Amory and Hunter Lovins: Spokespersons for a Sustainable-energy Future
(Page 11 of 15)
July/August 1984
By the Mother Earth News editors
PLOWBOY: Are you using economics as a cover for what you're really after?
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HUNTER: No. What we are really after is helping people meet their energy needs in a way that's cheapest for them, and that doesn't cause disruption somewhere else in society. And we've found that market economics is a pretty good mechanism for accomplishing this. That's not to say that there is such a thing as a free market, There isn't, there never has been, there never will be. The market we have is very imperfect. But there are real market forces, and one can operate either against them or with them.
AMORY: There are a lot of things the market economy doesn't do — it doesn't address the issue of fairness, for instance — but it's doing very well in addressing the energy problem. A lot of energy policy in this country is influenced by subsidies and special interests. But if you debate on economic grounds, you can smoke that stuff out.
It's also tactically smart to be well to the right of utilities and oil companies. And I think where we depart from some of our friends on the left
HUNTER: These days we're getting a lot more criticism from the left than from the right.
AMORY: — is that they are not willing to ride the market as far as it will go, to use it to do the things that it does peculiarly well.
PLOWBOY: Is it just a coincidence that market forces happen to be moving in the direction that's environmentally good as well?
AMORY: Well, it's natural that as depletable fuels like coal and oil become scarcer, their prices rise to the point where, sooner or later, renewable sources are cheaper. What's coincidental is that we seem to be at that point now rather than 50 years ago or 50 years from now.
HUNTER: The fact that we have renewables and efficiency coming on as fast as they are now is a result, I think, of a shock. After the Arab oil embargo, the price went up very quickly. People simply turned their minds to that problem and bored in on it.
AMORY: One thing we haven't figured out
HUNTER: Among others!
AMORY: — is why there is such a happy coincidence that what is cheapest to do in energy also turns out to be best for national security, for the environment, and so on. Why do all these supposedly conflicting interests happen to converge? We don't know the answer to that.
HUNTER: A lot of people in our society want energy abundance. They want not to have to worry about energy. And I share that wish to some extent. I like to be able to get in my truck and drive wherever I want and not have to worry about whether some clown in the Middle East is going to blow up my supply of oil. I would like even better, however, to know that the fuel for my vehicle is much more locally controlled.
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