Green Illusions

Ozzie Zehner

Published by University of Nebraska Press

Zehner, Ozzie.
Green Illusions: The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism.
University of Nebraska Press, 2012.
Project MUSE.muse.jhu.edu/book/14488.

For additional information about this book

https://muse.jhu.edu/book/14488

[ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ]
9. The First Step
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to
improbable possibilities. –Aristotle

If we were gunslingers, we ’d be in trouble.

Several sinister energy challenges are staring
us down, but the productivists are asking us to
choose our weapon from a rack of toy guns. The
alternative-energy project’s fundamental weak-
ness lies in its failure to engage with obvious cul-
tural factors such as consumerism, corporatism,
and middle-class desires. Instead, we allow pun-
dits to frame energy challenges as technological
problems requiring a technological fix. Every
day, media troupes relay news snippets tout-
ing the latest bio-eco-green energy sources—
all designed to jury-rig a mode of life that is not
optimal, desirable, or even affordable for most
of the world’s communities. The “energy cri-
sis” is more cultural than technological in na-
ture and the failure to recognize this has led to
policies that have brought us no closer to an al-
ternative-energy future today than we were in
the 1960s when the notion was first envisaged.1
In fact, since the 1960s, humanity has become
 quite adept at intensifying large-scale risks through a variety of
productivist pursuits. We ’ve built neighborhoods deep in for-
ests that are bound to catch on fire, we ’ve built our cities right
up to the banks of constricted rivers prone to flooding, we ’ve
erected tall buildings atop triggered faults, and so it’s really no
surprise that we’ve constructed an energy system pressed right
up against the very limits of power production.2 Attempting to
push these limits back by creating more power through alterna-
tive means is a futile endeavor, at least in the current sociopo-
litical environment of the United States. A growing population
insisting on greater affluence will quickly fill any vacancy such
maneuvers might pry open. This would not only expand over-
all energy risks but also increase the number of souls in danger
when energy supplies inevitably waver again. This is what I call
the boomerang effect.

Energy Boomerang Effect

A central project of this book is to interrogate the assumption that
alternative energy is a viable path to prosperity. I have not only
outlined the many side effects, drawbacks, risks, and limitations
of alternative technologies but have also indicated that we can-
not assume that shifting to them will lower our fossil-fuel use.
Alternative-energy production expands energy supplies, plac-
ing downward pressure on prices, which spurs demand, entrenches
energy-intensive modes of living, and finally brings us right back
to where we started: high demand and so-called insufficient sup-
ply.3 In short, we create an energy boomerang—the harder we
throw, the harder it will come back to hit us on the head. More
efficient solar cells, taller wind turbines, and advanced biofuels
are all just ways of throwing harder. Humans have been sub-
ject to the flight pattern of this boomerang for quite some time
and there is no reason to suppose we have escaped its whirling
trajectory today.

  From Here to There

 In the existing American context, increasing alternative-
energy production will not displace fossil-fuel side effects but
will instead simply add more side effects to the mix (and as we
have seen, there are plenty of alternative-energy side effects to
be wary of ). So instead of a world with just the dreadful side ef-
fects of fossil fuels, we will enter into a future world with the
dreadful side effects of fossil fuel plus the dreadful side effects
of alternative-energy technologies—hardly a durable formula
for community or environmental prosperity. If we had different
political, legal, and economic structures and backstops to assure
that alternative-energy production would directly offset fossil-
fuel use, these technologies might make more sense. But it will
take years to institute such vital changes. Focusing our efforts
on alternative-energy production now only serves to distract
us from the real job that needs to be done. Worse yet, if fun-
damental economic, social, and cultural upgrades are not insti-
tuted, the project of alternative energy is bound to fail, which
would likely lead to crippling levels of public cynicism toward
future efforts to produce cleaner forms of power. As it stands
now, even if alternative-energy schemes were free, they might
still be too expensive given their extreme social costs and strik-
ing inability to displace fossil-fuel use. But as it turns out, they
aren’t free at all—they’re enormously expensive.
This affront may seem intimidating, however many of the first
steps for dealing with it are rather straightforward. We ’ll soon
discuss these options. But before we do, there ’s another rather
grisly topic to deal with. It is becoming apparent that energy so-
lutions both large and small are subject to the pernicious fangs
of a menace that is well camouflaged. In fact, the most astute en-
ergy experts occasionally walk right by it without even notic-
ing. Environmentalists rarely speak its name. Pundits and poli-
ticians don’t acknowledge it. And researchers know little about
it. This phantom goes by many names.

The First Step 

 The Rebound Effect Phantom
The nineteenth century brought us a collection of ghoulish and
chilling immortals—the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow,
Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and even Abraham Lincoln’s phantom
train, which has been heard leaving Washington dc late at night
on a circuitous funeral route toward Springfield, Illinois, where
it never arrives. It was during this era, in 1865, that a man named
William Stanley Jevons wrote a book about a similar sort of
phantom. His book, entitled The Coal Question, started out in-
nocently enough. Jevons documented how James Watt’s intro-
duction of the steam engine greatly improved efficiency. Seems
nice. But this increase in efficiency in turn made steam engines
more popular and ultimately drove coal use ever higher.4 This
rebound effect, also termed the “Jevons paradox,” arises again
and again in various incarnations throughout the history of en-
ergy use: Increases in energy efficiency make energy services rela-
tively cheaper, encouraging greater consumption.
Energy efficiency can actually lead to negative environmen-
tal impacts unless regions institute taxes, caps, or regulations to
prevent growing consumption patterns from smothering effi-
ciency gains. As long as energy-efficiency strategies come with
checks to prevent the rebound effect, efficiency proponents ar-
gue that they are highly effective. For instance, new refrigera-
tors use just a fraction of the energy of models sold decades ago,
yet because there is a limit to the amount of refrigeration space
one can fit in a kitchen, the benefits of efficiency are usually not
usurped by the rebound effect. Similarly, there ’s no indication
that drivers of small cars, who achieve twice the gasoline ef-
ficiency of those driving large vehicles, tend to drive twice as
much as a result. And based on numerous case studies of busi-
nesses, Rocky Mountain Institute researchers claim, “We have
not seen evidence that radically more efficient commercial build-
ings cause people to leave the lights on all night and set their of-

  From Here to There

fice thermostats five degrees lower. In fact, energy savings in
everything from office towers to schools have often been higher
than projected. People do not seem to change their behaviors
simply because they have a more efficient building.”5
That’s nice, too. But it’s not the whole story.
There ’s another problem. Even though energy consumers
might not spend their efficiency savings to buy more energy, they
may choose to spend these savings on other products or endeav-
ors that still lead to energy consumption. In this case, energy-
efficiency measures can unintentionally inspire other types of
consumption, leaving overall energy footprints unchanged or
even larger. This occurs at the macroeconomic level as well. In
short, energy-efficiency savings frequently lead to larger profits,
which spur more growth and thus higher energy consumption.
For instance, another Rocky Mountain Institute study shows
that reducing drafts, increasing natural light, and otherwise mak-
ing workplaces more efficient, can increase worker productiv-
ity by as much as 16 percent.6 This higher productivity allows
firms to grow, and the resulting labor cost savings can be spent
on new machinery, buildings, or expansion. These rebound ef-
fects often dwarf the original energy-efficiency effects, leading
to far greater overall energy consumption.7 In fact, the authors
of a central report on the rebound effect conclude, “While the
promotion of energy efficiency has an important role to play in
achieving a sustainable economy, it is unlikely to be sufficient
while rich countries continue to pursue high levels of economic
growth.”8 Thus, efficiency efforts will only prove effective as
long as we institute contemporaneous reforms to move from a
consumption-based economy to one grounded in sufficiency.
It all seems too complex to handle—the dirty secrets, the
boomerang effect, displaced externalities, the phantoms! How
could we possibly change a complex system with so many en-
trenched cultural and physical roots? It will require innovation
on many fronts, a lot of coordination, and quite some time to be

The First Step 

 sure. But the first steps aren’t too large at all. And even though
they are quite simple, they could change the future of our na-
tion and the world. As the British historian Simon Schama has
observed, “However dire the outlook, it’s impossible to think
of the United States at a dead end. Americans roused can turn
on a dime, abandon habits of a lifetime . . . convert indignation
into action, and before you know it there’s a whole new United
States in the neighborhood.”9
Indeed, the big environmental dilemmas looming over us to-
day are really, really big—much larger than humanity has ever
before been forced to confront. And with big dilemmas come
big unknowns:
Is it possible for all of the world’s nations to come together
in agreement on large-scale energy and environmental regula-
tions, practices, taxes, or caps?
If some nations regulate oil, gas, coal, and other dirty indus-
tries, won’t multinational corporations simply move to regions
with slacker regulations?
Even if rich nations were to dramatically reduce fossil-fuel use,
won’t increasingly affluent populations in China, India, and other
parts of the world simply burn away the fossil fuels anyway?
If the rich world created the vast majority of global environ-
mental damage and put the vast majority of the co2 into the at-
mosphere, why should poorer nations help clean it up?
Energies and economies are conjoined. They always have
been. And that’s one of the principal reasons that humans find
it so difficult to share energy resources and the responsibili-
ties that come with them. It’s unlikely that citizens of the rich
world will willingly part with their high standards of living. It’s
even less likely that the world’s poor will cease pushing to in-
crease their own. We find ourselves approaching not one im-
passe, but several.
If you have come here looking for definitive answers, I’m
sorry, I can’t help you. I’m just another member of the search

  From Here to There

party. If you’re looking for certitude, you can close this book
and move on.10 But if you’re willing to deal with something less
decorated, we can proceed together, see what we find, and per-
haps take a shot at those beasts with a slightly larger gun.
But first, I should come clean about something.

The Little Secret

Meager alternative-energy schemes won’t topple the hulking en-
vironmental concerns standing before us. They probably won’t
even budge the beasts. In fact, the alternative-energy boomer-
ang, with all of its side effects and limitations, may make mat-
ters worse. I don’t suggest that this book will solve these prob-
lems, though I do hope it might help clear some undergrowth
off an alternate conceptual path—one that will bring us to a
point where we can approach the really big problems with a bit
more leverage. After all, the future of environmentalism lies in
paths, not destinations. That said, there remains the matter of
a little secret—a twist if you will—that I have sidestepped un-
til now. This simple confession may already be evident: Some-
day, renewable energy will supply most of humanity’s energy needs.
Now before you slam down this book, feeling you’ve been
disingenuously tricked into reading thus far, please bear with
me. After all, the only thing I promised you on the cover was the
dirty secrets of clean energy. I never vowed to dismiss it alto-
gether. Renewable forms of energy fueled humanity before the
age of fossil fuels, and so they will after the fossil fuels are gone.
A problem remains, however. There likely won’t be enough of
the precious renewable energy to go around.11
Previously, I maintained that alternative-energy technologies
are only as durable as the contexts we create for them. I argue
that it’s the contexts, not the technologies that require the most
development. If in some future age human societies are to oper-
ate on cleaner forms of energy, it follows that humans will have
less overall energy to work with. A lot less. But even given the

The First Step 

 enormous sums of energy available today, we have issues with
sharing (to put it mildly). Our backs are already up against the
wall. And there is little reason to believe that calls for more al-
ternative-energy production or pleading for citizens to drive
more fuel-efficient cars will be enough to take much of a bite
out of the problems we face on a global scale.
With this small twist in the story, I shall proceed on. Ahead
I’ll argue that before renewable forms of energy can ever de-
liver meaningful proportions of supply, we must achieve spe-
cific structural reductions in global energy consumption. This
in turn will require democratic reimagining of certain cultural
goals. As knotty as it may be, I’ll argue that nations can move
toward success by shifting their measures of success from ma-
terial abundance to abundant communities, and from frivolity
to utility.12 The best way to get precious renewable energies to
meet our needs is to simply need less—a chore that will be more
fun than we might think.

Sacrificing Sacrifice
Two decades ago, antitobacco campaigners spent millions to ed-
ucate teens on the cancer risks of cigarettes using a simple and
important message:
“Sacrifice now, and you’ll live longer.”
Teens ignored them—living longer was for old people. So
campaigners changed their tactics. Instead of linking cigarette
smoking to cancer, they linked it to something much less fright-
ening. That is, unless you are a teenager.
The new ads featured suave teenagers coming in for a kiss, but
just before impact, their mouths opened to expose a mouthful of
smoldering cigarette butts. Teens got the message. The risk of
smoker’s breath left an impression because it appealed to teens’
immediate concerns—their Friday night date. Since the rest of
us are just grown-up teenagers, the same tricks happen to work
with us. Unfortunately, for the most part the reverse is also true.

  From Here to There

 “Sacrifice now, and you can help prevent catastrophic cli-
mate change.”
“Whatever.”
Even though the long-term risks of climate change are widely
acknowledged in public discourse, it’s difficult for citizens to mo-
bilize changes to their individual behavior in response to such
nebulous concerns. Concerned citizens may lionize sacrifices for
being noble, even virtuous, but as a society we unsympathetically
ignore them in practice. It’s not because we are bad people. No
matter how well-intentioned we may be, we ’re often unaware
or unable to accurately assess the impact our choices have on
the larger world. Even when we do have some sense of our im-
pact, we ’re often persuaded more by immediate interests than
by the more abstract and less tangible “common good.” Fur-
thermore, individual sacrifices don’t hold tremendous poten-
tial in the larger scheme of things since corporations, the gov-
ernment, and the military leave the largest energy footprints.13
Policies that rely on sacrifice, will power, or appeals to eth-
ics, no matter how valid or insightful they may be, are doomed
to be pummeled or even knocked out when pushed into the ring
against human behavior. Policies to reduce energy consumption
will have a much better chance of success if they generate tan-
gible, upfront benefits such as cost savings, free time, and other
valued attributes. I’m not arguing against sacrifice or restraint.
I’m only pointing out their limitations as policy tools—espe-
cially where there are more capable options.

Developing Congruency
The alternative-energy fairy tale was not scripted by a few sleuth
conspirators. Rather, it grew out of a particular alignment of in-
terests between legislators, corporate board members, scientists,
environmentalists, journalists, consumers, and many others. Ev-
eryone had something to gain from the story. We may not have
tried or even expected to become progrowth productivists, sup-
porting the projects of Shell Hydrogen, Exxon Biofuels, and bp

The First Step 

 Solar, but it just so happens that after plinko-ing our way down
the pegboard of established duties and rewards in society, we
ended up in their slot. Our alternative-energy inclinations lined
up with the ambitions of those around us. These in turn lined up
with the currents of power flowing around the corporate energy
sector, which is by its nature designed to consolidate wealth for
silent shareholders whom we ’ve never even met. Perhaps you
can call that a conspiracy, but it’s not the clandestine maneuver-
ing of a few skilled operatives; it’s far more subtle and pervasive
than that. A web without a weaver.14
So we went to an Earth Day party and woke up the next morn-
ing spooning the Exxon pr director. What to do? Take the walk
of shame back home and give up on environmentalism? Fold our
hand and leave the table? Absolutely not! If a particular align-
ment of interests created the bind we are in, then perhaps it’s
time to align those interests in a new way.
There’s a ready example in California. Decades ago the state
“decoupled” energy production from utility company profits. In
short, the less energy California customers use, the more money
utilities stand to make. While utility companies in other states
are planning their futures around additional capacity and higher
production, California utilities are buying energy-efficient light
bulbs for their customers, installing smart meters, and replac-
ing inefficient machinery—anything they can think of to get
their customers to use less of their energy commodities. This
may seem counterintuitive, but only if approached from a pro-
ductivist mindset. From a well-being mindset, it makes perfect
sense. Profits should flow toward undertakings that are socially
and ecologically beneficial, not those that are socially and eco-
logically destructive. California residents have shown that it’s
their game and they can set the rules as they like. Through a
few painless tweaks to its energy system, California armed it-
self to fight the phantom of Jevon’s paradox head on and is still
winning on several fronts. The trick was just a simple realign-
ment of interests.

  From Here to There

 Figure 9: Incongruent power plays  Various forces pull energy
consumption in different directions. Here utility profit mo-
tives and consumer behavior overpower environmental goals.

Figure 10: Congruent power plays  In a decoupled energy sys-

tem with stronger tax incentives, interests to reduce energy
consumption align and work together to pull energy con-
sumption down.

In regions without this congruency, things look less prom-

ising. Utility profit motives, low energy costs, and customer
ambivalence generate an upward lift on energy consumption.
This often overcomes environmental efforts to pull consump-
tion down. It’s difficult to lower consumption when muscular
forces are pulling it elsewhere.
Meanwhile, decoupling brings these forces into congruence.
Profit motives of utilities align with environmental goals, and
customers choose to consume less energy when given incen-
tives to use low-energy light bulbs and appliances. Addition-
ally, California’s cost penalties for heavy energy users induces
a stronger downward pressure on consumption levels than just
a simple flat tax rate.

The First Step 

 The results in California have been impressive. Over the past
few decades, per-capita electricity use in California remained
steady even as consumption doubled nationally. Today, a pair
of Californians uses less energy than a single Texan.15 And lower
energy use hasn’t decreased the Golden State’s living standards.
In fact, Gallup ranks California among the top ten happiest states
(Texas ranks twenty-one).16
Even more powerful are those energy strategies that become
automatic, where performing the energy-saving task is built into
daily life. For example, people who live in dense cities appre-
ciate the convenience of walking down the street for grocer-
ies or to see friends. Even though they are using far less energy
than their suburban counterparts, they wouldn’t know it. These
energy-saving conveniences become such an appreciated part of
daily life that residents of walkable communities perform them
unconsciously.
The environment is not an objective thing, sitting there in
front of us, plain and obvious, but a complex cognitive construct,
a hybrid between ecological states and social understandings.
It follows that the energy and environmental solutions we de-
velop will have to be equally enveloping forces, addressing in-
dividual behavior, social norms, institutional actions, and tech-
nological advancement—all at the same time.17 Such pervasive
changes are difficult, if not impossible, to orchestrate without
considerable self-organization among various interest groups.
Therefore, the policy paths we pioneer should be structured to
appeal to human behavior and, most importantly, draw upon hu-
man creativity, an energy resource that too often goes untapped.
There are two primary paths to reducing the energy state of the
economy: making the economy more efficient and shrinking the
overall material economy. We’ll have to do both. A green econ-
omy is a smaller economy. The options for realizing it would be
laudable projects even if we weren’t backed up against the pro-
verbial energy wall.

  From Here to There

 In the following chapters, I’ll introduce numerous durable
proposals that hold the potential to both decrease energy use
and increase human well-being. They don’t require advanced
technologies. They aren’t expensive. And while some may re-
quire adjustments, they typically won’t require sacrifice—their
congruency makes them palatable to wide segments of the pop-
ulation and therefore realistically achievable.18

The First Step

I do not intend to pour the sweet syrup of a utopian grand nar-
rative over the remaining pages of this book for you and other
readers to passively lap up. Grand narratives have their place,
but they too often come at the expense of practical and achiev-
able first steps. Throughout this book, I have aimed to initiate
an intervention—a reframing of certain taken-for-granted en-
vironmental story lines. I won’t be scribbling a quick prescrip-
tion to fix the mess I’ve created. Instead, I aim to acknowledge
how complex it will be to thoughtfully trim the motivating roots
of our energy challenges. And I’ll ask for your help.
The future environmental movement won’t offer itself up as
a receptacle for energy firms, car companies, and product mar-
keters to plug into. Nor will it focus narrowly on preaching at
people to consume less. The environmental movement’s great-
est returns will come through building alluring sociocultural
frames wherein citizens are offered the opportunity to consume
less energy and can enjoy the benefits of doing so.
To start, I’ll bring some first steps to the table. These first steps
are not majestic solutions, but I argue that they might hold the
potential to bring us to a place where grander possibilities be-
come possible. I’ve selected each to be:
Achievable: They have already been instituted with success ei-
ther on a small scale in the United States or on a large scale in
another part of the world.

The First Step 

 Congruent: They appeal to the self-interest of many people and
groups, lending them the potential to catch on.
Meaningful: Instituting them will tangibly improve people’s well-
being and/or reduce the risks of human suffering.
We needn’t chart the entire path toward a more socially pros-
perous energy system at the outset of our journey; we need only
to take a much less dramatic step with solid footing down the
right path. And I ask, Why not take those steps down a path that
will accrue other benefits along the way? As we progress, gain-
ing a better lay of the land, we can recalibrate our bearings and
move on from there. Adjustments aren’t a failure of the original
plan but a tribute to the flexibility that it offers. The very consti-
tutional foundations of our country have endured because they
were designed to allow for updates.
The following chapters are admittedly incomplete, for writ-
ers far more qualified than I have written volumes on each of
these themes. For now, I aim simply to introduce these topics, if
through a slightly different lens. At the end of each chapter, I’ll
suggest some ideas that, hopefully, spur some thought into how
we might practically move from material and energy consump-
tion to more durable and meaningful forms of social growth and
well-being. I am certain that you and other readers will have even
better ideas for developing thoughtful energy policies that reach
beyond conventional doctrine to overcome social, cultural, cog-
nitive, organizational, and political barriers standing in the way
of building a prosperous energy system. My goal is to instigate
a shift in focus so that others might imagine solutions that are
socially congruent, politically achievable, and decisively influ-
ential. If the following chapters assist in those efforts, they will
have served their purpose. After all, we are the architects of re-
ality. The question is, What kind of reality do we want to build?

  From Here to There