Plugging Americans Into Alternative Energy Sources

Americans traditionally run hot and cold on energy issues. When gas prices are down and the lights shining bright, we ignore them. When rates and international tensions escalate, everyone is abruptly “energy conscious.”

Lately, concern about energy has been generating more heat than a Kuwaiti oil field. But most environmentalists bemoan what they see as officialdom’s reliance on the same old nostalgic solutions.

In offering readers a list of ways to “help stop the war,” the March/April Mother Jones magazine is a few steps behind the Bush Administration.

In offering a list of innovative ideas for a new U.S. energy policy, the magazine leaves the President in the Saudi Arabian dust.

Likewise, Sierra magazine’s March/April issue plugs into the energy issue with a package on “Positive Energy” that goes well beyond any of the Bush Administration’s recent energy package--which relies on the old school strategy of more drilling and more nuclear power plants.

Mother Jones came up with its catalogue of possibilities by presenting four environmentalist-types with this situation: “You’re Energy Czar, Now What?”

The solutions run the gamut from biomass energy, which harnesses the photosynthesis of plants, to congeneration, which taps the wasted energy in traditional power plants.

According to John P. Holdren, professor of energy and resources at UC Berkeley, by 1990 the federal government’s research and development spending had fallen by three times its 1980 rate.

The problem, as he sees it, is that energy in the United States is underpriced--mainly because consumers are not charged for the social and environmental costs of their dependence on fossil fuels. If he were made Energy Czar, Holdren would tax the heck out of energy users, and pump the money into alternative fuels research.

Amory B. Lovins, research director of the Rocky Mountain Institute, is more optimistic, stressing what he sees as an existing trend to conserve.

The Bush energy package does not call for higher fuel efficiency in cars. But a mere 3-mile-per-gallon improvement would eliminate this country’s need for Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil, Lovins figures. If car makers would squeeze 11 miles per gallon from family cars, we’d never need to send another tank or tanker to the Persian Gulf. And similar savings can be wrung out of our electricity consumption, he believes.

Biology professor Barry Commoner would make solar technology the nation’s energy priority, and then export free photovoltaic cells to pay “reparations to the Third World countries we have exploited.”

A more comprehensive and more readable overview, Sierra’s package covers the same ground as Mo Jo, and then some.

Recognizing that “most of us like being able to heat a kettle of water without first having to build a fire from cow dung,” Sierra explores the world of “Brave New BTUs.” This examines new technologies, including solar thermal plants, such as those on the Mojave Desert, and such esoteric experiments as ocean-thermal-energy conversion, in which energy is derived from the differences in temperature between the sun-warmed ocean surface and its cooler depths.

These sorts of ideas continually percolate in environmental circles. But both magazines criticize the quality of debate in the social mainstream, where recycling cans of dolphin-free tuna seems to supplant discussion of real solutions. Meanwhile, American businesses, energy conglomerates in particular, have latched onto environmental issues in slick and often misleading public-relations campaigns, Mother Jones reports in a related article.

“It’s hard to pick the boldest lies advertised by slippery oil,” writers David Beers and Catherine Capellaro write. But that doesn’t keep them from naming names in their powerful no-punches-pulled attack.

For instance, Texaco, which boldly advertises its “corporate responsibility to do business with a conscience,” neglects to mention its record of fines, felony convictions, EPA violations and civil settlements stemming from environmental abuses.

REQUIRED READING

Responsible mothers-to-be must eschew most vices out of concern for the baby-to-be that shares their body. Daddies-to-be, meanwhile, have been known to lament such injustices of biology while smoking big cigars and chugging bourbon.

As the April Health magazine reports, however, “sperm may finally be stripped of its macho image.”

Some studies now suggest, the magazine reports, that a father’s drinking and smoking habits, as well as his age and exposure to various toxins, are linked to birth defects.

The April American Health examines the same issue, and marvels at how long it has taken scientists to notice that “reproduction is a two-person process.”

As one researcher says, “You don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to figure out why this is so.”

As both magazines point out, such findings argue strongly that men abstain from smoking and drinking for at least three months before attempting to sire a child.

They also raise interesting questions about issues such as companies’ recently publicized efforts to ban fertile women from jobs that could endanger a fetus.

In its April 1 “Special Issue” on housing, U.S. News and World Report puts Los Angeles at No. 4--just behind Anaheim, just ahead of Riverside--on its “10 Coolest Markets” list.

Not to worry, though. Los Angeles magazine’s April issue contains a “Survival Guide” to selling in a buyers’ market and to bargain hunting in areas such as the Beverly Hills “flats,” where homes that once went for $2 million are a steal at prices as low as $1.2 million.

MAGAZINE VS. MAGAZINE

Last September, Outside magazine lined up all the major environmental organizations, then went down the line tweaking noses and poking ribs. It also dissected the finances and management of each organization, glibly scrutinized its biases and foibles. Outside said, for instance, that the typical member of the National Audubon Society “feels a twinge of guilt whenever she dresses the Christmas turkey.” In its March issue, Audubon magazine retaliates with a five-page parody review of Outside by Leander Skagg.

A capsule summary of Outside: “There are articles on . . . designer hiking boots, designer thermal underwear and designer climbing ropes, not to mention gonzo investigative journalism, gonzo river-rafting trips, gonzo hikes, gonzo mountain-biking, gonzo free climbs, gonzo high ad ventures in really far-away places, . . . gonzo reports from all over the place, gonzo cute news and short takes, and gonzo natural philosophy.”

Audubon provides in-depth analyses of articles from a supposed recent issue of Outside, including a piece called “The Big Hairy Guy” and a story on the “New High in Testosterone: glacier unicycling.”