Environment

The current state of the environment has not been discussed with any consistency during this election, probably because there seem to be other more pressing matters to occupy our time. However, it comes to the heart of many policy decisions that appear more in the forefront. By the environment, I am not strictly talking about our national parks or recycling. While these are certainly important, I believe that the issue of energy - consumption, conservation, and acquisition are what we should be focusing on at this point. And we should be focusing on this issue in a global way. If we are at the forefront of innovations in energy policy, it will certainly help not only the environment but our economy as well.

Fossil fuels, the root of many of our policy evils. The way I see it, we have had a wonderful ride living our lives over the past 60 years or so at the expense of oil, coal, and natural gas reserves around the world, but the time is rapidly approaching when we will have to start reducing that dependence in a real way. As a society, we are going to have to start to think in the collective. How do our actions affect others? We consume a disproportionate amount of energy per capita. There are those who believe that we are currently approaching a milestone in oil production: the world has consumed half of all known oil reserves. Demand will outstrip supply. The question is, can we think in the long-term when it is hard to envision the consequences?

While the Kyoto accords are imperfect, they are the best worldwide effort to date. As such, we should support them while working on an improved version that expects countries such as China to accept their fair share of sacrifice.

It is inconceivable to me that the auto industry is allowed to produce vehicles that are built to get only 5-10 miles per gallon with 30 gallon fuel tanks. And worst of all, they are marketed in such a way as to make the middle-aged feel more rugged; as if one would be doing some heavy off road driving on the streets of Manhattan. Hybrid technology is currently the best that we have to offer, and it should be used more extensively. We should be giving the consumer incentives to purchase such vehicles, and we should be mandating that all vehicles produced by a specified date use the technology. Incentives should be given to the auto industry to ramp up research into hydrogen fuel cells, and the international community should also expect that vehicles sold worldwide use the latest fuel saving devices. Markets in Mexico and China are rapidly expanding their vehicle base, and cities such as Mexico City are already covered in smog.

Energy use at home is also a big issue. There was a recent article in the New Yorker that had a very interesting perspective on big city energy consumption. The author purported that cities such as New York actually used less energy per capita than the equivalent energy consumption if the population were spread out over a larger area. This is because New Yorkers are living in such a small area that they use more public transportation, the buildings are more energy efficient, and the population is more likely to conserve because they live in more cramped quarters. This makes sense intuitively. Cities such as Baltimore are very spread out. There is a poor public transportation system, and people have to drive everywhere. We should be investing in big city infrastructure and regional planning so that public transportation is an acceptable alternative for the city commuter. Only when it is a reality can we expect people to use their automobiles less frequently.

Home energy consumption needs to be transformed as well. We should be offering incentives for local energy companies to be expanding their interests into renewable sources of heating and electricity such as solar panels and wind technology. Hooking these home sources of electricity into the larger energy grid would allow local purchase and selling of energy credits if a home produces more energy than it consumes.

In the end, greater sacrifices will have to be made by all, and we will have to start thinking of ourselves as part of the global community more than we have in the past.