All or nothing or something in between

I saw a Chevron ad this evening that said if Paris wanted to power itself with wind power it would need 20,000 turbines and it showed a hat blowing by the Eiffel Tower with a huge turbine on it. I guess the point was to threaten us with the fact that it'd be a huge undertaking to use alternative fuels and oil is just so... here. And of course making the ad in Paris was the subtle hint that only frenchie, tree-hugging hippies like the environment.

That made me think of the saying that good things come through hard work and time but great things happen all at once. We do like to think in distinct, big step progressions. It's one thing then it's something completely different. It's not incremental, boring steps, that aren't noticeable until it's already happened. But that's just not the way life works. And it shouldn't be the way to approach life either. It's the only argument I hear the oil industry making: it'd take so much to replace oil. We're not thinking that far ahead, we just need little things.

We're not going to "litter" the landscape with wind turbines, or solar panels, or dams, but we'll have all these options, and oil, coal, biofuel, etc. working together. Solar panels on roof tops and in the deserts. Turbines on hilltops and off shore and water turbines under, well, water.
We're insulating our homes better, and using lower energy draining electronics, more and more, it's a progression. There'll be gas powered cars on the road 50 years from now. They'll just be in the minority.

So lets stop sweating the big stuff, always think globally about the future, but we can act locally today. By the way, there's a blue light special on compact fluorescent bulbs right now. When you're next bulb blows, be ready with one of those. It's not all that needs be done, but there's plenty to fill in the gap between all and nothing.