Of all the solutions to climate change, dwindling resources and a degraded natural environment, one consistently seems to have all the appeal of a dirty word.
It’s the “c” word. As in “conservation.”
Now, I appreciate all the diligent researchers and inventors working so hard to create the ultimate “green” bullet, whether it’s a never-exhausting source of clean energy, cheap and printable solar panels you can put anywhere, energy from garbage or carbon-dioxide-based plastics. But unless one of these near-magic solutions can enter the mass market in the next couple of years, we’re not going to make an appreciable dent in our resource and energy demands before the proverbial dirty word starts hitting the fan.
And that’s why conservation needs to become a much bigger part of the global environment discussion, and soon. Because that’s the one strategy that can start having a meaningful impact immediately. Not in five years. Not next year. Not even tomorrow. Now.
The recent blowback from the rush to biofuels is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. As reported in a story on National Public Radio, European Union scientists have checked the latest numbers on biofuels and have concluded that growing energy is not the way to go. They’re calling for an immediate halt in the EU’s crop-to-energy battle plan.
That’s not what a lot of politicians want to be hearing, though. For instance, when anti-biofuel protesters confronted one European official in the NPR report, he responded petulantly, “What’s your solution?”
Another protester had an eloquent response: “We have to start using less energy now,” he said.
Conservation. Let’s start seeing some multi-billion-dollar government subsidies for that.
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Shirley Siluk Gregory
Shirley Siluk Gregory, a transplanted Chicagoan now living in Northwest Florida, represents the progressive half of Green Options' Red, Green and Blue segment. She holds a bachelor's degree in Geological Sciences from Northwestern University but graduated in 1984, just when the market for geologists was flatter than the Florida landscape. Just as well, though: she had little interest in spending her life either in a laboratory or, heaven forbid, an oil field. So, of course, she went into journalism. After extremely low-paying but fun and educational stints at several suburban Chicago weeklies and dailies, Shirley and her then-boyfriend/now-husband Scott found themselves displaced by a media buyout and spending the next several years working as freelancers. Among their credits: The Chicago Tribune, a publication for the manufactured-housing industry, and Web Hosting Magazine, a now-defunct publication that came and went with the dotcom era. Shirley's always been concerned about nature and conservation (and an avid pack-rat, as her family can attest to), but became even more rabidly interested in the environment primarily due to two factors: the growing signs that global warming was real and threatening, and the birth of her son, Noah, in 2003. Suddenly, the prospect of a world that might not be quite as habitable in 40 or 50 years took on a whole new, and personal, meaning. Living where she lives now also helped light the fire of Shirley's environmental awareness: her hometown was severely damaged by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and beaten up again by Hurricane Dennis in 2005. That, and the fact that she and her family were vacationing in New Orleans until the day before Katrina -- and spent 12 hours driving home for a trip that normally takes 3 -- has made Shirley deeply appreciate how fragile our lifestyles are, and how dependent they are on sound management of natural resources and sustainable living practices. That's why she's become a passionate reader and writer about all things green and sustainable.
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