Alternate Scenario Let’s imagine we took the most sig- nificant step we could to speed the worldwide transition off of fossil fuel. Let’s imagine that the U.S. Congress and the United Nations managed to agree on a national and international scheme to set stiff pricing on coal and oil that accurately reflects the damage these fossil fuels are wreaking in the atmosphere. If that happened, then many other things would follow. The most obvious is that we’d see lots more solar panels and wind turbines. Suddenly, anyone with a spreadsheet would be able to see that it no longer makes sense to invest in a coal-fired power plant. Anyone build- ing a new apartment complex would immediately understand that it’s in his or her best interest to install solar hot water tubes on the roof. In China, the world leader in total energy use, yet also in renewable energies, 250 million people now get their hot water this way. But, such a simple and effec- tive solution still has to fight against the force of economic gravity there, as elsewhere. As long as coal-fired elec-
tricity is absurdly cheap, renewable energy sources will stay marginal. The effects of a widespread
switch to clean and renewable ener- gies wouldn’t be confined to the energy sector. Think about farming. We’ve spent half a century building a giant agro-industrial complex that runs entirely on fossil fuel. Yet author Michael Pollan re- cently calculated that it takes 10 calo- ries of fossil energy to produce one calorie of food. Because that growing complex is a machine, not really a farm, the food it produces is terrible in terms of taste and nutrition, and in- cludes toxic residues from pesticides, herbicides and chemically synthesized fertilizers. The ultimate irony is that we now
devote the best farmland on the planet, the American Midwest, to growing high-fructose corn syrup. It’s a prime culprit in our country’s diabetes epi- demic. The ripple effect goes on and on.
On the other hand, consider what would happen if the price of oil went
up high enough that this nation could no longer afford to farm in the manner preferred by agribusiness behemoths? What would happen is that we’d need more Americans engaged in healthier farming, with human labor and inge- nuity replacing some of the fossil fuel. That would increase yields per acre and also increase the quality of the foods we eat. Research studies reported by Jules Pretty, pro-vice- chancellor of the University of Essex, UK, in his book, Agri-Culture, have proved that small farms around the world are routinely as productive as agro-industrial lands, and that low- input farming, too, can feed the world with a wholesale switchover. Again, this is already starting to
happen: Farmers’ markets continue to be the fastest growing part of our na- tion’s food economy; the last agricul- tural census found that the number of farms in the United States is increasing for the first time in a century-and-a- half. That’s good news and potentially great news, but small farming, co-ops and organic production will remain a small, marginal trend until the price of
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Phoenix
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