I'm going to go to washington DC and get arrested while protesting the tar sands pipeline!
I'm also going to use that as my college's community service requirement. it was marlene fried, our interim president, who got me thinking that this was the right thing to do. she asked me if I was going to be div III next semester, and I said that it depended on whether I got my shit together and passed div II or not. and mentioned that I didn't know what I was going to do for community service. and she said, "oh, how could you NOT?" and went on to express the opinion that every hampshire student should know what they're going to do for community service. so I had been thinkning about that, and realized that really, the issue that motivates me is the environment, rather than anything more localized or social.
then this open letter got printed on some websites that I read:
http://www.grist.org/climate-change/2011-06-23-join-us-in-civil-disobedience-to-stop-the-keystone-xl-tar-sandsso, that's what I'm going to do.
here's another article that I think is worth reading:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/devon-swezey/the-coming-clean-tech-cra_b_892582.html it talks about the dangers of subsidizing green energy projects. the bubble and crash cycle applies here, because the funding is intermittent and uncertain. a lot of money from the stimulus package got sent in the direction of green energy projects, but that money will dry up and those proects wont be able to compete. the article suggests that instead of spending money on conventional wind and solar technologies, we should be funding innovations that improve or replace those technologies, because the conventional technologies can't compete on the energy market without the subsidies, while the innovations and new technologies might be able to.
that's all well and good, but I think a more important step will be to raise the price of fossil fuels. that will accomplish all of those goals, by bringing all technologies closer to price parity, including the new and innovative ones. and it won't take money from the government. as james hanson has been saying for years and years now, just tax the dirty fuels and give the money back to the people. look, here he is saying it:
they'll spend it on efficiency and green energy for entirely capitalistic reasons. motivation is the real issue, and money is the real solution. make the bad things cost more. it's the only sensible thing to do. as
olifhar pointed out on my last post, this is called a pigovian tax. the sad thing is that not enough people even know that term, nor do they understand the basic principle. everyone should take economics 101.
everyone should also have a greenhouse. I think it would be a good thing to make a greenhouse be a mandatory part of every new structure. but then I havent really thought through that idea thoroughly. I just know that it could help with heating structures as well as decentralization of food production.