The Man is not only keeping us down, he's got an annual 8.5 ton carbon footprint, more than double that of the average global citizen, according to a new paper released by an MIT professor and his class.
The Man, of course, is not actually a real person, rather it's the way that countercultural Americans have referred to "the system," particularly the established infrastructure of the country like the military-industrial complex, the civil government, and sundry other institutions that were viewed with disdain.The MIT class, in a paper (pdf) to be presented at the IEEE International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment, estimated that no American, even the homeless and itinerant Buddhist monks, could get their total "share" of energy usage below 130 gigajoules, which is more than twice the global average, and directly correlated with carbon footprint.
That's because the basic infrastructure of the United States including police, roads, libraries, courts, and the military were allocated equally to all citizens of the country. Thus, even if one's personal consumption in terms of purchased products and lifestyle were minimal, he or she would still bear their share of the systemic carbon load, according to the methodology of this study. In common terms, each and every US resident is carbon-heavier other countries' citizens.
This is at least not unexpectedly bad news. Most in the green movement already knew Americans weren't going to shop their way to a better environment. Changes had to come to the system, and be designed in at all levels.
"There's a certain amount you can do as an individual," said Timothy Gutowski, the MIT professor of mechanical engineering who lead authored the paper, "but if you recognize this is a system-wide problem, you need system-wide attention to the problem."
That's going to mean cleaner power, say, solar concentrating power plants plus wind. Better transportation options need to speed to market, probably smaller electric vehicles and smarter mass transit options.
Materials like cement and plastics need to be made with far less energy. Cities will have to be redesigned to reduce the need for commuting. More efficient ways of transmitting, storing, and using energy at the grid and home levels need to be mainstreamed. What we eat will have to change; the challenge will be making the future food taste as good as the corn-based delicacies that populate our menus now.
It's a big challenge, but Gutowski and his students have shed light on a major issue: if we want to lighten our impact on the environment, we have no choice but to get The Man to take action on the problems He's creating.
