Seriously increasing our energy efficiency is key to building a bridge to a living future. One thing this whole discussion is overlooking -- focused as it is, on electric energy supply (a fraction of total energy supply and demand) -- is the low hanging fruit of increasing energy efficiency. There is so much room for improvement in the efficiency with which we use energy. In transportation of course, but especially in heating and cooling and lighting our societies built spaces -- both commercial, industrial & residential. Building heating, cooling & lighting accounts for the lion's share of all energy use (usually measured in units of Quads -- quadrillion Btus); in fact this area amounts to almost half of all energy use (around 40% -- if I recall the percentage figure). A country like the USA could use half as much energy as it currently does -- if it did so more efficiently -- and still enjoy the same level of heating, cooling, lighting and mobility as we are currently enjoying. Trying to increase supplies -- or shift to renewable supplies -- makes little sense if not also paired with a serious attempt at ramping up energy efficiency. Just simple acts insulating ceilings, floors and walls; like caulking cracks around windows etc. and closing up these many tiny air leaks from buildings, or replacing single pane windows with double or triple pane windows; or using energy efficient lighting can have major impacts in reducing energy requirements. So much of our built space is really crappy in terms of energy efficiency and lighting and the carbon impact of an aggressive national effort at ramping up energy efficiency would be larger than any other single thing we could do. This is not sexy stuff, it is rather low tech, but it does generate a lot of local jobs and provides almost immediate relief from high energy bills. Chris
-----Original Message----- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 10:52 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/10/2013 1:26 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: > On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 10:12 AM, LizR <lizj...@gmail.com> wrote: >> On 10 November 2013 21:40, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote: >>> >>> Look, I hope global warming is not that serious, because if it is, >>> it's game over. Big government is most definitely not going to solve >>> it. I think you know this too. There isn't a magical point where to >>> government gets so big that it starts doing the right thing. If it's >>> very small, at least there's less opportunity for the already >>> ultra-rich to further their interests with our tax-money, like they >>> do at the moment. >>> >> There is however a point at which a problem gets so big that even >> politicians realise they should do something about it, for their own sakes. > But if the global warming models are correct, that is already too > late. If I understand the most common models correctly, it _is_ > already too late. Why don't you read what the IPCC reports actually say. It's too late keep CO2 below 450ppm. It's too late to prevent a temperature rise of 2degC. That doesn't mean it's too late to save civilization. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
