Going Green

Looked at one way, these are thrilling times, the beginning of a technological and social revolution that could vault our society into a post-post-industrial future. "If you mention green tech or biotech in a presentation," says Lane, the venture capitalist, "you'll get your funding before you get to your third slide." On the other hand, we may just be kidding ourselves. Can bicycles and switch grass really offset the effects--in pollution, resource depletion and habitat destruction--of a billion Chinese lining up to buy cars for the first time? Domestic oil production has been declining for years, and the United States now imports 60 percent of the 20 million barrels it uses every day. It's nice that Jane Cremisi, a mortgage consultant in Newton, Mass., washes and reuses her aluminum foil and patronizes ecofriendly hotels like the Lenox, in Boston, which composts its food waste. Or that Melinda MacNaughton, a former dietitian from El Granada, Calif., cleans her house with vinegar and baking soda. But you cannot save the world with anecdotes. Is the relevant statistic that sales of hybrid cars doubled last year to 200,000--or that they were outsold by SUVs by a ratio of 23-1?

Still, when you look at all the United States has accomplished, can the challenge be so far beyond us? Marty Hoffert, emeritus professor of physics at New York University, doesn't think so. "If the United States became a world leader in developing green technology and made it available to other countries, it could make a big difference. For $100 billion a year, which is at least what we're spending on Iraq," it could be done, he says. "People understand the urgency," says Fred Krupp, executive director of Environmental Defense, "and they see the economic opportunities." It will take political will, though, and in that sense every mile Howell rides on her bicycle achieves more than it saves in petroleum; it raises consciousness and awareness. And it will have to enlist people like Steven F. Hayward, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "There's no problem environmentalists can't turn into an apocalyptic crisis," says Hayward (who agrees that the Earth is warming but thinks civilization is likely to survive it). Yet of all things, this hardheaded acolyte of the free market worries most about species extinction, among the most rarefied of ecological concerns. But, you see, Hayward has a young daughter. And she wants to be a zookeeper when she grows up.

Clarification

In "Going Green" we wrote that by bicycling part of the way to work, Kelley Howell saved three fifths of a gallon of gasoline and avoided 15 pounds of carbon dioxide pollution. Several readers questioned how that amount of gasoline, weighing less than four pounds, could have generated so much CO2. The extra mass comes from the oxygen in the air. In the engine, each atom of carbon in the gasoline molecule combines with two atoms of oxygen to make carbon dioxide. Additionally, in calculating pollution from automobiles, scientists take into account the carbon dioxide emitted in extracting, refining and transporting the petroleum.

With Jessica Ramirez, Karen Springen, Brad Stone, Karen Breslau, Keith Naughton, Jamie Reno, Ken Shulman, Matthew Philips, Staci Semrad, Margaret Nelson, A. Christian Jean, Andrew Murr and Jac Chebatoris

© 2006