Folks -- Before he passed away several years ago, the famous environmentalist David Brower called the book "Natural Capitalism" perhaps the most important book of the century. it was written by energy specialists Amory and Hunter Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute (http://www.rmi.org) and merchant/entrepeneur Paul Hawkin. The book is available in its entirely online at http://www.natcap.org
One of the specific changes advertised in this book was a transportation transition to what Amory Lovins called the "hypercar" a vehicle constructed of super lightweight materials, designed to be recycle-able, and powered by a hydrogen fuel cell which could provide adequate performance with no emissions. The vehicle, or national fleet, could be plugged into the electrical grid when not used for transportation, and generate electricity for the (now dispersed/decentralized) electrical grid and help pay for itself through the sale of the power. This book envisions a new industrial, but still capitalistic society in which waste is heavily minimized, if not essentially elminated from society, where sustainability and renewability and high efficiency is a central focus of industrial processes, and where the entire way of doing things would be adjusted within the framework of an industrialized world. I thought many of the ideas of this book were brilliant and well worth considering, and the ecological benefits would be self-evident to those who have already received an ecological education and who are living, as Aldo Leopold said, "alone in a world full of wounds" and to which I would add the word "grevious" before "wounds". Imagine being able to use this mindset to reform agriculture, too! Stan Moore _________________________________________________________________ >From predictions to trailers, check out the MSN Entertainment Guide to the Academy Awards® http://movies.msn.com/movies/oscars2007/?icid=ncoscartagline1
