Energy, Transportation, and Consumer Culture

Introduction
Over the past few decades, all aspects of human activity have begun to change in response to the growing environmental crisis. Change and innovation in three areas—energy, transportation, and human culture—are likely to be particularly important for the environmental security of all nations. These three areas are closely interrelated. Twenty-five percent of the energy consumed around the world is used for transportation, mostly by automobiles. Twenty-seven percent of energy consumption occurs in residential settings, mostly through lighting, heating, cooling, and the utilization of appliances in middle- and upper-class homes.¹ The pollution created by energy production accompanied by the depletion of energy resources, will greatly increase if poverty is eliminated without major changes in transportation technologies and/or consumption patterns. Innovations in energy and transportation, as well as a cultural movement away from high consumption patterns, will be necessary in order to fully achieve global sustainable development.

Changing our use of energy is difficult and complicated because energy resources are not very interchangeable, and they require expensive infrastructure for transportation and distribution. Home heating systems and automobiles are two important examples that illustrate this point.

Some home heating systems create large amounts of pollution and cannot be easily replaced by newer types of fuel systems. One of the most environmentally destructive ways to produce heat is to burn biomass resources (e.g., wood, crop residue, and animal waste). Many people living in rural areas of developing nations burn biomass and in so doing they produce dangerous byproducts (e.g., particulates, carbon monoxide) that are harmful to their health.³ Cleaner energy sources utilized for heating (e.g., natural gas, electricity) are not yet available for use in many of these homes because governments in these countries are not financially able to build the infrastructure necessary to deliver those energy resources.

Another potential change in energy use is to replace petroleum-based fuels for automobiles with alternative fuels, such as hydrogen, ethanol, and electricity. This change is greatly complicated by two things:

1. The engineering requirements of the car manufacturing industry (e.g., cars must be light and safe).
   
   
2. The delivery of new fuel systems (e.g., in order to implement new fuel systems, fueling stations would need to be retrofitted and/or created).

Electric cars are touted as “emission-free,” but clearly pollution is created during the production of electricity. Large amounts of energy are expended in the production of hydrogen or electricity for automobiles. It takes energy to convert energy from one form to another, which leads to complex social and scientific choices concerning economic efficiency and environmental impacts. For these reasons, new technologies must be developed not only for energy production, but also for energy conservation and for the infrastructure that links production to consumption. For example, since the infrastructure to fuel vehicles powered by alternative fuels (e.g., hydrogen, electricity) does not yet exist on a widespread basis, a new generation of automobile fueling stations will need to be constructed.

Sustainable Technologies
Engineers presently face the challenge of introducing energy-efficient technologies to both technologically “developed” countries and to countries that are just beginning to “develop” their technology. Developing countries clearly need improved energy resources to build their economic development to a level where income poverty could be eliminated. They also need to use energy in a more environmentally sustainable manner than developed countries have in the past in order to avoid inciting an environmental catastrophe.

Governments of the wealthier developed countries, often called the “North,” have lamented overpopulation and direct environmental destruction in the poorer developing countries of the “South.” The governments of the South have responded by criticizing the high consumption patterns of the North. Yet both sides generally agree on the need for technological cooperation. The United States (US) Panel of Energy Research and Development argues that, “[s]trengthening North-South cooperation on advanced energy technologies that can lower greenhouse-gas emissions while fueling sustainable economic development is by far the most promising available approach to securing developing-country participation in a larger collaborative framework for addressing the global energy-climate-development challenge.”⁴

New technologies could greatly reduce the environmental impacts of most energy sources. Since the late 1990s wind power generation has become economically competitive in locations where wind resources are plentiful, such as the North Sea of Europe and the Great Plains of North America. Cleaner methods for burning biomass are being developed for use in power plants and private homes. Even the use of fossil fuels may become more sustainable as newer power plants, designed to produce hydrogen fuel, could use decarbonization and carbon-sequestration technologies to put carbon deep into the ground instead of into the atmosphere.⁵ Industries are already using a variety of technologies, such as “smokestack scrubbers,”⁶ to reduce the pollution emitted by existing power plants.

Nuclear power was a technological advance that promised to generate power without creating large amounts of atmospheric pollutants. Unlike other power sources that generate large carbon dioxide emissions, nuclear reactors, when working properly, provide a relatively clean-burning power source. They do so, however, by generating nuclear waste that cannot be easily disposed because this waste has a radioactive half-life into the thousands of years.⁷ Although nuclear power has been around for decades, it has never been economically competitive on its own. It has always required large government subsidies in order to address the industry’s insurance liability costs.

Nevertheless, some countries view nuclear power as a viable energy resource. The South African Utility Agency, for example, plans to build and export pebble bed modular reactors that are inherently less dangerous than traditional nuclear reactors because the uranium is contained within graphite “pebbles,” thus eliminating the reactor core and any potential for a meltdown. Atmospheric radioactive release, however, can still occur with this type of reactor. Anti-nuclear activists oppose the development of all nuclear power plants and argue that few facts have been produced to support the claim that pebble bed modular reactors are economically efficient.⁸

How energy is utilized can also reduce pollution. There are at least four major areas where the means of energy use can make a significant difference.

1. Advances in hydrogen fuels may be moving us toward a new generation of non-polluting cars and buildings.
   
   
2. Architects are designing a new generation of “green buildings” that maximize energy efficiency and minimize pollution.⁹ Through various new technologies (e.g., windows, roofing, air circulation), these “green buildings” can often reduce pollution and produce significant long-term economic savings for the owner through lower utility bills.
   
   
3. Through new innovations in the field of “industrial ecology,” engineers are converting wastes from one factory into input for other factories.
   
   
4. Many factories are also constructing cogeneration plants, which produce both electricity and heat on site, a much more efficient method than traditional power plants that produce electricity but waste the heat.

Corporations often push for the development of certain sustainable technologies that promise to be profitable but in many other cases, governments must require or subsidize the development of new technologies. This involvement is only one example of the many types of energy policies implemented by governments.

Energy Policy
A wide range of public policies affect the production, distribution, and consumption of energy. Governments may choose to control the prices of all or certain types of energy, for all or particular consumers; they may strategically store energy supplies for later use; they may subsidize the research and development of energy technologies, subsidize industries that improve their energy efficiency, and/or subsidize the weatherization of private homes. In connection with environmental policy, governments may also place pollution limits on energy plants, require increased energy efficiency in new cars and appliances, and balance habitat conservation against the development of new energy resources. In addition, they may partner with private corporations to increase their production capacity and to increase the distribution networks of various energy resources. New policies are also created when governments choose to regulate the safety of nuclear power plants and the disposal of nuclear waste. Energy markets are varied, complex, and have the ability to affect public resources (e.g., the environment), therefore government policies are often implemented by many different ministries and agencies.

Although many energy regulations are issued by energy ministries (e.g., the US Department of Energy), policies related to energy may also be developed in environmental, industrial planning, and other ministries. International cooperation is also important in this field. Many industrialized nations, for example, cooperate through the International Energy Agency (IEA), whereas developing nations cooperate through various UN-initiated projects, such as the Global Network on Energy for Sustainable Development (GNESD).

In the United States, the concept of a “national energy policy” gained prominence in the 1970s, during years of high petroleum prices. In that decade, public focus on US national energy policy was centered on the development of new energy technologies that were more environmentally friendly and/or less reliant on foreign oil sources.¹⁰ The phrase has recently been utilized in a different way by President George W. Bush, who places an emphasis on increasing domestic energy resources through environmentally damaging means, such as the increased use of coal production resources and the establishment of oil related drilling in environmentally sensitive areas such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In light of the renewed attention to energy policy, US environmentalists are arguing that environmental protection should be reinstated as one of the central concerns of energy-policy debates.

When governments choose to promote particular power-production technologies, some environmental and safety concerns inevitably arise. For example, new wind power plants are often opposed by aircraft pilots, individuals in the fishing industry, and local residents who are concerned about the potential hazards they may cause for air- and water-crafts, the noise pollution they emit, and the aesthetic disruption they produce which often poses threats to local tourism. When making decisions on energy policy, governments consider many different factors including: environmental and safety concerns, economic efficiency, and the political power of industrial associations and interest groups.

As humans become accustomed to inexpensive mobility and consumer products transported from other countries, it becomes more difficult to limit the carbon-dioxide emissions that are changing the Earth’s climate.¹³ Engineers are continually developing new technologies while environmentalists are encouraging people to make informed choices that will reduce overall pollution and consumption patterns. Which government policies might proactively limit consumption—such as higher gasoline taxes—is a matter of great debate in Europe and, to a lesser extent, on other continents. It has proven politically difficult for European governments to maintain environmental taxes on major polluting industries that compete in international markets.¹⁴ Governments also face constant choices between the creation and expansion of new highways, which provide short-term economic development opportunities in new locations, and the preservation of local green spaces.

Several trends are increasing the use of transportation. Lower tariffs on imported goods (agreed upon through international trade negotiations at the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conferences) are encourages increases in international trade and this is, in turn, encouraging production which in turn encourages pollution through both the production and transportation of these goods. The growing Chinese middle-class, for example, is currently buying automobiles at an unprecedented rate. One study projects that the Chinese automobile fleet will more than double every five years, causing significant increases in carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to the processes involved in global climate change.¹⁵

Two main factors, urban sprawl and urban density, contribute to the increased use of energy in the transportation sector and are also major drivers in the impact of transportation on the environment. Cities in the United States, for example, are less dense than in other parts of the world. There are movements in the fields of architecture and city planning, such as the “new urbanism” movement in the United States, that seek to build more traditional, denser neighborhoods while also improving public transportation, but these movements have not yet been widely accepted. Over the next few decades, many of the world’s densest cities will experience increased urban sprawl as the residents of dilapidated inner-city slums are moved to new developments on the far edges of urbanized areas. Sprawl in major cities in nearly every country is contributing to increased individual transportation over longer distances, increasing transportation-related pollution.

In developed countries, the central foci of transportation policy have been the safety and convenience of long-distance travel, rather than the economic and environmental effects of the transportation industry. A recent report by the European Union setting four priorities for the further development of modes of transportation illustrates this point. Their central concerns include:

1. “improving quality in the road sector”
   
   
2. “revitalising the railways”
   
   
3. “controlling . . . growth in air transport”
   
   
4. “linking up the modes of transport.”¹⁶

Governmental choices related to transportation policy therefore affect public safety, the economic stature of the citizentry, and the overall environmental condition of the country.

Some governments are taking account of environmentally related factors when planning their transportation developments. Convenience, for example, is a common factor in governmental considerations related to transportation issues. Improvements in convenience—such as multi-modal transit centers where travelers can easily make transfers between airplanes, buses, trains, and private vehicles—can save energy and decrease pollution. Making transportation more convenient, however, can have adverse effects such as increases in the range and frequency of long-distance recreational travel that leads to increases in transportation related pollution. In terms of environmental effects, changes in transportation systems are closely linked with the transportation choices that consumers make. This is just one example of the environmental importance of cultural trends in consumption.

Strong links between industrial production, mass marketing, and pride in consumption emerged in the late nineteenth century, when many sociologists believe the “culture of consumption” originated in the United States. American historians Richard Wrightman Fox and T. J. Jackson Lears note three major developments in the United States from 1880 to 1900 that contributed to this culture of consumption:

1. the strengthening of nationwide markets and advertising
   
   
2. a new class of professional managers
   
   
3. “a new gospel of therapeutic release preached by a host of writers, publishers, ministers, social scientists, doctors, and the advertisers themselves.”¹⁷

In his landmark book, Theory of the Leisure Class, published in 1899, US economist Thorstein Veblen coined the term “conspicuous consumption” to describe the US trend of displaying luxury items in order to enhance self-esteem, and to exhibit a higher social status.¹⁸ The culture of consumption has steadily grown since the late 1800s. Harvard University economist Juliet Schor confirms this notion and defines contemporary consumer culture as social systems in which “consumer satisfaction, and dissatisfaction, depend less on what a person has in an absolute sense than on socially formed aspirations and expectations [of what material accumulations one should have].”¹⁹ Since Veblen wrote his famous article, a culture of conspicuous consumption has been spread throughout the world by the communications industry.

The sociological and religious criticisms of consumer culture have expanded to include environmental concerns.²⁰ Consumer culture cannot spread to all people without severe environmental consequences because current manufacturing technologies require significant amounts of natural resources and often cause increased levels of pollution. The contrast between the “haves” who accumulate excess consumer goods and the “have-nots” who still lack basic necessities (e.g., electricity and transportation) affects global economic and environmental interests. Government and industry are developing new technologies that may help to mediate these factors but many environmentalists believe that new technologies will not be able to reduce large-scale pollution in a timely manner. One effective solution to this problem may be to create a distinct change in the culture of consumption that will inadvertently initiate large-scale pollution reduction in a more significant manner than minimal, local conservation techniques have been able to do in the industrial sector.

1. “Markets First”
   
   
2. “Policy First”
   
   
3. “Security First”
   
   
4. “Sustainability First”

The authors of GEO–3 consider the “Sustainability First” scenario to be the most positive outcome for developing societies hoping to move forward in an environmentally sustainable manner. This scenario seeks to change consumerist behavior by focusing on individual human ethics. In general, the authors argue that changing individual human ethics leads to individual behavioral changes that promote environmentally beneficial social and cultural changes. In describing the “Sustainability First” scenario, the authors envision that, “[a]mong more affluent people and groups, disenchantment with consumerism sparks off a quest for more fulfilling and ethical ways of living that can restore a sense of meaning and purpose to their existence. The values of simplicity, cooperation, and community begin to displace consumerism, competition, and individualism.”²¹

Most national and international environmental efforts have focused on public policy initiatives. The GEO–3 report breaks from that tradition by positing cultural change as a requisite for fully sustainable development.

Modest changes in energy production and consumption are occurring as the energy sector and other industries that use energy in the production of goods and services begin to collaborate on larger projects. Manufacturing and service industries face different challenges as they try to utilize energy in more efficient, environmentally sustainable ways.

Pollution created by transportation use is growing quickly for a number of interrelated reasons. The use of airplanes is rising, which creates pollution that incites increases in greenhouse gases that contribute to the intensity and frequency of unusual climate events. The international transportation of consumer goods is growing, commutes are lengthening as the world’s cities increase their urban sprawl, and automobiles are quickly becoming more common in some of the world’s most populous nations (e.g., China, India, etc.). A few nations are slowly moving forward with environmental taxes—such as high gasoline taxes—but the effect of environmentally focused transportation policy is still minimal, especially in light of the increase of automotive production and distribution.

Many analysts see a change away from the culture of consumption as a more promising way of reducing environmental degradation. The consumption choices of middle- and upper-class people drive much of the world’s pollution. These choices are encouraged by mass advertising and are rarely discouraged by government policy. Furthermore, according to capitalist economic theory, a lack of growth in consumption could lead to serious economic recessions. Economists and government officials are working to develop tools that could guide a more environmentally sustainable economy.

Sustainable development presents a challenge not only to economists but also to the general public. As architects and engineers seek energy efficiency in their designs for power plants and vehicles, middle- and upper-class people are also facing personal choices of consumption versus conservation. Yet few people have a clear vision of a sustainable world where personally reducing consumption leads to a higher quality of life for a greater number of species on this planet.

The GEO–3 report suggests that a significant change in consumer culture would help bring about greater sustainability. Such cultural change could be motivated by environmental concern, but it could also be motivated by an emphasis on social values, such as community and equality. These values have historically been present in a number of social systems. Fox and Lears describe the United States in the early nineteenth century, before the rise of the “consumer ethic,” as having a “‘producer ethic’—a value system based on work, sacrifice, and saving.”²² A new, post-consumer culture will include the development of another new value system, one that can replace current cultural values that drive the wealthiest person to accumulate luxuries while global poverty and environmental destruction continue unabated.

Additional Information
For additional information on energy, transportation, and consumption, consider consulting the resources listed in our Energy, Transportation, and Consumer Culture Links section.

Endnotes
1 The share of energy consumption by economic sector in 1997 was: 32% industrial, 27% residential, 20% road transportation, 7% commercial and public services, 3% air transportation, 3% agriculture, 2% other transportation, and 6% other miscellaneous. For additional information see: World Resources Institute, “Energy Consumption by Economic Sector,” source International Energy Agency, updated 2003, http://www.earthtrends.wri.org/text/ENG/data_tables/data_table5.htm (cited 18 February 2004).
Return to text

2 World Resources Institute, “Energy Production by Source,” source International Energy Agency, updated 2003, http://www.earthtrends.wri.org/text/ENG/data_tables/data_table2.htm (cited 18 February 2004); World Resources Institute, “Energy from Renewable Sources,” source International Energy Agency, updated n.d., EarthTrends: The Environmental Information Portal Table ERC.4 http://www.wri.org (cited 3 July 2002).
Return to text

3 Kirk R. Smith, “Indoor Air Pollution,” The World Bank: Pollution Management in Focus, 8, no. 4 (August 1999): 1–4, updated n.d., http://ehs.sph.berkeley.edu/krsmith/publications/99_smith_1.pdf (cited 21 September 2003).
Return to text

4 John P. Holdren et al. (President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, Panel of Energy Research and Development), “Executive Summary,” in Powerful Partnerships: The Federal Role in International Cooperation on Energy Innovation (Washington, D.C.: Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President of the United States, 1999), updated 2003,
http://bcsia.ksg.harvard.edu/publication.cfm?program=CORE&ctype=book&item_id=201 (cited 5 September 2003).
Return to text

5 John P. Holdren et al. (President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, Panel of Energy Research and Development), Powerful Partnerships: The Federal Role in International Cooperation on Energy Innovation (Washington, D.C.: Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President of the United States, 1999), updated 2003,
http://bcsia.ksg.harvard.edu/publication.cfm?program=CORE&ctype=book&item_id=201 (cited 5 September 2003).
Return to text

6 In a flue gas desulfurization unit (commonly called a “smokestack scrubber”), the exhaust from burning coal is treated with a mixture of limestone and water, which removes the sulfur from the gases. This significantly reduces the sulfur dioxide emissions from coal burning plants. For additional information see: United States Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy, “The Clean Coal Technology Program,” updated 5 December 2003, http://www.fe.doe.gov/education/energylessons/coal/coal_cct2.html (cited 5 May 2004).
Return to text

7 Nuclear reactors produce a variety of waste products, all of which have different radiation half-lives.
Return to text

8 “Pebble Dashed?” Economist 363, no. 8279 (29 June 2002): 75.
Return to text

9 United States Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency, and Renewable Energy Network, “Green Buildings Introduction,” updated n.d., http://www.sustainable.doe.gov/buildings/gbintro.shtml (cited 5 May 2004).
Return to text

10 Paul L. Joskow, “Energy Policies and Their Consequences After 25 Years” Energy Journal 24, no. 4 (2003): 17–39.
Return to text

11 World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), Mobility 2001: World Mobility at the End of the Twentieth Century and Its Sustainability, updated n.d., http://lfee.mit.edu/publications/english_full_report.pdf (cited 3 September 2002).
Return to text

12 For additional information see: Joyce E. Penner, David H. Lister, David J. Griggs, David J. Dokken, and Mack McFarland, Aviation and the Global Atmosphere: A Special Report of the IPCC Working Groups I and III in Collaboration with the Scientific Assessment Panel to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
Return to text

13 The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has negotiated the text of the Kyoto Protocol, in which each participating nation makes a commitment to reduce their total anthropogenic carbon-dioxide emissions in order to reduce the increasing release of various greenhouse gases. For more information see: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [http://unfccc.int]; the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.html]; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [http://www.ipcc.ch]; and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change [http://www.pewclimate.org].
Return to text

14 David Luckin, “Environmental Taxation and Red-Green Politics,” Capital & Class 72 (Autumn 2000): 178.
Return to text

15 Lee Schipper, Céline Marie-Lilliu, and Gareth Lewis-Davis, “Rapid Motorisation in the Largest Countries in Asia: Implication for Oil, Carbon Dioxide and Transportation,” (Paris: International Energy Agency, 2001) 8, 12. This document is also available online at: http://spider.iea.org/pubs/free/articles/schipper/rapmot.htm.
Return to text

16 European Commission, “European Transport Policy for 2010: Time to Decide,” White Paper (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2001), updated n.d., http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/energy_transport/library/lb_texte_complet_en.pdf (cited 12 July 2002).
Return to text

17 Richard Wrightman Fox and T. J. Jackson Lears, “Introduction,” in The Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American History, 1880–1980, eds. Richard Wrightman Fox and T. J. Jackson Lears (New York: Pantheon Books, 1983) xi.
Return to text

18 Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1899), updated n.d., http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/VebClas.html (cited 5 September 2002).
Return to text

19 Juliet B. Schor, The Overspent American: Upscaling, Downshifting, and the New Consumer (New York: Basic Books, 1998) 9.
Return to text

20 Neva R. Goodwin, “Scope and Definition,” in The Consumer Society, eds. Neva R. Goodwin, Frank Ackerman, and David Kiron (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1997) 1–10.
Return to text

21 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Global Environment Outlook 3 (London: Earthscan Publications Ltd., 2002) 346. This document is also available online at: http://www.unep.org/geo/geo3/english/pdfs/chapter4_outlook.pdf.
Return to text

22 Fox and Lears, x.
Return to text