Unspoken Rules
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Unspoken Rules
May 2008
There is an unspoken rule in modern times that
interferes with every discussion of solar energy. The rule
is to not count any energy that is traditional, not count age
old methods that support life, however well they work. As
one can back sight a shadow and find the sun, back site our
energy experts, whether from a University, a foundation, or
a think tank, they all scrupulously obey the unwritten rule.
Ignore tradition, ignore nature. Invent an idol: GNP.
Look what is left out in all modern energy censuses.
The food we eat, the light through windows, foot traffic,
bike miles, clothes lines; all of Nature. We have been
enchanted by machinery. A spell leaves us bewildered.
Alien pressures have us forget our own interest. Our lives
are a dance of deference to the machines and the banks
that finance them. The unspoken rule demands progress
and progress is abandoning traditional ways to employ new
products. Before long we may give up climbing into bed, a
forklift will place us between the sheets. There are
endless examples.
We have a natural curiosity and enthusiasm for new
technology, but in our times natural enthusiasm is not
sufficient. The system does not trust the individual will
spend enough money on the right things. Policies and tax
laws are needed. With their guidance we lean forward,
toward the machine, the synthetic, the artificial, so far
forward we are hardly upright. We do not notice such
things as our intermittent sidewalks waiting for repair
beside our cars’ carefully tended streets. This blindness is
central to questions about solar energy.
We are being driven like so many cattle into new
pastures by legislation, tax breaks, incentives and endless
ads and articles in the press and on TV. New ideas,
materials, machines, medicine, could enrich all of us if we
had time to choose how to mix old with new. Why, when
we need to conserve energy, are clotheslines outlawed and
at the same time expensive photovoltaic panels given huge
subsidies? One kWh of electricity can evaporate three
pints of water or lift the water 150 miles straight up. Why
waste electricity to dry things; let clothes lines do that.
Let us choose for ourselves. We don’t need a master
plan contrived by a foundation contrived by a presidential
commission or UN commission to sort out what to do,
where to go, how to live. We need to stop subsidizing
fossil fuels. Let their prices rise. Higher prices slow
consumption. To give up regular Coca-Cola, we needn’t
subsidize diet coke; to slow gasoline consumption we
needn’t subsidize ethanol.
We must use prices and the market place. We cannot
sort out energy matters by subsidies, especially not when
all of them obey an unwritten rule that “progress” is good
and tradition is better forgotten.
Times are changing. The machine has finally had to
stop and think. Accustomed to endless growth, now it
hears about CO2, that it will soon run short of fuel and
loose its grip on mankind. The machines and their backers
are accustomed to being deferred to, and the rest of us go
along with the unwritten rule. If we must have solar
energy, by the unwritten rule it will not be the many
traditional uses, fossil fuel shouldered out of the way.
Progress will continue; solar energy won’t be the old ways;
it will be on a new level, more machines however
uneconomical.
May 2008
There is an unspoken rule in modern times that
interferes with every discussion of solar energy. The rule
is to not count any energy that is traditional, not count age
old methods that support life, however well they work. As
one can back sight a shadow and find the sun, back site our
energy experts, whether from a University, a foundation, or
a think tank, they all scrupulously obey the unwritten rule.
Ignore tradition, ignore nature. Invent an idol: GNP.
Look what is left out in all modern energy censuses.
The food we eat, the light through windows, foot traffic,
bike miles, clothes lines; all of Nature. We have been
enchanted by machinery. A spell leaves us bewildered.
Alien pressures have us forget our own interest. Our lives
are a dance of deference to the machines and the banks
that finance them. The unspoken rule demands progress
and progress is abandoning traditional ways to employ new
products. Before long we may give up climbing into bed, a
forklift will place us between the sheets. There are
endless examples.
We have a natural curiosity and enthusiasm for new
technology, but in our times natural enthusiasm is not
sufficient. The system does not trust the individual will
spend enough money on the right things. Policies and tax
laws are needed. With their guidance we lean forward,
toward the machine, the synthetic, the artificial, so far
forward we are hardly upright. We do not notice such
things as our intermittent sidewalks waiting for repair
beside our cars’ carefully tended streets. This blindness is
central to questions about solar energy.
We are being driven like so many cattle into new
pastures by legislation, tax breaks, incentives and endless
ads and articles in the press and on TV. New ideas,
materials, machines, medicine, could enrich all of us if we
had time to choose how to mix old with new. Why, when
we need to conserve energy, are clotheslines outlawed and
at the same time expensive photovoltaic panels given huge
subsidies? One kWh of electricity can evaporate three
pints of water or lift the water 150 miles straight up. Why
waste electricity to dry things; let clothes lines do that.
Let us choose for ourselves. We don’t need a master
plan contrived by a foundation contrived by a presidential
commission or UN commission to sort out what to do,
where to go, how to live. We need to stop subsidizing
fossil fuels. Let their prices rise. Higher prices slow
consumption. To give up regular Coca-Cola, we needn’t
subsidize diet coke; to slow gasoline consumption we
needn’t subsidize ethanol.
We must use prices and the market place. We cannot
sort out energy matters by subsidies, especially not when
all of them obey an unwritten rule that “progress” is good
and tradition is better forgotten.
Times are changing. The machine has finally had to
stop and think. Accustomed to endless growth, now it
hears about CO2, that it will soon run short of fuel and
loose its grip on mankind. The machines and their backers
are accustomed to being deferred to, and the rest of us go
along with the unwritten rule. If we must have solar
energy, by the unwritten rule it will not be the many
traditional uses, fossil fuel shouldered out of the way.
Progress will continue; solar energy won’t be the old ways;
it will be on a new level, more machines however
uneconomical.