There is an op-ed in today’s NYT from a Japanese astrophysicist, Satoru Ikeuchi. He recalls the words of a predecessor in Japanese science: “The more civilization progresses, the greater the violence of nature’s wrath.” I am not a Luddite, by any stretch of imagination. I firmly believe, however, in using the power of reason, and even more so, using the power of our connection to the natural world, to guide our use of appropriate technologies.
What Ikeuchi decries is the sense in our post-industrial and rapidly industrializing societies that we are above nature. He says the Japanese, and the rest of us for that matter, have cultivated “…an arrogance that has diminished our ability to imagine disaster. We have fallen into the trap of being stupefied by civilization.”
We can, we think, alter nature to our whim. We can defy nature. That is, for all intents and purposes, insane. Why? Because we are all of us, homo sapiens, ultimately and inescapably, of nature, by nature and for nature. Is there a divine spark within us? Certainly. One Buddhist teacher I know calls it a “spiritual gene.” Don’t be shocked then to think it exists in everything. (Am I an animist? Maybe.)
Here’s the point, though. As Ikeuchi notes, in Japan, until only recently, the supply of electricity from nuclear plants was superfluous to the country’s peak demand in summer. Because the Japanese didn’t rely on air conditioning during much of their summer holiday, they didn’t need the power. Now they do.
But do they? Air conditioning is neither a universal necessity nor a birthright. Open the windows, use fans, dress lighter. We are addicted, certainly in much of the US to AC. Where AC is the appropriate technology, there are better ways to do it than just cranking up millions of units to the grid. Are hamburgers and steak an essential for good nutrition? Actually, they’re an excellent way to promote obesity and heart disease. You can be 100% healthy without meat. Meat’s not too good for the planet, either, as it turns out. Are cars the only way to travel? Not really, but maybe you enjoy paying high percentages of your household income for fuel, getting stuck in traffic, and forgetting how to exercise. Walk, take the bus or train, buy a bicycle. Again, as with AC, if you have to drive, move to a more appropriate, less wasteful technology. EVs, PHEVs and hybrids are here, or on the near horizon. Bottled water? A bad joke.
Nuclear power is not an appropriate technology. It is, as has been documented here a number of times, too costly; too wasteful; not particularly useful for “decarbonizing” our energy economies as so many, almost all of them connected with the industry, continue to claim; counterproductive, in fact, to what should be our policy, everywhere and all the time, to transition to a wholly renewable, clean energy world; and, as we’ve been saying for a very long time, dangerous and dirty.
