This is a dialogue with my daughter Thryn Hare (Kathryn). Thryn has been named one of OutFront’s “25 leaders under 25”, a strong activist for Gay / Lesbian / Transgender rights at only 15 years old. I couldn’t be more proud.
I should start by asking what it was like to talk to me about who you felt you were and how difficult it was. I know it took you some time. Did you think I might reject you for it? What was going through your mind?
European news has been roughly the same for three years. An agreement is reached between a group of bland looking national leaders, and then one of them disappears from the scene. There’s been an election or a series of protests that led to a resignation, nevermind the reason why. When the cast changes, the old agreement is tossed aside and negotiations begin again.
Why can’t Europe get its act together? Why is it so dependent on personalities?
That gets us to the chief personality of them all, German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She has been the one who, with her conservative Christian Democratic Party, has insisted on “austerity”, the tightening of budgets and paying of bills even as the economy crashes. And now Merkel stands completely alone. Does this mark the end of austerity for Europe?
If you ask just about anyone who makes a living predicting the future of societies and economies in the developed world, they will tell you we are a technology driven society. New ideas, products, and systems will change our lives and get us out of any jam.
Yet our economy is still hopelessly tied to the market for oil, despite its increasing dysfunction and, more importantly, the existence of proven technologies that can give us energy independence, sustainability, and conservation.
New ideas themselves are not the answer. Implementing them is the real skill of technology, and on that score the developed world is failing horribly. Why and how is worth discussing, especially in light of the faith we put in this thing called “technology”. It is, in the end, about our values.
It is entirely possible for us to find alternative sources that will even out the market for our transportation fuels. It’s even possible for us to make that fuel from sustainable sources. But we would still be left with an incredible 140 billion gallons per year of gasoline, about 1,200 per household, consumed simply getting around. Nevermind that at the end of the day most of us end up exactly where we started off.
Any drive to long-term sustainability has to include conservation. Even if we can make a tremendous amount of fuel from cropland we need energy for electricity and heat as well. Consuming less will always be important, and as the price of fuel rises we are in fact using less of it all the time. But to really drop our consumption we need new technology. Fortunately, at least one is nearly ready for prime-time – the turbine electric hybrid.
Anyone who has spent time in a swamp, like the incredible Florida Everglades, knows what “biogas” is. It’s the end result of natural processes that break down plant matter and return the nutrients back to the soil – and produce a lot of methane gas. Capturing that process, improving it, and making use of the methane is a very old technology that has been in use in some form for centuries.
It also might very well be the future of energy around the world, especially with a few advancements and refinements.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 