Julius Caesar the Energy Pig

W. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act I

There is some kind of insanity in judging every energy conversion by its second law efficiency alone. If Lovins really lived by what he professes to understand, he would walk from Boston to Washington instead of taking a jet plane. Less energy is degraded to heat in walking especially if he eats roots and berries grown without energy intensive fertilizers. But as pointed out by Prof. Alvin Weinberg ["Of Time and the Energy Wars," Nature, 10/20/77], thr e is always a trade off between energy and time, and many Americans (certainly those who drive or fly long distances) choose to save time rather than energy.

The second law fetish fits well into the general insanity that is now pervading large sections of academia and the mass media. Not long ago, the magazines were full of rave reviews of a book claiming that all men threatened all women with rape, pseude scholars are debating the legal standing of trees; and UNESCO, presumably including the representatives of Idi Amin's cannibals, has just passed a Universal Declaration of the Rignts of Animals. Dr J. Juhasz of the University of Colorado proposes to cure Colorado's air pollution by digging up the state's 3,000 miles of interstate highways. replacing them by bike paths and tennis courts; anti smoking zealots empty ash trays into the drinks of smoking diners; and Connecticut's consumer counsel B. Zitser has protested against the unfair advantage to those who get an earlier listing in the yellow pages because their names come earlier in the alphabet.

In the energy field, one might think that all the craziness has been heard. But perhaps not. Drs. B.M. Hannon and T.G. Lohman of the University of Illinois write in the American Journal of Public Health (August 1978), "Overweight has hitherto been considered mainly a personal problem.... But with the rising specter of energy shortage... Overweight must become a social problem" And after three pages of "scholarly" arithmetic they reach the conclusion that "the energy saved by dieting to reach optimal weight is equivalent to 193 billion gallons of gasoline and the annual energy savings would more than supply the annual residential electrical demands of Boston, Chicago, San Franciocn and Washington D.C."

Now all this would be purely hilarious if there were no more to it. But there is. Dr Juhasz does not really Want 3,000 miles of tennis courts, he wants to destroy the interstate highways; the anti smoking zealots do not so much mind the smoke as they mind the smokers; Mr Zinzer is not out to protect Mr Zebulon Zyzoff, but to get Mr. Adam A. Abel; and what the defenders of "the rights of trees' are interested in as this abrogation of the rights of tree owners. Andy of courses in the energy field, we have the purest example: The people who sport "Switch to Solar" bumperstickers do not really want to switch to solar, for there is nobody and nothing to stop them from switching (on the contray, they are likely to get a fat tax credit), what they are after is killing abundant sources of energy for everybody.

The two scholars from Illinois who believe overweight must become a social problem" (must is the favorite concept of contemporary "liberals") are echoing Ralph Nader's creed on the biosphere: "This narrow layer belongs to all of us."

But why not go all the way? "Nate" could save 76 quadrillion BTU's a year by wiping out all of the US population. Too drastic? Perhaps we can make a start by exterminating the overweight energy pigs among us. Not only would they stop using "our' energy but "we" would cremate them in appropriate technology furnaces and score a higher second law efficiency.

Kill the fatsos'

They are enemies of the people.