm and tingly inside when buying organic crops. The gross platitudes and comfortable ignorance of these Birkenstock wearing, shopping cart revolutionaries delude them to believing that organic foods somehow help the environment. There is a volume of obvious issues. Organic farming methods are entirely inefficient. The agricultural productivity of land that is “inorganic” is markedly higher because fertilizes increase crop yield and pesticides decreases the loss to pests.

Wind and solar power are often touted as the Metamucil of American energy consumption. However complete sustainability derived from wind power and solar power is largely a hoax without an integrated power system. The problem is that wind isn’t always blowing and the sun isn’t always shining. Constant streams of energy are necessary to meat constant demand. The benefit is only marginal because, when the wind blows slightly less, more fossil fuels are burned. Ultimately, the more we rely on uncertain sources of energy the more uncertainty is priced into electricity.

Unfourtunately, nuclear power is associated with some vague cataclysimc, chenobyl on crack, end of world scenario. THe mushmroom cloud is assocaited with nuclear power plants. This regretable phantasm agitates globabl warming and decreases energy independence.

Volunteer opportunities are available at different venues that Eco-Action works, like Stubbs, for example:

John Clement from Ecology Action was on Upstream to talk about the history of Eco-Action, its grassroots... rooots, and how services are going to expand soon. Ecology Action is a democratically-run organization that provides recycling drop-off sites around Austin and was born out of the late 60's surge in earth-consciousness and hippie love and has evolved in to an organization that embraces the same philosophies while serving our community.