Observer Magazine On Climate Change

It's this Sunday, and it's edited by Thom Yorke, the lead singer of Radiohead, who has been involved with Friends of the Earth's Big Ask campaign.

I like the magazine's weekly "This Much I Know" feature. Today, it interviews Amory Lovins, who has been campaigning for decades for "soft energy paths."

Lovins defines "hard energy paths" as involving inefficient liquid-fuel automotive transport and centralized electricity-generating facilities, that are greatly complicated by electricity wastage and loss.

"Soft energy paths" involve efficient use of energy, diversity of energy production methods (matched in scale and quality to end uses), and are based on solar, wind, or geothermal power.

Some of the things he says in his Observer interview are:

"I'm not an environmentalist. I'm a cultural repairman. It's all about efficient and restorative use of resources to make the world secure, prosperous and life-sustaining."

"There's no reason that energy policy need be a multiple-choice test asking: Would you prefer to die from a) climate change, b) oil wars, or c) a nuclear holocaust? I choose d) none of the above."

"The US's electric bill could be halved through energy-efficiency measures and renewables that would mostly pay for themselves in a year. That's not a free lunch. It's a lunch you're paid to eat."

"Every investment in nuclear expansion will worsen climate change by buying less solution per dollar. That's as dumb as a possum."

"'Eat more lamb - 50,000 coyotes can't be wrong.' That's the bumper sticker on my Honda Insight. The meat in our freezer is from 20km up the road and made only from organic grass."