Climate change skeptics, and those who favor the continued use of fossil fuels, continually fall back on the argument that those who continue to rely on fossil fuels – that is, virtually all of us – are hypocrites for wanting to evolve away from them. They seem to be saying: “I am a hypocrite for heating with gas, and if I truly believe in the use of renewable technologies, then I should turn off the heat, cut the power and let the sun shine through my windows for heat and light.”
Can we once and for all put that argument to rest?
As an analogy, let’s return to the early 20th century, and we’ll represent those advocates for fossils fuels as embodied in one Mr. Smith.
Almost overnight, the horse-and-buggy industry – and its entire infrastructure – is on the verge of collapse with the invention, then mass production, of the automobile. Mr. Smith is pushing back against the idea. His neighbor, though, welcomes the new invention.
One fine spring morning, Mr. Smith is rocking on the front porch of his house and watching as his neighbor mounts up one last time, for a ride to the dealership to trade in his one horsepower for 22! As his neighbor rides by, Mr. Smith shouts: “You hypocrite! You're depending upon your horse to get to the car!”
Yes, he is depending upon his horse to get to the car. And NASA still relies on good old-fashion combustion to deliver its payload of supplies to the International Space Station – the most complex scientific and engineering project in history, and which is powered entirely by the sun. And someday, soon, even NASA’s 44 million horsepower booster will become an historical curiosity.
We will, for a time, continue to rely on combustion-based manufacturing in order to produce the very solar panels and other renewable technologies that will eventually replace combustion-based manufacturing and energy generation. How quickly that happens is up to all of us.
To all the Mr. Smiths of this world, we call this “transition,” and it is inevitable. It’s part of the evolutionary thrust that propels us forward.