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In Love with the Sun
America's love for solar could be the basis for a bold new energy politics -- but only if we make a major national commitment to it.
The public's mad love for solar is bittersweet for solar industry insiders, whose industry supplies .001 percent of America's electricity supply. The truth is that America's love for solar could be the basis for a bold new energy politics -- but only if we make major national investment commitment to it. Credit to Danny Kennedy of Sungevity for passing on this funny solar cartoon:
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Solar thermal currently has more potential than photovoltaic.
But in terms of creating a new politics, the form of solar energy that has the greatest potential is photosynthesis. Not just biofuels, but more importantly as the source of soil organic matter (58% carbon by dry weight).
Trees are widely assumed to be an important carbon sink. But most estimates are that biomass contains around 540 Gt C whereas the soil has 1500.
Many people realize that reducing emissions is only a partial solution to global warming and associated issues. The near-exclusive focus on emissions reduction by most of the climateers ensures resistance and backlash--it virtually guarantees that many will continue to view global warming activism as a Trojan horse for the left-liberal environmental agenda.
Soil carbon could be the basis of a new politics. It will require creativity, as an underground humic acid molecule is not nearly as cuddly as a baby polar bear, though they are intimately connected through ecosystem function. And most people, even many rural people, have little feeling or awareness of ecosystem function or process, as most of our environmental as well as agricultural knowledge is reductionist and linear, and does not account for wholes.
For example: food quality and safety, and the sustainability of the food system, would make a far better base for the Farm Bill than the turf squabbles that have ruled it in the past. But soil carbon, though it is currently abstract to most, would be an even wider base for both the Farm Bill and public lands policy (which is currently rudderless). For a better explanation of how and why soil carbon could be the basis of a new politics, see
http://managingwholes.net/?p=12
Please contact me if you're interested.
Posted by: Peter Donovan at August 15, 2007 9:34 PM