Wednesday, August 6, 2003

It's a Hummer World
Is Energy Efficiency A Lost Cause?

By David M. Fine

In America, despite an increase in the public's awareness of the need to protect our environment, of global warming and its causes, and greater interest in our energy security, over the past twenty years we have made no progress in saving energy.

The addition of the super-cool, enormous, gas-guzzling Hummer H2 to our roads appears to be the nail in the coffin of attempts at energy efficiency.

To bring home how powerless the environmental lobby has been to do anything about it, the Sierra Club created a Hummer spoof website - an attempt to humor and, maybe, educate the masses. The Sierra Club's choice of tactic, however, inappropriately makes light of a serious issue.

Today, it doesn't seem too far out to posit that energy efficiency is a lost cause in America, where the oil companies sit in the top of the Fortune 500, oil men sit in the White House, American troops have taken over the nation with the second largest oil reserves in the world, and American consumers lust after gargantuan vehicles.

As if to rub salt in the wound, vehicles like the Hummer H2, which weigh over 6,000 pounds, are, ironically, exempt from the IRS's "gas-guzzler tax" - which, for the H2 would otherwise be the maximum amount: $7,700.

The Senate recently passed an energy bill they dug up from last year that, while providing some incentives for renewable energy, gives $12.5 billion in tax breaks over the next five years to the fossil fuel industry - as if they needed breaks.

During the period of amending the bill, attempts to increase the government-mandated average fuel economy of cars failed once again.

Meanwhile the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) standard for cars has remained near 27.5 miles per gallon (mpg) since the mid-1980s. The standard for SUVs and trucks, levied separately, is 20.7 mpg. In a token gesture, it will increase modestly to 22.2 mpg by the 2007 model year.

Even then, not all automakers comply with the CAFÉ standards and those that don't, such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche, must pay fines. The U.S. Government has collected $500 million since 1983, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which, with the Environmental Protection Agency, administers the program.

A quick perusal of www.fuelconomy.gov shows how little progress we've made: most cars only get between 20 and 30 miles per gallon in highway driving. Given technological progress over the past twenty years, one would think we would be seeing quite a few vehicles capable of 40 to 50 miles per gallon on the highway. 15 years ago I drove a little 1980 Honda Civic which could travel 40 miles on one gallon of gas.

But there's no immediate incentive to change. Gasoline and other energy prices in America remain relatively low. Our air quality, while it could be better, doesn't bother most of us on a daily basis. Global warming is this abstract concept that doesn't seem real. Will the oceans really engulf the coastline? Seems like the stuff of Hollywood.

The Warming Warning

According to the Pew Center on Climate Change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that average global temperatures will increase somewhere between 2.5 to 10.4 degrees Farenheight, which will cause an increase in global average sea level of between 4 and 35 inches.

With such broad, long-term predictions - it's through the year 2100 - it's difficult to bring the issue home to citizens. "Won't technological advancements save us from ourselves?" you're probably wondering. President Bush proposed spending $1 billion on fuel cell development in his State of the Union address. This may have been good enough to make most Americans feel there's nothing further to worry about.

But fuel cells need fuel - and the current plan is to use natural gas, which doesn't solve the Carbon Dioxide emissions problem.

Global warming is real, and we may begin to see its effects in twenty years or so, if not by the end of this decade, in the form of increased rain and more melting of the polar icecaps. But for humans to really slow down the rate of warming, we will need to do more than choose a Toyota Prius over a Hummer. We will need America - and the world - to run on different fuels entirely - perhaps as soon as 20 years from now.

By then, technology should have stepped up to the plate. Still, much damage will have been done. Instead of blithely waiting, we could be responsible now and encourage energy efficiency and renewable energies like solar and wind power. If we took those steps alone, and made a concerted effort to stop wasteful practices, America might be able to cut its energy use by half over the next decade (according to the World Bank, the average American uses twice as much energy as the average European).

The energy companies don't want to hear such talk, however. They're in business to sell gasoline. The only way to encourage consumers to conserve is to create an immediate financial incentive for the consumer to use less energy - which means adding a tax on energy to raise the price of energy.

Given all the fuss in the media over auto fuel efficiency, it might come as a surprise that Carbon Dioxide emissions from coal burned to generate electricity make up the largest single source of CO2 emissions (as of 2000).

We as consumers don't come in contact with the coal burned to produce electricity which plays a vital role in our everyday lives - as anyone who lives in California, or Iraq for that matter, knows.

But the stuff that powers your home doesn't come from thin air. Consequently, leaving all the lights and other appliances on in your home should get as bad a rap as buying an SUV.

America, unlike other nations, has always been blessed with cheap energy. But we take it for granted and don't pay much attention if we waste it. But oil and coal are finite natural resources we dig up and siphon from our planet. Wasting them is foolish.

I came across an article about the Hummer H2. According to the J.D. Power & Associates survey, a significant number of Hummer owners actually complained about "excessive fuel consumption" (Now that's worth a hearty laugh). The reporter asked a General Motors spokesman if there was any plan to make the Hummer H2 more fuel-efficient. He replied, we hope the price of gas goes down.

Is energy efficiency a lost cause in America?

It is, unless the various environmental organizations, like the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Friends of the Earth, among others, collaborate to really mobilize the public. They need to try some novel methods of pressuring Congress to actually do something, as standard lobbying has obviously not worked. Nor has "email your representatives from our website" which few people take seriously and which does nothing to promote grassroots organizing.

Instead, these environmental groups would do well to encourage concerned citizens to 'meetup' in their local community, using the online 'meetup' system popularized by Howard Dean's inspiring presidential primary campaign, and have them write letters to their elected representatives as a group.

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Though they are only one part of the energy puzzle, today's enormous cars are a powerful symbol of our energy inefficiency. And something so big and tank-like as the Hummer H2 transforms gas-guzzling into a nearly patriotic act.

Maybe it's not a Hummer World. But it is a Hummer Nation.

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Discussion

See the letter "Don't Write Off Diesels"