The real truth about terrorism is that, aside from hardening specific targets like airportsand nuclear plants, there is no way to protect any complex organized society from guerrilla attacks. In the long run, what is really required is a major change in our posture toward developing countries. Large areas of povertyare dangerous for the world as a whole as they provide fertile ground for extremist views. Things go wrong. People want to blame someone.
In fact, the continuing economic stress placed on the developing world through trade rules, and the stultifying burden of chronic indebtedness-will only further impoverish poor countries relative to the industrial world. Inshrinking foreign markets and preventing the sound development of an industrialbase in many developing countries, this posture is a recipebound to have negative consequences if no solution is found soon.
As I explained in my Seminar end November 2003 the real economic issue in rewiring the globe with clean energy is not cost but whether the world has a big enoughlabor force to accomplish the task. A properly organized global transition to clean energy would create millions of jobs in poor countries and substantially raise living standards in the developing world.
Some of the advantages of a renewable-energy economy as I explained are one, that it would have far more independent sources of powerhome-based fuel cells,stand-alone solar systems, regional wind farms-which would make electricity grid a far less strategic target for future guerrilla attacks. (Even absent terrorism, the vulnerability of large grid-based systems was exemplified by the blackout of much of the northeastern United States in the summerof 2003.)
Of course there might be resistanceof big coal and oil, but the economic interests of thefossil fuel industry might however not be in the interest of stability and vitality of a larger economy. But policy makers discussthis in terms-of the costs of impacts versus the costsof addressing the issue. However since this increasincly will also becomea moral issue.it is here that the major world religious body’s have an opportunity to make a positive impact by supporting this on a worldwide scale.
Any strategyto change the world's energy diet must also directly address the oil-producing nations of the world-especially in the Middle East. Were the countries of the North to phase out their oil consumption without accommodating the historical geopolitical role of the oil-producing nations would inflame the world's most politically volatile region even more. It would exacerbate tensions in oil kingdoms where popular resentment against autocratic rulersis already seething. It would strengthen the perception that the United States is waging a war on Islam. Given the high levels of unemployment in Egypt, Iraq, and other Middle Eastern nations, it would elevate economic despair and political desperation to new levels.
The solutionto this dilemma lies in the fact that hydrogen will be the central fuel(already applied in the Netherlands as a test for public transportation) of a new energy economy. The cheapest and most environmentally benign way to make hydrogen is by putting electricity into water and capturing the liberated hydrogen gas.
An energy modernizationplan would involve helping the nations of the Middle East cover their deserts with saltwater pipelines and electricity-generating solar (photovoltaic) panels and wind farms. A structure of vast, hydrogen-producing farms wouldallow the nations of the Middle East to be hydrogen suppliers to Europe, North Africa, and East Asia. It would allow those countries to use theresources on top of their land (sunlight and wind), instead of the oildeposits below the surface.
For the first few years of the efficiency standard, most countries would likely meettheir goals by implementing lowcost or even profitable efficiencies-the"low-hanging fruit" in their current energy systems. After a few years ,however, as those efficiencies became more expensive to capture, countries would meet the progressively more stringent standard by drawing more andmore energy from noncarbon sources-most of which are 100 percent efficientby a fossil fuel standard. Several oil executives have said in private conversations that they can, in an orderly fashion, decarbonize their energy supplies.
But there isa central conundrum embedded in these solutions-how to expand the overall wealth in the global economy without destroying the physical environmenton which it depends. For example forests are cut down at an astonishingrate. So the continuity of a cohesive civilization seems also to require a shift in our values.
It suggests that much more of our gratification-especially in the wealthier nations-mustcome from sources other than the acquisition and consumption of an endless stream of products, most of which depend on artificially created demand and many of which are superfluous to our personal happiness. It seems to require, instead, that we look to our intellectual pursuits, our creative activities, our recreational, and our expanding web of relationships for personal fulfillment.
Seminar on Dec. 30, 2005. Click on each of the maps:
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