This is a term that I’ve been pretty excited about for maybe nine months. At our meeting yesterday, Bill Moomaw gave me a book titled “Scaling Alternative Energy: The Role of Emerging Markets”, which I started to read on the way home. This idea is very exciting to me. Moomaw talked about the advantages of developing alternative energies in developing countries, because there is a scale factor, which I wished I had pushed him to talk more about so that I understand it better. Ben said that the interview went really well, and he’ll be able to tease out exactly what needs to be teased out. His confidence is reassuring to me.
From what I remember about scale from my environmental economics class, it is one of the factors to pay attention to as markets change to become more environmentally-friendly. From what I understand of what Professor Moomaw said yesterday to me, China and India are good places to develop these technologies, because a decision can be made centrally, and this has very wide effects because people are used to following these central decisions. also there are just a lot of people. This is why Courtney told me China was a major competitor when she worked at Second Wind.
It will be important to explain the scale factor in order to establish the importance of China in the clean energy movement. This is going above and beyond our story of: Hold on a second America! China is not so bad, think for a second about why you think it’s so bad. Also, this is the beginning of an argument that I am making all the time. Just because there is consensus about China issues in the U.S. news, doesn’t mean it’s got to be correct. There could be some inherent, deep-seeded bias that’s shared in the media–Ruibao Ren at Brandeis agrees with me. could be. Because news is consistent in the American system, does not mean it’s correct, and does not mean this news hold in all systems. Maybe there could be different news in a different system that conflicts with American news, but holds water equally well in its own system. This makes me think of Jim Fallows.
Bill Moomaw told us about how China is outpacing the West in a couple of really quantifiable ways, and the development of clean energies is one important way. This is going to be more and more important, as energy issues heat up (This is a clever comment.).
I went to a talk at Harvard yesterday with Eric Chivian and E.O. Wilson (!) about Chivian’s new book, “Sustaining Life”. Chivian made a point that my adviser at Brandeis made a long time ago, but I didn’t buy at that point.
Chivian connected biodiversity and conservation really explicitely for me (and reinforced my excitement about Obama). In order to protect BioD, we need to conserve spaces and protect habitats. These points are not difficult to connect. It’s the thought behind keynote species–that in order to save this cute panda, you need to protect its habitat. Keynote species are the ones that you want to exist in the world, just because it’s important that, somewhere, they exist, like the panda. The next point is the one that Chivian made yesterday that I was so struck by. He made it regarding bears, so I will do so as well. Bears don’t move all winter while they hibernate. They don’t eat and they don’t go to the bathroom. They also don’t get osteoporosis. We should learn how this happens, so we can develop medicines that utilize the same processes. There is no telling how many other human ailments have cures in the plant or animal world, and we will never know if they go extinct. Chivian used one very poignant example that I don’t remember. An animal went extinct directly after it was found that it was especially valuable medically.
The other part to this is that BioD is a good indicator of the effectiveness of conservation strategies. I didn’t ask anyone about BioD when I was in China. Bill Moomaw may know something about it, and we talk to him next week, but it’s really not his feild exactly. Would have been nice to have it mentioned previously. I should have listened more closely to Dan Perlman.
Yesterday I had scheduled an interview with Bill Moomaw of the Fletcher School’s Center for International Environmental and Resource Policy at Tufts. I lost sleep the night beforehand because I was excited and nervous! When I left for the meeting, I forgot part of the camera–the part that connects the microphone and the camera I think. I shouldn’t be trusted with these things–and so we rescheduled for next week at the same time. Jeff and I talked previously about how it’s important to be warmed up to the person you’re interviewing, and so I took the opportunity to talk to Professor Moomaw a little bit. It helped to make me more comfortable, anyway. Bill Moomaw is a big name.
Also, I got to meet Ben, the video editor. This is exciting for me, as it is the next person with whom I will work on this project. I told Ben I was a little bit nervous about this. It will be great, and I’m happy to have some fresh input because this was getting a little bit stale for me.
I’m happy for the dry run on the Moomaw interview. Ben helped to remind me what was productive about this meeting, which I’m happy for. This is the role that Jeff filled in China. good deal.
