Comments on: Breaking ranks on clean energy http://daddydemocrat.com/index.php/2007/07/31/breaking-ranks-on-clean-energy/ Parenting the right way—left. Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:58:34 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.1 By: Timothy Burke http://daddydemocrat.com/index.php/2007/07/31/breaking-ranks-on-clean-energy/#comment-25255 Timothy Burke Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:59:59 +0000 http://daddydemocrat.com/index.php/2007/07/31/breaking-ranks-on-clean-energy/#comment-25255 I'm pretty much with you on this one--acts of individual, even institutional, virtue are pretty much beside the point if the objective is to produce genuinely systematic change. It's true that sometimes individual choices aggregate up to produce a startling systematic change, but that's almost never because lots of people make those choices intending to produce that systematic change--they make those choices for individually salient and self-interested reasons. So, for example, if someone comes to me and says, "I can help get you partially off the grid with sensibly-priced solar panel installations for your roof and some kind of water-cooling system that involves circulation of water in a trench around your property line", I'm all for doing that. The fact that it might ultimately be a good environmental thing in the larger sense is nice, a bonus, but not the motivation for doing so: the real reason is that it'll save me money in the short-run and give me a potential hedge against some kind of oil price shock in the future. If someone says, "Look, I'd like you to make some changes to your house which are extremely expensive and which will cost you lots more in the future simply because that's a good thing", count me out. Equally count me out in the case you cite: "would you like to pay more to subsidize utility companies' investments?" Uh, no, no thanks. I’m pretty much with you on this one–acts of individual, even institutional, virtue are pretty much beside the point if the objective is to produce genuinely systematic change. It’s true that sometimes individual choices aggregate up to produce a startling systematic change, but that’s almost never because lots of people make those choices intending to produce that systematic change–they make those choices for individually salient and self-interested reasons.

So, for example, if someone comes to me and says, “I can help get you partially off the grid with sensibly-priced solar panel installations for your roof and some kind of water-cooling system that involves circulation of water in a trench around your property line”, I’m all for doing that. The fact that it might ultimately be a good environmental thing in the larger sense is nice, a bonus, but not the motivation for doing so: the real reason is that it’ll save me money in the short-run and give me a potential hedge against some kind of oil price shock in the future.

If someone says, “Look, I’d like you to make some changes to your house which are extremely expensive and which will cost you lots more in the future simply because that’s a good thing”, count me out. Equally count me out in the case you cite: “would you like to pay more to subsidize utility companies’ investments?” Uh, no, no thanks.

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