[Save] [E&S-seminars] Nov. 21 "Communicating Scientific Complexity"
Karen Gibson
kgibson at mit.edu
Thu Nov 20 14:28:01 EST 2003
Environment and Sustainability Seminar Series
Sponsored by the MIT Laboratory for Energy and the Environment
<http://lfee.mit.edu>
Please join us tomorrow (Friday) for a special seminar speaker:
Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran
Global Environment & Energy Correspondent for The Economist
"Communicating Scientific Complexity:
Linking Urgency to Abstraction in a Data-Shy World"
Friday, November 21
3:00-4:30 p.m.
Room E40-298
ABSTRACT
Vijay Vaitheeswaran, energy and environment writer at The
Economist magazine, spends his days breathing excitement into what
most people consider a sleep-aid: scientific evidence. This
indefatigable writer has been told a million times that Energy is
Boring. Friends and family began to ostracize him for bringing up
topics like the myth of hydrocarbon scarcity at dinner parties.
Colleagues questioned his sanity when, five years ago, he turned down
a posting in sunny Brazil for the energy job in London. Even Vijay
himself, on more than one rainy London day, has wondered why. So he
did the only thing he could do: he wrote a book about the future of
energy.
Please come and hear his tales of misadventure as he set
about writing POWER TO THE PEOPLE. Cameo appearances by cow dung, the
most powerful oilman in the world, and Cindy Crawford are all
promised. Along the way, he'll reveal his insights into communicating
complex information successfully to a general (and generally
uninterested!) non-technical audience. He'll describe the travels,
investigations, and analysis required to tackle a scientifically
complex and politically charged topic. He'll explain some of the
obstacles he overcame to write the book, not least the skepticism of
those around him. And he'll even let you in on the secrets of writing
for, and pitching your ideas to, The Economist.
His book has been reviewed by Scientific American and New
Scientist (attached) and is available at the COOP.
Light refreshments will be provided.
___________________________________________________
If you would like to be added or removed from this mailing list,
please contact Karen Gibson, kgibson at mit.edu
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<DIV class=thedate1>November 10, 2003</DIV></TD>
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<DIV class=titleArticle><B>The Quest for Affordable Energy</B></DIV></TD>
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<DIV class=leadIn>Asking the hard questions--and providing some
answers</DIV></TD>
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<DIV class=authorTagArticle>By John P. Holdren </DIV></TD>
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<DIV class=regArticletext>Energy is the lifeblood of industrial
civilization and an absolutely necessary (albeit certainly not sufficient)
condition for lifting the world's poor from their poverty. But current
methods of mobilizing civilization's energy are more disruptive of local,
regional and global environmental conditions and processes than anything
else that humans do.
<P>This dichotomy defines the core of the energy challenge in the century
before us: How can we supply enough affordable energy to permit the
billions who are currently poor (and the billions more who will be added
to their numbers in the decades ahead) to attain prosperity--and to
sustain and expand the prosperity of those already rich--without suffering
intolerable damage to the environmental dimensions of human well-being in
industrial and developing countries alike? <BR><BR>How difficult will
meeting this challenge be? Is the "business as usual"
approach--subsidizing fossil-fuel supply and nuclear energy and large
hydro projects, maintaining low energy prices to consumers by keeping
environmental and political costs "external," propping up oil supply by
every available means--part of the solution or part of the problem? Can
the privatization of energy sectors in the developing countries and the
restructuring and deregulation of energy sectors in industrial countries
be accomplished in ways that provide the economic benefits of competition
while still preserving essential public benefits such as the reliability
and resilience of the electricity system? <BR><BR>In his book, <I>Power to
the People</I>, Vijay Vaitheeswaran tackles these and the other hard
questions at the core of society's energy dilemmas with style, balance and
insight. The style is entertaining and accessible. The balance is
impeccable--Vaitheeswaran generally lets the most forceful and effective
exponents on different sides of the major issues state their case in their
own words--but after ventilating the various positions he is not afraid to
let the reader know where he comes out.
<P>And this is where the insight comes in. Vaitheeswaran brings to these
questions the respect for markets and marketlike mechanisms of a writer
for the <I>Economist,</I> the understanding of technology of an
M.I.T.-trained engineer, and the sympathy for the plight of the world's
poor of an individual born in India--all of which he happens to be. He
also happens to have, in my judgment, a good sense of how to think
about--and convey--the interplay of the economic, technological,
environmental and sociopolitical dimensions of the energy issue as well as
the reasons that the uncertainties afflicting our knowledge of all the
dimensions do not add up to a good reason for inaction.
<P>Among the critically important points about all this that the book
convincingly conveys:
<UL>
<LI>Civilization is in no immediate danger of running out of energy or
even just out of oil. But we are running out of environment--that is,
out of the capacity of the environment to absorb energy's impacts
without risk of intolerable disruption--and our heavy dependence on oil
in particular entails not only environmental but also economic and
political liabilities.
<LI>Choices that countries make about energy supply commit them to those
choices for decades, because power plants and other energy facilities
typically last for 40 years or more and are too costly to replace before
they wear out. This is one of the reasons it is imprudent in the extreme
to wait for even more evidence than we already have before letting
climate-change risks start to influence which energy options we choose.
<LI>Energy technologies that exist or are under development could
greatly increase energy efficiency in residences and businesses, reduce
dependence on oil, accelerate the provision of energy services to the
world's poor, increase the reliability and resilience of electricity
grids, and shrink the impacts of energy supply on climate and other
environmental values. The most promising of these options include
renewable sources of a variety of types, advanced fossil-fuel
technologies that can capture and sequester carbon, and hydrogen-powered
fuel cells for vehicle propulsion and dispersed electricity generation.
<LI>These prosperity-building, stability-enhancing and
environment-sparing options will not materialize in quantity matching
the need unless and until three conditions are met: The massive
subsidies favoring continuation of energy business as usual are ended.
The massive risks of greenhouse gas-induced climate change are at least
partly internalized with a carbon tax or its equivalent. And the
industrial nations commit to helping the developing ones "leapfrog" past
the inefficient and dirty-energy technologies that fueled the
industrialization of the former but mortgaged the environment in the
process. </LI></UL>There are a few small technical slips in the
elaboration of all this, but not many, and none that matter to the thrust
of the argument.
<P>Written for the intelligent layperson, Vaitheeswaran's book is by far
the most helpful, entertaining, up-to-date and accessible treatment of the
energy-economy-environment problematique available. Its title, <I>Power to
the People</I>, might strike some at first as too cute or too
presumptuous. By the time I finished the book, though, I thought the title
was apt, and in more ways than one. One must hope that knowledge
translates to power in the political sense and that the knowledge to the
people conveyed here will help lead to the political outcomes needed to
bring the book's optimistic vision into being.
<P>
<HR noShade SIZE=1>
<I>John P. Holdren is Teresa and John Heinz Professor and director of the
Program on Science, Technology and Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy
School of Government at Harvard University.</I>
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<DIV class=smallText>? 1996-2003 Scientific American, Inc. All rights
reserved.<BR>Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is
prohibited.</DIV></TD>
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_________________________________
Karen L. Gibson
Program Assistant
MIT Laboratory For Energy and the Environment
77 Massachusetts Avenue, E40-469
(1 Amherst St., E40-469 - for DHL and FedEx)
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
Tel: 1 (617) 258-6368; Fax: 1 (617) 258-6590
http://lfee.mit.edu
http://globalsustainability.org
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