Differences Among Friends on Energy

The ideas expressed on this site have been a challenge generally for Friends, who maintain two conflicting commitments. They wish to give a fair hearing to divergent views, and at the same time they hold to truths they feel have stood the test of time. One of the gifts of traditional Friends Process is a method for seasoning new ideas and collectively discerning Truth. This process is sometimes honored more in self-image than in practice. The tension between these worthy goals has been particularly evident as Friends debate energy and the environment.

Friends hold a range of views on energy and the environment. On the whole, Friends, like the larger society, became interested in climate change after seeing the film, An Inconvenient Truth. While climate skepticism is no longer as common among Friends, many see global warming as only one of many concerns, with social justice issues or other environmental worries (such as water and air pollution) carrying greater weight. The solutions many Friends envision resemble those energy policies or environmental causes they liked before they had ever heard of climate change—for instance, solar energy and individual choices about simple living. The fear of science and technology, particularly nuclear power and transgenic crops (GMOs), remains strong. Increasingly, however, Friends are reconsidering their entire approach to energy and environmental issues in the light of the threats from climate change.

Among those who have embraced climate change as a concern, there remains much disagreement, particularly in these areas:

• Which sources of energy are most desirable and why? In particular, nuclear energy and carbon capture and storage, two large-scale solutions seen as crucial by scientists and energy policy experts, elicit opposition among some Friends.
• Can individual or group behavior change make a significant difference in reducing greenhouse gas emissions?
• What sources do we trust and why?
• What is the impact on global warming of various movements to increase or restrict food sources, such as transgenic crops, organic farming, vegetarianism and the Locavore movement? Rarely mentioned, but possibly significant, is reducing food waste.
• How important is recycling to reducing GHGs? Is reducing packaging or “buying green” a significant contribution to fighting climate change? To what extent, if any, can these activities offset such greenhouse gas producing behavior as driving and flying?
• To what extent can buying offsets mitigate the harm done by transportation choices? Does it count equally when we are flying or driving for environmental or social justice work, job requirements, educational purposes or family visits?  
  

Of these controversies among Friends, the conflict over nuclear power is probably the most heated to date. Some Friends have always supported nuclear power. Others have come to this view more recently. A sizeable number, however, maintain a stalwart and unwavering opposition to nuclear energy as part of the solution to the climate crisis. They have many fears: that building more power plants increases the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation; that the mining and processing of uranium and the eventual storage of radioactive wastes present an unacceptable threat to human health and the environment; that the risk of accidents is too great; that large, centralized power sources controlled by big business are better avoided in favor of locally controlled sources. An underlying assumption is that big business cannot be trusted, and that government cannot be trusted to regulate big business. Most compelling of all is the hope and belief that sufficient investments in other power sources, such as wind and solar, will make nuclear power unnecessary.  

Many Friends cling to the belief that conservation—relying on voluntary individual behavior change—is the most critical factor in addressing environmental concerns, and should obviate the need for nuclear energy. Unfortunately, those who espouse behavior change in theory often find it hard to do in practice. While some Friends have made major changes in behavior, such as giving up driving and flying, not all share a sense that such changes are moral acts.   

In debating these and other conflicts of opinion, Friends disagree on what are reliable sources of fact. It is difficult to find the truth among so many contradictory viewpoints. In particular, Friends tend to fall into opposing camps regarding scientific knowledge versus direct revelations and spiritual discernment. Friends Energy Project is firmly aligned with scientific thinking, getting the science from scientists (peer review is a must, and the most reliable reports are the major reports coming from organizations like Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and National Academy of Sciences). Friends, like much of the public, often dismiss these sources or assume they are in agreement with their own beliefs.

The eventual challenge will be for Friends to confront the hard issues, the ones society has to wrestle with before legislators can do something about them without losing their elected offices. While Friends engage in passionate debate about technology choices, the easiest of the hard issues, they largely ignore questions that require our attention:

• Addressing climate change will cost, though the costs appear to cut into the growth rate rather than producing a lower standard of living. Nevertheless, cost estimates of 1 – 3% of the GDP are common. The details are important.
• A wealthier larger population cannot be free to engage in all the behaviors that are available to smaller, poorer populations. What legal restrictions on individual preferences might we be willing to impose or accept?
  

“We continue to have the challenge of disagreeing with those we love and loving those with whom we disagree.” (Thought to be from an Ohio Yearly Meeting Epistle, mid 1990’s).