A recent Al Gore reference in a forum caught my attention because of the recent news of the arrest of Jill Stein at the recent presidential debate (Green Party candidate arrested outside debate site), so I am still not convinced that government is the best champion of environmental issues. Al Gore probably gained most of his attention during his crusade for green efforts simply due to his position in the Clinton presidency, and he rode that wave to champion a cause he was dedicated to, though likely more than a bit of corporate favoritism and government special interest have been the driving force behind Gore's successes.
I agree with some "green" initiatives, but I am also a supporter of free market economics which do not require the use of force through the state to promote (so I guess I'm a bit of a Green Libertarian in that regard), and rely on people's tendency to do what is in their best interest (which in voluntary exchanges is in the interest of both parties). I look critically at most issues, and on those in the realm of energy or environment I often consider how efficient solutions are to environmental issues.
I often find myself thinking of the idea of efficiency through EROI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested), or basically that if more energy is put into a process than is generated at the end of the process, it produces a net energy loss and is inefficient. In regards to many traditional fossil fuel energy sources, there has been a shift in the EROI of those resources toward a much less efficient return on energy inputs (the concept is pretty well described in There's No Tomorrow). Despite a ratio of barely over 5:1, sources like oil shale are significantly less efficient than crude oil from maybe a hundred years ago. Yet the trend continues toward decreased returns on investment, and I wonder if alternative energies will be efficient enough to displace declining energy sources.
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