A recent op-ed article in The Badger Herald dismissed the University’s “going green” campaign, and similar movements, as ineffectual and counterproductive. Indeed, I would agree that aesthetically-minded environmentalism, which has brought us stringent litter laws but loose industrial emissions regulations, is generally ineffective in producing positive environmental change.
However, the article was criticizing something different from the faux-environmentalism of Sigg waterbottles. Rather, the author of the article, Mr. Zach Schuster, suggests that we engage in “subversive environmentalism.” The thrust of the argument seems to be that we should either “go big or go home.” The problem with Mr. Schuster’s line of reasoning is that he provides no basis for what constitutes “subversive environmentalism.”
Should we violently protest in Washington, DC? That seems rather subversive. Should we boycott all machinery that relies on an internal combustion engine? Should we only eat food that we have grown for ourselves?
The problem with subversive environmentalism, or any call for radical mass action, is that it simply doesn’t go anywhere. What is mass action without a proposed action?
Against my academic habits, I won’t turn this entry into a critique of this loose notion of “subversive environmentalism.” Rather, I wanted to highlight the different aspects of environmental action and policy. There is the global and national scale, concerning things such as industrial pollution regulations. There is the state and national level, involving community planning and sustainable economics. Deeper down, we have the communal and personal level, pertaining to things like everyday consumption and waste. While this isn’t a perfectly detailed hierarchy, it loosely highlights the scaling of environmental consequences.
For example, if everyone in Madison purchases an iPod, then Apple must have its manufacturers in China produce 250,000 iPods. This will produce carbon emissions and manufacturing waste, to say nothing of the environmental impact of producing the raw materials of an iPod in the first place. Consequently, there will be emissions from the planes and boats used to ship all of these iPods over to the United States, in addition to the emissions from the semi-trucks that will bring the shipment from a port city to Madison. Keep in mind that all of that fuel was drilled out of the earth, shipped around the world, refined, and then used in the transportation process.
Once we all have our iPods, we’re all satisfied. However, about seven or eight years later, a lot of us are going to start having broken iPods on our hands and most of us will probably thrown them away. Now we have 250,000 iPods, loaded with toxic materials, sitting in our landfill. All of those materials will eventually make their way into the same soil and water that sustains our very existence.
So there are a whole lot of ways to impact environmental change, certainly more than I can enumerate in this blog post. However, the focus of this blog is local policy. So, what is a good example of a small change in local habits of consumption that might result in a positive environmental impact?
Mopeds!
A little known fact is that mopeds produce MORE emissions than automobiles. Their simple two-stroke engines and inefficient exhaust systems produce some very nasty emissions. Indeed, a study by a group of students at the Technical University of Denmark showed that mopeds with carburetor fuel systems produce 6.7 times the carbon monoxide emissions of a gasoline powered automobile. The results, found here, indicate that carburetor equipped mopeds can produce as much as 36 times the amount of hydrocarbons as a gasoline automobile.
Thus, mopeds present a great opportunity for a small change in habits to produce great environmental results. Those of us who live close to campus can drastically reduce our impact on greenhouse emissions by simply walking to campus. Others who live further away would be making an even greater impact by commuting on a bicycle. Driving in to campus would even help reduce greenhouse emissions in comparison to moped use.
Certainly we can all have a positive impact by simply not driving mopeds around campus, however should the University do anything to discourage moped usage? Many buildings on campus offer moped parking, while simultaneously lacking enough bicycle parking for people to securely lock their bikes while at class or work. Should the University convert moped parking into bike parking? What sort of measures can be taken to discourage moped usage?
If you disagree, and believe that moped usage should be encouraged, then what should be done in order to reduce moped emissions? Electric mopeds obviously produce very little in terms of emissions (aside from emissions from the power plant that produces the electricity). Is there anything that the University or greater community of Madison can do in order to encourage the production, sale, and usage of electric mopeds? Being that I’m the kind of idiot who rides his bike to campus all winter long, this discussion would probably benefit from the input of you readers.
auf Wiedersehen,
Karl
