The optimistic green idea

This article ("The Power of Green", Thomas L Friedman, NYT, April 15, 2007 - and the associated videos - is why the New York Times is such a pleasure to read. Pity their scummy marketing people are trying to sting me for a continuation of my subscription at about NZ$500 for a year, when I am no longer in the country!

Friedman's basic thesis is identified in the byline from the NYT:
What does America need to regain its global stature?
Environmental leadership.

He argues that persuading Brazil/China/India etc to grow clean when the Western world has benefitted from growing dirty (=CO2 and other environmental costs), is futile. His alternative would be for the USA to lead the world with clean alternatives that fuel their growth faster till and thus attract others to the green path...

This is the sort of thinking that is behind the smart grid, the electric car as a storage device for the smart grid, PV on every roof etc... Its fatal flaw seems to be that it ignores the individual people in the equation. How to persuade people to alter wasteful behaviour - to use their share and not keep their buildings (for example) too hot in winter and too cold in ummer. There is clear evidence in the international work on 'Adaptive comfort' that mechanical control of temperature changes our expectation: when people have to open windows for cooling they have very different definitions of what is acceptable than when they push a button on an air conditioner. The Friedman future is more likely to occur if we can change general expectations.

I was reminded of this in a community workshop in the US recently. Some people attending who were significantly altering their behaviour to conserve water (collecting bath water for flushing toilets etc) could not contemplate turning their thermostats down below 20C - overnight, when they went to sleep! And these were so called greenies!

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Thomas L. Friedman: The Power of Green - NYTimes.com/Video

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Thomas L. Friedman: Green is the new Red White and Blue - NYTimes.com/Video

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