Your Take On the Title for My New Book: RENEWABLE AND DOABLE
Thanks to all those who made suggestions for the title for my next book. There were several hundred, most of them fabulously creative, some deadpan, others hilarious. Tentatively, I’ve chosen:
RENEWABLE AND DOABLE
Our Transition to a Clean Energy Economy
that Won’t Cost Us the Earth
I like the concept for its clever rhyme, and also for its brave optimism, i.e., the suggestion that significant penetration of renewable energy and reduction in consumption of fossil fuels truly is an achievable goal. Fortunately, it jibes with the content of the book; in fact, there is a reasonable degree of hope to be found in various passages.
But having said that, the book is fundamentally an attempt to answer a single question: If this is such a critically important mission here on Earth, what are the forces that are making this transition so horribly difficult and slow?
And guess what: There really are such forces in place – forces that aren’t going away anytime soon. Moreover, they’re not 100% transparent. In that vein, here is an excerpt from the introduction:
I hate to start this project in a way that could “un-sell” readers, but this is fundamentally a book for those who harbor a suspicion that they are not being told the truth. The credulous in our society – those who believe the information they receive is a pure and undistorted collection of facts about the actions and intentions of the actual underlying power structures in our world – may want to look elsewhere for reading material.
Yet who lives in such a fairytale world? Most of us realized long ago that we exist in a place and time in which the true causes and motivations for most of what we see around us on a global scale are seldom revealed for what they are.
For example, what type of person takes at face value the message that the media presented in the United States (echoed around the world in a matter of minutes) as the reason for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003: to “bring democracy to the Middle East?” That mantra: “a coalition of forces, led by the US, will bring democracy to the Middle East” was picked up, distributed in unison around the world, and repeated ceaselessly for days on end – to anyone gullible enough to believe it. Who on Earth believes that this media saturation occurred because of solid, honest journalism?
OK, if you’re with me so far, if you haven’t angrily returned this book to its vendor, I invite you to take a tour with me, in which I hope to shed some light on one of the most important issues of our time: energy. But again, if you think that there is nothing wrong with our energy policy, if you believe that there is nothing fundamentally unsustainable about the fact that 80% of the world’s energy comes from burning hydrocarbons, you may want to reconsider the idea of continuing here.
Enough for now.
If you’d like to make any comments, either on the title itself, or on the overall direction I’ve taken here, I hope you’ll enter them below. As always, I appreciate the feedback.
PS: I especially wish to thank Gerry Gaydos, the contributor of that title. Gerry: If you send me a mailing address, you’ll be the first to receive a signed copy as soon as I get my initial shipment (in January, 2012).
Great title!
I like the book name a lot. As for why this is going to take a lot of persuasion I give you this link for John Petersen’s latest blog post: http://www.altenergystocks.com
For the record, I agree with him.
Don Harmon
LiFeBATT, Inc.
I like and respect John Petersen, but I disagree on a number of points. Here’s what I just just wrote on this: http://2greenenergy.com/adoption-of-electric-vehicles/16598/.
I remember the very day I heard on CNN that the Bush Administration had to conceed and conclude that there were no weapons of mass destruction found, or likely to be found, in Iraq. It was precisely at this very time that we began to hear that the “supposedly” real reason for our going into Iraq was to bring Democracy to the Middle East.
Funny how the Bush Administration never mentioned or articulated this in the very beginning of the Iraq War. Nope…not a single word like Democracy was ever mentioned. This was nothing more than Bush providing himself political cover for having made a serious miscalculation based on faulty intelligence right from the get go.
This illegal and inexcusible incursion into a 3rd World Country was nothing more than a Bush/Cheney foray for establishing control of the Iraqi Oil Fields period. And, just look at the cost we had to pay. Billions of dollars of tax payer dollars wasted on an unfunded war that cost more than 100,000 innocent Iraqi Civilians their lives, disrupted and devistated countless American Middle and Lower Class homes with the loss of their loved ones who gave their lives and for what? So we oversised Americans could continue to drive around in our monsterous SUVs pretending that we deserved to have the luxury of having our cake and eating it too.
This war was a sham and a shame and a national disgrace that will live forever among the worst attrocities man kind has ever perpertrated against another nation.
Had we left things alone, it just might have turned out that Iraq and Iran would have once again gone to War with one another just like they had done back in the 1980’s and nullified the entire region maiking it a cake walk to their prescious oil. But no! Texans only do things BIG!!!
Craig:
You need to read Jeremy Rifkin’s new book: The Third Industrial Revolution for the 10,000 foot view of this paradigm shift and the alignment of forces in opposition to it.
Also, read Herman Scheer’s last interview with Amy Goodman (Democracy Now) in which he describes the essence of this renewable energy struggle, which of course he launched successfully in Germany in the form of feed-in tariffs.
At its essence, distributed energy is the re-distribution of wealth within a community. It is the democratization of capitalism against which there are many entrenched interests.
An excellent read is Michael Hiltzik’s new book The New Deal, in which he profiles FDR’s struggles to promote public power initiatives, such as the TVA and Hoover Dam, during the depression and the unbelievable power of “the power trusts” (as they called them in the 1930’s). A favorable 5-4 vote of the US Supreme Court sealed the fate of the TVA, but the utility industry adopted many other paths of opposition over the next eighty years!
The vast amounts of pension money and old family $$$ invested in utility stocks is probably the largest percentage of any other industry in America.
There are many levels to this phenomenon; hopefully you can capture the essence of this struggle in your book.
Cheers!
Stuart Smits
CEO
Citizen Green Energy
Craig:
I hope your book will be honest and brave.
In my view, there are 3 main forces slowing the pace of transition to green energy:
1. Oil Companies
2. Unions
3. Environmental Advocacy Groups
Good Luck.
Perfect title, Craig (although the subtitle is a little unwieldy). It’s so important that people understand that the transition to renewables is doable. But it ain’t easy. We’re trying to change the course of a supertanker headed for the rocks, with the entrenched forces behind fossil fuels having a death grip on the wheel. Hopefully your book can help us chart that new course.
Hi! This really is a great work announced. If we can do something to translate your new book in french, there could be a few millions copies to be sold at a moment where a clear need exists for such ideas and revelations… Please do think of it: we are well positioned to do the work, including edition and even a part of the distribution!
Just for this purpose please confirm (or not!) to the following e-mail: lelys52@hotmail.fr
Thanks for the update Craig. I like the title… I’m looking forward to reading my copy. Please put me on your list to receive a fist edition copy! Will
Craig,
You invited my comments in your email, so here they are.
While your sentiment and concern is admirable, I think its a bit off. Additional discussion of what hurdles we collectively face and the costs we need to still incur have been stated and restated for the last 30 years that I have been in the solar business. No need to reinvent that wheel or further explain how the wheel can be improved. Instead, focus in on what’s been accomplished and the resulting, inevitable trajectory we as a nation/world are now on and the future that is already in process of being realized. Here is why.
What I continually encounter in my discussions with those everyday folks not involved in the energy world is the pervasive sense that too little progress has been made in our move to sustainable resource consumption, renewable power adoption, and strengthening of national energy independence. The general conclusion I hear is that a fossil fuel future is inevitable and that renewable resources use is in the far future.
I understand these concerns given that this is exactly what happened in the 1980s (with Deukmejian in California and Reagan nationally) and then through the 1990s. The promised land of a sustainable future was dashed against $10 per barrel oil. However once I explain how I view the world adapting to its (in my opinion) inevitable future, I see both the light and optimism return in eyes and voice of those I am speaking with. Of course there are always detractors among those conservatives who only live within their beliefs and will not listen to facts or reasoned arguments. Their thoughts are unbelievable so why bother to convince them given they are not your intended audience.
What I think is needed is a book to explain the great strides that are already achieved, how and why today’s market forces are different from the past, and what the future will likely be as a result. I say this not just because circumstances are different today than in the past, but because of structural changes in our national and international economy and international relations that are already forcing these changes to occur. I am also not just talking shifts in the regulatory environment, improved materials resulting in better (longer lasting and more efficient) technology, or even increases in production and installed generation capacity, but rather improving economic pressure (due to solar and wind “commodity pricing” and increasingly expensive non-renewable generation) from both oil pricing, aging fossil fuel infrastructure needing replacement, and the inclusion of externalities into the costs of energy supply.
Instead focus in on and explain how paradigm shifts influencing how energy is :
… more efficiently used (demand management),
… transmitted (HVDC versus HVAC) and
… distributed (such as the “smart grid” and site rather than central generation).
Show how today’s changed geo-political pressures (from the tiger nations ) and modern defense needs (as in reduction of military logistics from hurdles in today’s extended supply lines and the increasing cost of energy needed to run today’s weapon systems) are forcing renewable energy adoption into the present and as a done deal for the future.
So to end this long answer to your short question, I would recommend changing the title of your book to RENEWABLE, DOABLE and DONE.
I hope that you have eventual need to accommodate multiple printings so as to satisfy demand. It’s a great topic and I like the title.
One of my pet ironies pertains to a television ad that periodically runs here in Northeast Ohio. Their message is clear, stating in a boastful manner that there are natural gas reserves sufficient to last the next 100 years. I propose to add a simple question that I doubt occurs to the majority of viewers: “What happens then?” What will the human race do when we exceed our planet’s capacity to source additional resources for us to rape and pillage?
For obvious reasons I cannot speak to the content of your book. Nonetheless, I will express hope that it will attract the attention, interest and meaningful action of conscientious, intelligent people who recognize the severity of our situation. As a whole, I believe that our species lacks appreciation of the significance of the term ‘sustainable,’ many in key positions placing monetary gain above the value of life itself. Inasmuch, by various means powerful entities stifle consideration of practical relevance to our longevity. With emphasis focused upon short-term financial gain, fossil fuel consumption has positioned us to pay a continual progression of higher prices towards ends that guarantee eventual depletion of supplies. The ‘I gotta get mine while the gettin’s good’ mentality of short-term investing philosophies have disincentivized many sensibilities. Powerful forces rally against collective intelligence coalescing towards the design and implementation of coherent strategies for redirecting our course into sustainable practices that respect the true value of our planet’s finite resources. Will we survive the self-gratifying motives of the few whose endarkened greed cares nothing for depleting our resources as long as they have profited from the process?
Only sustainable energy leads to sustainable commerce, considering that life itself may hold in the balance. The fact that today is not the day of fossil energy sources’ depletion should not represent carte blanche for commercial interests to remain blind to its inevitability – forging ahead under a ‘growth’ motive to justify ever increasing the rate of consumption that will bring that day nigh ever sooner. I hope that your book fosters this awareness . . . so as to become ‘common sense’ to its readership.
Best wishes.
Enlightened Self Interest is fundamentally not understood by investors, the public or government. The economy is suffering because its driven by ever increasing energy costs. The fundamental issue is really that many of the wealthier people and government that control the world don’t want to lose their power, money and control. Ultimately Renewables will make money obsolete as when renewables make renewables, energy will tend towards being free and running costs for everyone, everywhere will be very low, thereon forever. We will then have to get used to each other, work out our differences and paint things, write poetry, invent new lifestyles and build starships!
Fantastic response here and some very intelligent comments. I really have to agree with Barry S. Let’s look at and celebrate the achievements that some small enterprises have already made and stop wasting taxpayer money on doling out grants from the DOE to research the research. This single govt. agency should be abolished and the money should be re-directed to private industry who knows how to make the products we need to push the renewable markets forward.
Craig, you should tally up all the DOE grants and include a chapter in your new book so people can see just how much of their money has been spent on green-washing this administration.
Give the funds to the small businesses who are already making the products and who can create JOBS.
We got it backwards now with Obama and the DOE! The title should be “Renewable and Being Done Now!”
Don Harmon
I like a lot the final title; it’s short, clear, and hopeful. Concerning the question analysed in the book (If this is such a critically important mission here on Earth, what are the forces that are making this transition so horribly difficult and slow?) it is the first step of the “transition”, I mean, the first action to get sth is to identify the barriers to be overcome. The solution to a problem starts when the existence of the problem is accepted.
Best wishes!
You make an excellent point here. Thanks.
Lots of interesting feedback here. I’ll stick to what I didn’t see.
Major change, paradigm shift if you will, is most often multi-generational. I’m sure we can all think of topics that are ever so slowly moving towards the mainstream.
Just because there is science behind the production and use of energy does not make its adoption a scientific, logical if you will, topic. In most cases of major forces in opposition, logic need not apply.
I personally see this as at least two generations worth of effort before the new thinkers become the entrenched elite. We are perhaps not quite one generation into this, so we have at least another 25 years before serious traction at the point of tipping.
Craig, Much of what you write has that factual twist the major and minor periodicals and energy company press releases do not have. Unfortunately because nearly every source of information related to the public media is 80% fictional or twisted from factual to sensational to sell papers or increase stock prices for Oil Company Executives. After all their movitation is improving their personal fortunes not any concern for the public.