<html>
<body>
<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 07:37:22
-0500<br>
To: support@abcnews.go.com <support@abcnews.go.com><br>
From: "Paul J. Werbos, Dr."
<paul.werbos@verizon.net><br>
Subject: ABCNEWS.com EDITORIAL<br>
Cc: pwerbos@nsf.gov<br><br>
<font face="arial" size=2>Re Ned Potter's story on "an unlikely
coalition" on ABCNews last night --<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" size=2>GREAT start, but you missed half the
story.<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" size=2>You mentioned an "unlikely
coalition," but you missed half<br>
the coalition. Since I have been coordinating the other half, de
facto,<br>
I hope you'd be interested in the other half. You interviewed<br>
the neoconservative hawk half in depth, but the technology and
environment half<br>
is what makes it all real.<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" size=2>Suppose you were reporting to a hungry man in
front of you.<br>
The full story is: "You are about to starve to death, but there is
food on<br>
the table right behind you." To avoid imposing too many words on the
poor<br>
fellow, someone shortens your story to: "You are about to starve to
death."<br>
If no one reports the second half, he will die. But the "he"
who is about to starve <br>
is you and me and people in general.<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" size=2>The neoconservatives you cite are being
coordinated by IAGS, <a href="http://www.iags.org">www.iags.org</a>.<br>
They have done great work in waking people up to negative trends
which<br>
add up to something ten times as big as the Iraq War, current nuclear
proliferation and $3/gallon<br>
all combined. But they have only just<br>
begun to talk about how we can actually SOLVE the problem
realistically.<br>
Thus it is not surprising that your consultant, seeing only half the
story, ended<br>
up saying "we really can't do much here and now." That WAS
true. It IS no longer true.<br>
There are new technologies and new information which the lawyers and
social scientists generally<br>
do not know about.<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" size=2>To explain the full story, the
"whole" coalition -- friends of IAGS (like
Gaffney),</font> <br>
environmentalists (NRDC) and TECHNOLOGY PEOPLE<br>
(IEEE, the world's largest professional society, 300,000 engineers,<br>
and related groups) -- organized a joint briefing on March 17<br>
at the Rayburn Building. Press was invited -- but that day there was<br>
more interest in drug use in baseball,<br>
feeding tubes for corpses and Michael Jackson's sexual behavior ... <br>
When people are desperate, I guess they like to escape from reality a bit
..<br>
but it's really a shame that there couldn't be coverage of a
new<br>
strategy to actually solve the problem. I was VERY thrilled that you have
decided<br>
to address these concerns... but the payoff only comes if you look at the
other half.<br>
<br>
<font face="arial" size=2>In fact -- there IS a way we could reduce oil
dependency as much as IAGS claims<br>
(a factor of three or so in 20-40 years), AND ALSO reduce carbon dioxide
emissions by<br>
a similar amount -- enough to possibly prevent the melting of the Arctic
Ice Cap -- without<br>
reducing economic growth one bit. (And no, it's not a matter of just
throwing $300 billion<br>
mindlessly into a coalition of pigs at the trough.) A FEW elements of
that strategy are in the<br>
"Setting America Free" document at
<a href="http://www.iags.org">www.iags.org</a>. But, as your consultant
observed,<br>
those elements are incomplete. For a more complete grand strategy,
see:<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" size=2>
<a href="http://www.ieeeusa.org/policy/energy_strategy.ppt">
www.ieeeusa.org/policy/energy_strategy.ppt</a><br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" size=2>Some key elements behind the strategy:<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" size=2>Economists ALONE and engineers ALONE would have
no hope of charting a viable course through<br>
these complex waters. It requires a kind of crossdisciplinary effort,
grounded in understanding of the <br>
nuts-and-bolts technical realities, able to see past the biased
technology advocates of all stripes,<br>
but also grounded in economics. That's why no one has really seen a
viable strategy here before --<br>
until the leading experts in ENGINEERING linked up to expertise in energy
economics.<br>
Barriers to communication between engineers (reality?) and social science
(lawyers, policy types)<br>
have been a growing problem in the US lately. Interviews with Nobel Prize
Winners (who typically know <br>
more about DNA than about cars and electricity) do not solve the problem,
though Rick Smalley has helped a bit<br>
at times.<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" size=2>Even the brightest people can get nowhere --
spin in useless circles like a dog chasing its own tail --<br>
if they ask the wrong question. Lots of people have focused all their
energy on the quesion: "What can we<br>
do that gets used here and now, with technology and options that are 100
percent proven?"<br>
Asking that question only leads to stuff like endless time debating
drilling in Anwar, the Kyoto treaty,<br>
the bulk of the current energy bill -- all of which adds up to maybe 15%
of the problem, NOT ENOUGH<br>
TO GET US OUT OF THE HOLE.</font> <font face="arial" size=2>Lots of
energy and thought, but no solution. Wrong question.<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" size=2>Other people have asked: "How can we
visualize the utterly perfect CO2-free world of the future,<br>
devoid of all the dirt and grime of today?" Thus we get the purest
version of the hydrogen economy,<br>
with cars carrying hydrogen in liquid form or in cryogenic tanks, with
righteous displays of<br>
concern about someday making it real but not any kind of realistic
near-term schedule<br>
(and no prospect of one).<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" size=2>We and IAGS have worked hard to ask a different
QUESTION: "What could we do to minimize<br>
the expected waiting time between now and the time when we cut oil<br>
dependency (or CO2 emissoins) by a factor of three or four?"<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" size=2>That's the question we need to ask, if we want
to get large enough results before the problems<br>
all kill us.</font> And it does have an answer!!!!<br>
<br>
<font face="arial" size=2>And folks -- "kill us" is not an
exaggeration. If nuclear proliferation multiplies more than ten-fold<br>
in places like the Middle East, and competition for the last remaining
oil grows<br>
ten-fold -- well, let's just say that my role here was motivated by some
very realistic geopolitical scenario<br>
work I saw in the summer of 2003. We need to take the time to try to stay
alive, here,<br>
and get the job done. Going through the motions would not be enough to
save us.<br>
I do hope you can help provide the missing necessary links in this
chain.<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" size=2>Best of luck,<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" size=2>Dr. Paul J. Werbos<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" size=2>P.S. As it says on the slides at<br>
<a href="http://www.ieeeusa.org/policy/energy_strategy.ppt">
www.ieeeusa.org/policy/energy_strategy.ppt</a>,<br>
these are my own personal views and not the official views of my
employer,<br>
the US National Science Foundation. But I did my best to vet the
slides<br>
for accuracy, by asking for feedback from a WHOLE lot of people<br>
before giving the talk at Rayburn. There is a World Bank URL<br>
on solar thermal farms which I found out out about late, which I'd like
to ad,<br>
but it doesn't change the basic story.</font> </blockquote></body>
</html>