Three Flipty (Pancakes)

Last Sunday, the usually sleepy kitchen of Village C dorm was a blaze of activity. Creamy bowls of batter blossomed on the table. The music of the sizzling griddle was punctuated by the percussion of chopping apples. The land flowed not with milk and honey, but with apple cider and maple syrup. At least ten people were cooking, and dozens more were eating. I hopefully sidled towards the table of bounty, snagging my own personal load of melt-in-the-mouth apple pancakes. Every time a new load slid off the griddle onto the plate, it was hailed by a triumphal cry. "That's 75 pancakes so far! Only 275 to go!"

"Are you really going to make 350 pancakes?" I asked a cook in dazed awe. "Yup," she said cheerfully, then adding with a modest blush, "Of course they're only small ones.” And the spatulas flipped away like mad. Murmurs of "Why 350?" went through the room. As the pancake count mounted, an assertive young gentleman emerged from the kitchen's fragrant fumes and took his "soapbox" in the common room. "Many of you may be wondering why 350 pancakes," he said. "This is part of a national campaign to raise awareness for a 350 ppm carbon dioxide commitment. Right now we're at 389 ppm, so there's still a long way to go. All over the United States, people are organizing events featuring the number 350, so at least the number will be in people's minds. So they'll be aware of the problem and our goal."

As a publicity event I would call Sunday's pancake breakfast a spectacular success. It can be difficult to get people to show up for lectures and such, but offer them a warm and delicious alternative to Kline cafeteria food and they're all over the place!!! Even the photo you see here of the pancake-eaters in formation before the 350 banner only represents about half the number of people who came.

So I started thinking, "Here's a nice segment of environmentally-minded Bard students. Time to do some research." So I started asking people, "Do you think Obama will succeed in passing climate change legislation?"

Rachel burst out laughing and nearly dropped her pancake. "In magical wonderland, it would happen, but in reality.... people are stupid." she said. There was a chorus of groans of agreement.

I wandered the room in search of greater optimism. What does the lady who is frantically slicing apples think? She sighed and pondered long over her answer. "I hope so.... but I don't know," she said. "There's too much fear out there. People are afraid of losing things that matter to them.

"Obama has so much facing him at once," another student answered me. "With health care and everything else that's on his plate, will he be able to tackle the environment too?"

"Well," I asked my friend Josh, the jovial history major, "Do you think Obama can do it?"

Josh chortled. "Yes, and maybe after he gets done with that miracle, he will punch God."

Tom has a different take entirely. "Yes he will pass it," he told me. "By now, even the Republicans have accepted the fact that climate change exists."

But there's a difference between scientific consensus and political will. Repeating my question again to another group, I heard, "I don't know. I would like to say yes, but with everything else that's going on.... ..Obama's momentum since coming into office has slowed."

Well here I had a range of opinions. But before I hauled myself and my pancake-laden stomach away, I wanted a word with Ashfaque Kabir. Ash was an econ major with an interest in student government, so I thought he could give me a good thoughtful answer. Problem was, he had been on griddle duty and I feared to approach him for danger of being hit by a flying pancake.

But luckily he came out just then to deposit a new plateful and I pounced on him. "Ash," I asked, "Do you think Obama will succeed in passing climate change legislation?"

Ash pursed his lips. "I'm sceptical, but I hope so. However, there's the economy to consider. In a recession, will industry really want to take on extra costs?"

That seemed to be the clincher. People are losing jobs, people are afraid, people don't want more change. All of which spells bad news for the environment.

To get some really professional opinion on this issue, I went to a lecture by Rachel Cleetus from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Dr. Cleetus was the professional economist on a UCS team working on, "Blueprint for a Clean Energy Economy." The question they posed themselves was, "Without counting on any lucky breaks, can the USA mobilize to halt global warming at two degrees above normal?" Of course, in order to answer this question, the team had to make many assumptions; including assumptions about what level of international cooperation could be expected.

"This blueprint focuses on the USA's economy," said Dr. Rachel Cleetus. "On the international stage, there's been quite a bit of that 'You go first! No, you go first!' attitude slowing down negotiations. What people don't realize is, science says EVERYBODY has to go first."

She did a fast summary of global conditions analyzed by USC climate scientists. "Current carbon levels in the atmosphere are unique-- major coastal cities should worry about flooding--" that sort of thing. And then she launched into her economic blueprint. According to her, we need,

-- Cap and Trade Program
-- National Renewable Electricity Standard (a requirement for utilities to generate a minimum percentage of electricity from renewable sources.)
-- Energy Efficiency Standard for appliances and buildings.
-- Reduce vehicle miles travelled (perhaps through SmartGrowth plans)
-- Energy Efficiency programs for agriculture and industry...
-- And about ten other things, which scrolled down the screen faster than my rapidly cramping pen hand could record.

She looked at us and said proudly, "All these programs in combination would cut energy use by third. This helps us not only with global warming, but with many other things as well."

For starters, if people are using energy-efficient appliances and well-insulated homes, it saves them a substantial amount of money on their electricity bill. Businesses also could benefit from government-enforced efficiency standards. If you waste less energy, everyone saves money. So WHY WHY WHY is everyone convinced that fighting global warming is too costly?

I raised my hand and asked the nice economist, "If we can SAVE money by following your blueprint, why do we hear all these debates about the environment VS. the economy? Why do people think it's a choice between fixing one and fixing the other?"

Her answer was somewhat long and involuted, but it boiled down to this: People never consider the costliness of the status quo. Right now, we're spending a lot of money on the energy we waste. But we're used to doing that, so it doesn't bother us. But although habitual costs fade into the back of your mind, you notice any new costs right away. And putting the energy-efficient infrastructure in place is going to mean short-term costs for long-term gain.

"The classic example of market failure," she said, "Is tenant housing. If you would insulate the apartment, you would save so much money on the cost of heating the house. But the landlord doesn't want to do it, because those aren't his electricity bills. And the tenants won't pay for it, because they're only staying in their terrible apartment building for only a few months before moving on to something better." She thinks the government has a role in regulating this kind of market failure.

Since hearing all this from Dr. Cleetus, I've been turning the problem over and over in my mind. I think I have a humorous analogy which accurately represents the situation.

Suppose all the USA ate at one restaurant that charged by the plateful. However, all the plates in this restaurant are full of holes. For some reason the government cannot find the money to fix the holes in the plates. And there are so many plates, there is no doubt patching or replacing them all would require substantial investment.

However the problem with the holey plates is that food keeps dropping out the bottom of them. This is making the world a messier place, clearly. Shocked by the disgusting mess, the environmentalists have started running awareness campaigns about the need for a "clean economy." But the most obvious downside for the American consumer is that instead of buying one plate of food at each meal, they need to buy two or three platefuls of food. Because most of the food is leaking and dribbling out of the first plate, leaving them hungry.
However, the big restaurant has many powerful lobbyists in Washington. And when activists begin saying, "We need to have laws against these holey plates," there is a great uproar. The restaurant groans and moans and says it will put them out of business to fix that many plates. Think of all the poor waitresses who will go jobless! What will it do to the economy!

Although maybe we can't tell from a simple number like the GDP, there is more to a good economy than simply producing more. We also have to consider how we are using what we produce. Are we using it well or are we wasting it? We are less sensitive to electricity waste than we are to food waste because it less obvious. If someone was dropping their food all over the place we would laugh at them and call them stupid. Whereas, if we buy an energy-hogging, poorly designed appliance it's not like we can SEE all that precious electricity trickling away. It just vanishes invisibly, manifesting itself only as a hidden number on next month's utilities bill.

The trouble is, it has become far too easy to scare people with the word "Economy." Most Americans including me do not understand how the economy works. I have a chilling suspicion that even people with ten degrees in this subject do not really understand what's going on. And yet the economy can have a devastating impact on our lives, if managed improperly. It's so frightening that our jobs and lives depend on this great big thing we can neither control nor understand.

And so, people can take advantage of this fear very easily. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry with an agenda can run around saying, "If you do not do WHAT I WANT the Big Bad Economy will EAT you!" (And grind its bones to make your bread.....) And because nobody actually knows what is going on, Tom, Dick, and Harry can find people to believe them, no problem.

What's the moral then? Be careful what you believe? Once economists did a study about how people make the decision to purchase green products. There were these eco-friendly socks made with organic cotton by workers in good conditions. Then there were some ordinary socks. The economists doing the study tried selling both kinds of socks at the same price. They did not sell many eco-friendly socks because people did not believe they were actually organic. Then they tried increasing the price of the eco-friendly socks by quite a bit. Then suddenly they sold a LOT MORE eco-friendly socks, because the high price convinced people the eco-friendly tag on the socks was not lying.

The funny part is that these particular eco-friendly socks actually cost less to produce. But because of the psychology, they had to sell them at a high price. Sad, eh? People instinctively believe that virtue comes at a tough price. If anyone tells you that doing the right thing is cheaper and easier, you just laugh at them. Because for some reason we all believe we have to suffer to save the planet.

It’s not so much a question of suffering as that of overcoming inertia. Dr. Cleetus's clean energy blueprint does not count on cutting-edge technologies being invented. The blueprint is based on technologies and policies that we already know about. Most of the things she's suggesting have already been implemented on a small scale. We know they work. We just need to use them. "JUST GET STARTED," says Dr. Cleetus.

It’s going to take a lot more than 350 pancakes to flip us into a better future. Maybe it’s our minds we need to flip. Maybe the greatest obstacle to saving the planet is our belief that we can only save it through self-sacrifice. Maybe it doesn't take self-sacrifice. Maybe all it takes is a willingness to look beyond the status quo and embrace what works.

Challenge: Question 350 of your own assumptions about the way the world works.