TED: Shai Agassi's bold plan for electric cars

My friend sent me this link a while back. It's a talk about electric cars and the infrastructure we need to support them. This was about 4-6 weeks ago. Being a TED talk, I was sure it would be good, but I also thought to myself "hey, I know a bit or two about electric cars. Maybe there's not a pressing need that I watch this. How much new stuff can this person possibly have.

That was a mistake. An error in judgment. I just watched it now, and I was overcome with a feeling of hope and wonder, as he laid out his plan for the electric car in the future. At the end of the talk, when the audience game him a standing ovation, I almost felt myself rise out of my chair and doing the same thing. Absolutely brilliant. Not emotionally moving, as most things that get standing ovations are (Think Christopher Reeve at the Oscar's), but just absolutely brilliant.

If you have 18 minutes (and I can't imagine anyone who doesn't), you really need to watch this. Don't postpone it like I did. It really is worth watching. Perhaps even twice.

The Earth Is Dying, and It's Our Fault!

The fact that the situation the earth is in is grim should come as a surprise to very few readers of this blog. Most people who (I can imagine) read this are at least somewhat aware of the environment (another assumption, since pretty much only people I know read this). The problem isn't you, though, it's everybody else.
I just watched a very good video on youtube entitled "HOME". It was a video (movie really) about the sorry state our planet finds itself in. Not just global warming, but over consumption, overpopulation, deforestation and a host of other calamities that the world faces. All brought on by man, and our (some times lack of) technological advances. Did you know, for instance, that it takes 13000 liters of water to raise 1kg of beef? I didn't (ok, I did, but not until I went to an expo here in Brussels where I was told). "That's impossible", you say. "Cows don't drink that much!". This is entirely correct, they don't. What they do do, on the other hand, is eat. Lots. This water comes from the crops that are grown to feed the cows. Agriculture uses up 70% of the world's water consumption. Scary figured, but we've got to eat, right?
Back to the problem at hand; you don't need to be told that the planet is in peril, you probably already know. The people who need to be told are the people who would never go out of their way to watch a 93 minute movie about the state that the planet is in. Partially because they don't care (the bad people), and partly because the thought hadn't even crossed their mind (lost souls in a sense, people who might actually be willing to help save the planet, if they only knew it was in trouble).
I want you to show them this movie, and others like it ("An inconvenient truth" by Al Gore comes to mind). I want you to tell them that the planet is dying, and something had to be done quickly, lest we all die with it.
The mantra that you should live in the now and appreciate life is correct. It's also, at the same time, terrible advice. If you only live in the now, with no thought to past or future, your eyes only ever on the present, then you wouldn't see what is happening to the planet. You wouldn't see the progression from bad to almost infinitely worse.
People need to know that the planet is loosing resources faster than we can put them back, and people need to know that there are things they can do, small things and large things, that can help make things right again. Examples of small things are: take your power company up on that offer for green power. Sure it might be slightly more expensive (ours weren't, we saved 25% by switching) but it's good for the environment. Another thing is: leave the car at home. Especially in summer (and especially if you live in brussels! for fuck sake people, it's like a zoo here!). Take the subway or bus or even walk. It's a nice day, enjoy it while you can. Before you know it, the oxygen content in the air you breathe might be too low (ok, that probably won't happen for a long time, but it's coming).
You could also consume less. I'm not just talking about putting down the fork (I'm looking in your direction America, you fat fucks), but also just buy fewer things. If you consume less, the world has to expend less resources making the shit you purchase. If we could recycle everything with 100% efficiency, consumption wouldn't be a problem, but since we're a bit low on nano-disassemblers at the moment, you're just going to have to buy less shit. I'm sure your existing TV is good enough. You don't actually NEED to buy a brand new car. There are literally thousands of little things you can do to make your planet a better place (if you're reading this from off-world, I'm sure there are things that you can do to make whatever planet you're on a better place too). Think about how you live, and what you consume, and how much waste you produce. You might not think about it, because you don't throw it away in the garbage can, but you do produce a lot of industrial waste by the things you choose to purchase. Vote with your wallet. Buy environmentally friendly stuff, if you have the option.
I could talk forever on this subject, but in closing let me say this: you cannot pass the buck on this, and expect others to do it for you. If we don't all get together and start making the world a better place, there won't be a planet left to sustain humanity. Please think of what you're doing, and think about the planet.

Why the "Environmental Alternative" Fails

I was talking to my roommate the other day about how we're fucking up our environment, and how global warming is just as bad, if not worse, than people are saying.
It just hit me today that as long as there's something out there that fills whatever need you have that's more powerful, cheaper and better than the environmental alternative, people will use it. It doesn't matter if it's a car, a lawn mower, some writing paper or some dish soap. As long as the environmental alternative costs more and delivers potentially less, no one will ever use it.
"But people are buying priuses like mad" you say, well in the bigger picture, compared to how many other cars are getting sold, it's still nothing.

No, the only way to actually solve this is to make sure there is no alternative. Make the products that we buy and use today more environmentally friendly. Why should I buy a Prius when I can buy a BMW for the same money, and get more? If the BMW is just as environmentally friendly as whatever else (lets stick to the Prius for this example) is available, then people can keep buying what they would buy anyway, and save the environment.
People can't change the world. People don't have the means to. Governments and corporations, however, do. getting 10-15% of the population over to the "green side" isn't going to cut it. We need everybody here to get it to work, and the only way to do that is to make sure that people don't have to make compromises when they are purchasing things. They shouldn't have to choose between ecology or cost, they should be one and the same.
I know research results from environmental alternatives eventually make it in to the mainstream, but I think we should start in the mainstream instead. Then companies would have a higher pressure to succeed the first time, instead of shrugging off failed attempts as being in a niche market anyway.