We Could Be Doing Five Times Better
- 6 years ago
We could be much more pro-active in lessening our impact on the environment. Energy-efficient cars and "passive houses" can make a real difference.
Question: How much
government regulation should there be?
Ernst Weizsäcker: Typically, in the Anglo-Saxon mindset, there is hardly any role for
government. They think the markets
will do all. And if there is
scarcity of resources, markets will react. But this is wrong because climate disasters happening
perhaps 50 years from now are not visible in today's markets. So you have to have state intervention,
or an international agreement, like the Kyoto Agreement, making it more
profitable for companies to be climate friendly then to squander energy. And one measure that we have taken in
my own country at the time I was a member of Parliament, was the Ecological Tax
Reform, which let electricity and petrol prices rise in small steps for five
consecutive years, and at the same time was reducing indirect labor costs. And
in balance, it was calculated that this saved, or created roughly 300,000
jobs. For a small country like
Germany, this is a lot. Because
labor getting cheaper meant that for the employer, it became more profitable to
lay off kilowatt hours and hire people than the other way around.
So, this is a policy measure
that worked very well. It was not
exactly popular, but it was very good for the economy of Germany. And I suggest that America could
emulate that scheme, but today it would be so unpopular that I doubt it will be
adopted soon.
Question: How much
better could we be doing?
Ernst Weizsäcker: We can do five times better.
And that relates to carbon efficiency, but also to metals, water, and
energy in general. So, what we are
doing, or considering is, a transport system that is based on very efficient
cars. My friend Amory Lovins talks
about the hyper-car revolution that would do something like 120 or 150 miles
per gallon, plus much better public transport as we have it in Japan or in most
of Europe, plus technological advances in rapid public transport. Again, in France, in Japan, in Germany,
we have those fabulous trains which do roughly 250 kph, and for practical
purposes tend to be faster than air transport because you don't have those
terrible waiting time and security checks and all the rest. So, that is the transport sector.
It also relates, of course,
to good transport. Wal-Mart, for
instance, is renewing their fleet of trucks to be more carbon efficient. So, it's a multitude of factors in this
one sector of transport. You could
also look at agriculture where water efficiency is perhaps the most important
part with irrigation and all the rest, but also energy plays a big role. And non-carbon greenhouse gasses play a
big role in agriculture.
Or, the housing sector. My family and I are living in a
so-called "passive house," which is roughly ten times more energy efficient than
conventional homes are. So we are
saving a lot of energy, have a very good air quality, and at the same time do
something for posterity for a better climate. Recorded on April 9, 2010
Question: How much
government regulation should there be?
Ernst Weizsäcker: Typically, in the Anglo-Saxon mindset, there is hardly any role for
government. They think the markets
will do all. And if there is
scarcity of resources, markets will react. But this is wrong because climate disasters happening
perhaps 50 years from now are not visible in today's markets. So you have to have state intervention,
or an international agreement, like the Kyoto Agreement, making it more
profitable for companies to be climate friendly then to squander energy. And one measure that we have taken in
my own country at the time I was a member of Parliament, was the Ecological Tax
Reform, which let electricity and petrol prices rise in small steps for five
consecutive years, and at the same time was reducing indirect labor costs. And
in balance, it was calculated that this saved, or created roughly 300,000
jobs. For a small country like
Germany, this is a lot. Because
labor getting cheaper meant that for the employer, it became more profitable to
lay off kilowatt hours and hire people than the other way around.
So, this is a policy measure
that worked very well. It was not
exactly popular, but it was very good for the economy of Germany. And I suggest that America could
emulate that scheme, but today it would be so unpopular that I doubt it will be
adopted soon.
Question: How much
better could we be doing?
Ernst Weizsäcker: We can do five times better.
And that relates to carbon efficiency, but also to metals, water, and
energy in general. So, what we are
doing, or considering is, a transport system that is based on very efficient
cars. My friend Amory Lovins talks
about the hyper-car revolution that would do something like 120 or 150 miles
per gallon, plus much better public transport as we have it in Japan or in most
of Europe, plus technological advances in rapid public transport. Again, in France, in Japan, in Germany,
we have those fabulous trains which do roughly 250 kph, and for practical
purposes tend to be faster than air transport because you don't have those
terrible waiting time and security checks and all the rest. So, that is the transport sector.
It also relates, of course,
to good transport. Wal-Mart, for
instance, is renewing their fleet of trucks to be more carbon efficient. So, it's a multitude of factors in this
one sector of transport. You could
also look at agriculture where water efficiency is perhaps the most important
part with irrigation and all the rest, but also energy plays a big role. And non-carbon greenhouse gasses play a
big role in agriculture.
Or, the housing sector. My family and I are living in a
so-called "passive house," which is roughly ten times more energy efficient than
conventional homes are. So we are
saving a lot of energy, have a very good air quality, and at the same time do
something for posterity for a better climate. Recorded on April 9, 2010