I think it’s great if different subsets of people pursue different approaches to mitigating climate change and/or peak oil, with the goal being that every genuinely beneficial activity is somehow, somewhere adopted and perfected. But almost none of us as an individual will or can “do all the things.” Those few who do are not those who buy lots of rightminded products but those who are voluntarily living at a near-subsistence level, and they are entitled to sneer at the rest of us – which, if they are not busy keeping their heads down for fear of losing their house or kids, they usually do. The rest of us who are trying to combine acceptable-American, global-rich lifestyles with environmental awareness select various suites of “things” that their circumstances, time and money allow. If my household consumes less in one aspect of life than yours, it’s probably consuming more in some other aspect that could easily be identified. Therefore, picking out one area in which I think I’m doing better and using it to play holier-than-thou is unwise. (Also strategically unwise, as people who think the criticism isn’t going to stop until they’re using cloth toilet paper are apt to give up and tune out.)

Driving less – and walking, biking, carpooling, taking the bus or train more, or just staying home more – is definitely part of the solution, and most people could make a real dent in their miles driven without moving house. It’s still not clear whether buying an electric would be worth it, in terms of total lifetime pollution, if you drive less than average. Someone who is thinking of doing it might instead find ways to drive less and use the money to insulate his house, possibly saving more carbon. On the flip side, getting the electric car may encourage people to think their driving is now enviro-friendly – wherever their power comes from – so they needn’t work so hard to reduce driving miles. (Indeed, the more you reduce your driving, the longer it will take you to recoup in gas savings the price paid upfront, creating a perverse incentive to drive freely.)

What I’m trying to say about transit and electric cars is that we should do both aggressively. But major changes in settlement pattern and transit will take a long time. That does not mean we should do something else first. It means we should start that right away, but it will take a long time.

Jane, I think you are stuck with the linear thinking problem so many people have here. By linear I mean in terms of time. Let’s build nuclear plants first, then later see if solar has come up to snuff, is a common sentiment I hear, another example of this. You keep hearing me make that sort of argument but I am making the exact opposite argument.

We need to do all the things. If there turns out to be a better strategy it will become apparent after we’ve done all the things for a while, certainly it is not apparent now.

The fix we are in, if I may pontificate for a minute, dates back to the deliberate creation of consumerism in the early 20th century as a way of dealing with that time’s overproduction crisis. We now have whole generations who have been raised to believe quite fervently that salvation – defined by social status and length of existence – comes from buying products. It’s all that product buying that causes climate change, and other pollution as well. But the prevailing belief and corporate interests both encourage us to look at environmental concerns as another buying opportunity: we must save the planet by purchasing “the right” products. The more radical view that we should stop all that buying is difficult or illegal for many people to implement, but arguably would be far more effective. Arguing about which “green” products should be considered morally essential lets us keep the discussion on the safe level of Stuff rather than the dangerous one of values and fears.

How many fossil fuels are used to make and install new solar panels? I could ask the same regarding mining and drilling. Oil platforms don’t run on fairie dust and angel farts, you know. The procurement, refinement, and transportation of fossil fuels ALSO uses fossil fuels (in the exact same way that the production, utilization, and transportation of renewable energy currently does).

That doesn’t mean that we should work to better the situation. I don’t have an electric car (or a hybrid). I will probably buy a Model S once I decide that my budget supports. It’s a personal decision, but one that I would like to make (as must we all – as both Jane and Greg have described in their own lives), but which currently does not make financial sense for me and my family.

The only place where Greg and I (likely) disagree (at least to some extent) is that I see nuclear as an extremely viable bridge between current infrastructure and technology and the future of renewable energy. Coal and natural gas are the present; hopefully renewable energy is the future. I personally think nuclear can help us get from one to the other, while relying less on fossil fuels in the meantime. Not as a long-term energy solution, but certainly as a positive alternative to coal and gas.

Sure, if you must buy a car while you’re doing all that, buy an electric. But if we end up seeing a significant decline in the total energy we are able to extract per year, and all we have is a bunch of households with electric cars and no buses or trains or sane zoning laws, a lot more people will face the choice of feeding their kids or feeding their cars than is already the case today.

I consider it risky to assume that the amount we can get of whatever we want is always “More.” We may instead be approaching hard limits to extraction rates for quite a few resources; if so, enormous increases in the production of one kind of goods will have to be balanced by cutbacks in the production of other goods that use the same resources. I do not see the political will or public willingness to make this a societal project.

Greg Laden: You just Godwinned yourself into a losing position, sorry.

Stephen and [sigh] anthrosciguy: The last time I got a new (used) car, the dealer told us that the old car traded in for peanuts might well be sent to the scrapyard, because, though a very reliable model, it was 20 years old with rust spots and had a few things that needed work. True, it might have been fixed up and sold to someone who was already a car owner, and who would send an even older beater with lower efficiency to the scrapyard. But it could also have been sold to a car owner who would scrap an old beater that had had higher efficiency – our car’s mileage was good but not extraordinary. Or it might have been sold to someone who had not previously owned a car, meaning one more total vehicle on the roads. I say again, if you’re going to buy a new car anyway, by all means by an electric. But someone who simply asks about the total energy impacts of purchasing choices should not be met with unsupported Fallacy charges and personal hostility.