The great divide.

• Author: Robertson, Henry

Greenhouse gas emissions set a world record last year. This is a planetary emergency. We may have hit peak oil. This is an economic emergency. More and more people are trying to do something about these crises, either in their personal lives or in the public arena, but the forces that profit from destruction are too strong. Effectively nothing is being done.

It would help if the environmental movement could get its act together. All these groups and individuals need to agree on a common energy platform and push it relentlessly. It shouldn't be that hard. Just about all of us can agree that energy conservation, efficiency and renewable energy are the essential planks in the platform.

In fact this consensus is only apparent. It's split by a chasm so deep that most environmentalists don't acknowledge to others or even to themselves that it exists. The people on either side belong to the same organizations, are on the same listservs and conference calls, yet the conflict never seems to come into the open. This divide runs through individuals as well as through the movement.

We're at a fork in the road where it seems we must choose one path or the other with no turning back. One fork is a broad highway, the other a dirt track. Our choice is between industrialism and de-industrialization. We children of the industrial age know our own era well. Even if we profess to hate it, we are part of it and it is part of us. We know the de-industrial only as the pre-industrial we read about in history books, although it's still going on in many parts of the world. We fear it or idealize it.

The future of industrialism as envisioned in carbonfree scenarios comes in two flavors, nuclear or non-nuclear. Explicitly or implicitly, it includes growth. Even antinuclear organizations like the Sierra Club harbor many members who cling to nuclear power as the last hope for a low-carbon industrial future. Their support is often prefaced by much hand-wringing and protestations that, yes, nuclear is terrible, but at least the energy is carbon-free. But nuclear power, as a way to perpetuate the growth economy, is a false solution to climate change.

WWS

Never fear, there are plans to go "carbon-free and nuclear-free." [1] To take one example, Jacobson and Deluc-chi have published a demonstration that all the world's energy needs in 2030, allowing for projected economic growth, can be met with WWS--wind, water and sunlight. [2] I'll make a few points about this admirable...