At the risk of offending some whose efforts I admire, I have serious reservations about electrification as a cure for our climate crisis. For example, electric cars will be out of reach for most people for decades, and it is as elitist as it is unrealistic to think otherwise.

Also, the electricity to power it all doesn’t exist! The grids in Texas and Southern California are already struggling with demand during extreme temperatures, so we aren’t going to be plugging hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles into those grids any time soon.

It seems everyone is hoping that the technology will change, so we don’t have to. Fairy tale! Yes, the technology must change, but far more crucial is that our collective and personal mindset and behaviors must change.

The slogan “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” is like the Richter scale; reducing is 10 times more potent than reusing, which is 10 times more potent than the consolation prize, recycling. Reducing is the obvious, common sense, necessary step that almost no one wants to take.

If each of us treated electricity and gas as precious resources, to be used as sparingly and wisely as possible, that would actually change the trajectory, starting today. We have normalized the mindless waste of energy for the sake of convenience, and just a little, times tens of millions, adds up to a lot, completely wasted. In our homes, businesses, cars, and daily lives we must use less by being more mindful, by taking more seriously the impact it has on our already dire situation.

Rick Moser

Eugene

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