Skepticism about healthy alternatives is worrisome

I notice a surprisingly common and worrisome idea/attitude that people hold about the movement toward healthier alternatives. The concept is like this: “There are problems with healthy alternative X, so let’s just stick with current model Y.” This is applied to alternative energy sources (solar, hydro, nuclear), electric vehicles, dairy-free milk alternatives, meat alternatives and even hand-drying methods (e.g., air dryers vs. paper towels). We shouldn’t deny facts, but this personal conclusion is absurd.

To highlight the folly, imagine the following scenario: You’re an insomniac that gets one night of quality sleep per week. The other six nights per week are miserable, and your waking life is consequently miserable. One day you’re lucky enough to find a doctor that has a partial solution. They say, “Hey, I have medicine for you. With it, you’ll get TWO nights of quality sleep per week! There are side-effects, but your overall quality of life will be greatly improved when you’re sleeping better.” I suspect this would allure you.

The phaseout of oil and gas production in favor of “green energy” is another, albeit subtler, example. See, e.g., a letter to the Boulder Weekly, “The reality of Colorado oil and gas,” and a recent report by the Colorado Fiscal Institute.

The movement is made particularly controversial by the fact that oil and gas are so strongly tied to historical financial opportunities. However, we seem to be attached to this history while reality is screaming at us to move on. The need for this industry is decaying rapidly, yet many are seemingly still attached to its increasingly small contribution to the state’s GDP (currently approximately 3.3%, or $10 billion).

This 3.3%, however, doesn’t account for the expected $1 billion-plus in damage costs per year directly due to Colorado oil and gas industry’s pollution, nor billions of dollars in additional public healthcare costs caused by pollution-related illnesses throughout the U.S. (I’ve seen estimates up to $800 billion per year), nor stresses that climate change is putting on the local (and global) food systems, nor an immense range of unquantifiable damages to the larger ecosystem that will likely become amplified in time.

In the meantime, clean energy jobs in the U.S. currently outweigh oil and gas industry jobs by approximately two to one, and that discrepancy is expected to grow rapidly. Solar and wind power have been the two cheapest sources of energy for about six years now. It’s time to let go.

— Ryan Decrescent, Boulder