[Mb-civic] Survivor's guide to the energy crisis - Jeremy Rifkin - Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

Survivor's guide to the energy crisis

By Jeremy Rifkin  |  October 13, 2005

PANIC HAS set in. With the price of oil hovering at more than $60 a 
barrel on world markets and forecasters predicting that we will soon see 
oil selling for $100 a barrel or more as worldwide oil reserves dwindle, 
politicians and business leaders are running scared. The global economy 
is beginning to slow, and there is talk about a new and sustained 
long-term global recession -- some economists are even talking about a 
global depression -- that could last for decades.

We are quickly waking up to the fact that the whole world runs by oil. 
We are an oil civilization. We grow our food with the help of 
petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides. Our plastics, pharmaceutical 
products, and clothes are for the most part derived from oil. Our 
transport, power, heat, electricity, and light are all dependent on oil.

President Bush has called upon Americans to drive their automobiles less 
-- more than half of the cars in the country are gas-guzzling SUVs -- to 
save precious fuel. The White House has also asked federal employees to 
cut down on all but essential travel, to carpool, and to use public 
transportation. In addition, the president ordered White House 
thermostats to be turned to 72 degrees Fahrenheit to save energy.

Incredibly, at the same time Bush was proclaiming his newfound 
conversion to energy efficiency, the White House and Senate Republicans 
were working quietly behind the scenes to scuttle the remaining six 
Department of Energy regional energy efficiency field offices 
responsible for helping low-income families, the business community, and 
local, state, and federal government to implement energy efficiency 
measures.

It appears that the president and his team do not understand the 
enormity of the energy crisis facing the United States and the world. 
The White House clearly needs guidance. The president should download 
the just published European Union Green Paper on Energy Efficiency 
(europa.eu.int/comm/ energy/efficiency/index_en.htm). The paper lays out 
a detailed survivor's guide, a roadmap of what every individual, family, 
community, and country -- including the United States -- can do to 
cushion the cost shock of rising oil prices.

According to the report, the European member states alone could save at 
least 20 percent of their present energy consumption for a net savings 
of 60 billion euros per year, by enacting tough energy conservation 
programs across European society -- in homes, commercial buildings, 
factories, and transport. The EU report says the United States could 
save far more with widespread adoption of energy conservation practices 
since the United States currently wastes approximately 50 percent more 
energy than the European Union to produce one unit of GDP.

The EU commission study says the average EU and American household could 
save as much as $1,200 per year in cost-saving energy efficient 
practices, thus offsetting much of the increased price of oil. The EU 
green paper is replete with detailed information on how to overhaul 
every aspect of our lives to achieve more energy-efficiency.

Proposals include incentives to purchase energy-efficient cars, reducing 
the national speed limit to 55 miles per hour, making alterations in 
homes and commercial buildings, like installing special insulation and 
storm windows, using long-lasting electric light bulbs, introducing 
software into appliances to save energy, renovating the nation's power 
grids to be more efficient, and other practices.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/10/13/survivors_guide_to_the_energy_crisis/
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