This post is part of the serialization of the first chapter of the Original Green [and the Mystery of True Sustainability]. I’m hoping to complete the book this spring.

   Massive efforts currently exist to redesign the things we buy to be more efficient: better light bulbs, better cars, better heating and cooling equipment, and cleaner sources of electricity, for example. And by all means, we should be doing these things. But these are all things that the manufacturers must do. In other words, they’re supply-side: they’re accomplished by those who supply us with the things that we use (and consume.)

   Now, try this exercise: (1) Select any product type you like. (2) Use any common measure of sustainability, whether carbon footprint, miles traveled, net energy, etc. (3) Take the best assumptions of competent advocates for increases in efficiency or effectiveness of the product type. (4) Compare the likely increases in efficiency to the best projections of increases in demand. In most cases, you’ll find that the demand will rise faster than the projected improvements in the product. So while the products are getting better, we’re still using more energy and other resources in order to use those products. So we’re going further in the hole all the time.

   Take cars, for example. The chart above shows the miles traveled on US streets and highways beginning in 1960. If you project the trend of the past half-century (business as usual) it follows the red line. How much can the supply side help? For the first time in 32 years, Congress increased the mandatory US fleet efficiency from 25 miles per gallon to 35 miles per gallon... to be effective in 2020. Better efficiency clearly helps, but by how much? Driving a car that is 10% more efficient uses the same amount of gas as driving 10% less. The yellow line on the graph shows the effect of the increased efficiency. The dilemma is obvious: even though the increased efficiency makes a big impact, the line is still rising, which means we’ll still be burning more gas. And this chart shows the efficiency increasing at the same rate to 2030, even though the law only requires it until 2020.

   And the problem is, we don’t need to level off where we are now; we need to go much lower. In order to reach a level that most scientists would consider sustainable, we need to follow something close to the green line, and any knowledgeable engineer in the automotive industry will tell you that the green line simply isn’t happening. That line represents the equivalent of reducing US driving to a trillion miles a year by 2030 (approximately the level in 1968) while the actual distance traveled in 2030 will actually be closer to 6 trillion miles (which happens to be almost the same distance that light can travel in one year.) To burn gas equal to the green line while driving as much as we’ll likely be driving, the average fuel efficiency in 2030 would have to be around 150 miles per gallon. Does anyone believe there’s any chance whatsoever of this happening?

   And that’s only part of the problem. It’s scary enough just looking at projections for the United States, but when you consider that there are over two billion people in China and India that are now moving from highly sustainable agrarian cultures to an industrial economy much like ours in the 1950s and 1960s, it’s obvious that our supply-side focus cannot be a winning strategy. Everything only gets worse when we depend mainly upon a supply-side strategy. To be clear, we must supply better stuff, but that alone won’t do the job... it doesn’t even come close.

~ Steve Mouzon