The Relentless
Pursuit of Perfection
Lexus automobile with its commercials touting its commitment to “the relentless pursuit of perfection” may
lead us to believe that perfection is just a tweak or new gadget away. Look more deeply. See the little hedge word there? Pursuit.
That’s the same caveat that the founding fathers’ placed in the Bill of
Rights that accompanied our beloved Constitution. Recall that American’s are not guaranteed
happiness; rather, we have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.”
Happiness or the pursuit of it…that’s a big difference! It’s this kind of deep thinking that had me
considering another famous quote – “The
perfect is the enemy of the good.”
Although not a student of world history and literature – thus one reason
I won’t make a good Jeopardy! contestant -- I have often been drawn to the
quote attributed to Francois-Marie Arouet, a French writer, dentist, and
philosopher. You might know him more commonly
as Voltaire (his pen name).
Combining writing, dental, and philosophical thinking and
skill would, one might expect, yield eclectic if not break-through
thinking. In Voltarie’s case it clearly
resulted in magical output.
Pursuit vs. Reality
While I’m a big believer in that we should “shoot high” and “dream big,” if perfection is our only objective, we likely will spend most of our time in bitter disappointment. In reality, there are very few things in life where perfection is even the proper objective. Things like ensuring that a space capsule re-enters Earth’s atmosphere at the “perfect angle” might be among them. The difference between perfect and good enough in that instance is truly life or death.
While I’m a big believer in that we should “shoot high” and “dream big,” if perfection is our only objective, we likely will spend most of our time in bitter disappointment. In reality, there are very few things in life where perfection is even the proper objective. Things like ensuring that a space capsule re-enters Earth’s atmosphere at the “perfect angle” might be among them. The difference between perfect and good enough in that instance is truly life or death.
But, most of our decisions and most of our processes aren’t
that exacting. All of this thinking has
to do with the vitriolic debate going on across America as we seek to move to a
“better, more perfect place” as goes our energy production. As we look back on the all-too-fast retreat
of the 20th Century, we see the age of fossil fuels – one where oil,
coal, and natural gas allowed unprecedented development and movement but as we
know now, with some not insignificant downsides (movement of America’s wealth
to other not-so-friendly parts of the world and climate change, among them).
Playing to Strengths
We spent more than a century developing and deploying fossil fuels. With trillions in infrastructure investment, the shift to alternatives won’t come fast nor will it be simple. In short, we will have to go to increasingly more complicated sources of power and fuel production that the Southern Growth Policies Board in a 2009 reports says will “be highly diversified to address energy needs and capitalize on the unique resources of different regions. Each location needs to play to its strengths. This means that areas will need to develop their systems somewhat autonomous from the greater whole because there is a wide diversity of circumstances that affect the efficient production of energy. For example, wind power does best where windy conditions are prevalent, like in the U.S. Northern Plains, solar power does best at southern latitudes with little cloud cover throughout the year like in the U.S. Southwest, while wood-based energy does best where there are productive and abundant forests.”
We spent more than a century developing and deploying fossil fuels. With trillions in infrastructure investment, the shift to alternatives won’t come fast nor will it be simple. In short, we will have to go to increasingly more complicated sources of power and fuel production that the Southern Growth Policies Board in a 2009 reports says will “be highly diversified to address energy needs and capitalize on the unique resources of different regions. Each location needs to play to its strengths. This means that areas will need to develop their systems somewhat autonomous from the greater whole because there is a wide diversity of circumstances that affect the efficient production of energy. For example, wind power does best where windy conditions are prevalent, like in the U.S. Northern Plains, solar power does best at southern latitudes with little cloud cover throughout the year like in the U.S. Southwest, while wood-based energy does best where there are productive and abundant forests.”
Finding Acceptable Options
One of the conundrums in making the shift to suitable and acceptable alternatives is that no alternative is perfect. But, we must recall that the fuels we wish to shift from are not perfect either. The Endowment operates from a forest-centric perspective. One-third of America’s landscape is blanketed with trees. If we wish to keep those lands in forests, where they are privately-owned (the bulk of all forests), we need to provide markets and economic opportunity. Where forests are publicly held (exempting statutory wilderness, where nature is allowed to take its course) we need markets that provide economically-viable tools to maintain forest health.
One of the conundrums in making the shift to suitable and acceptable alternatives is that no alternative is perfect. But, we must recall that the fuels we wish to shift from are not perfect either. The Endowment operates from a forest-centric perspective. One-third of America’s landscape is blanketed with trees. If we wish to keep those lands in forests, where they are privately-owned (the bulk of all forests), we need to provide markets and economic opportunity. Where forests are publicly held (exempting statutory wilderness, where nature is allowed to take its course) we need markets that provide economically-viable tools to maintain forest health.
We believe that
wood-to-energy is one tool that can help achieve multiple objectives. It can help keep forests as forests, ensure
their health, provide rural family-supporting jobs, and all the while , in the
appropriate places and at the appropriate scales, do so while providing just a
small sliver of the answer to America’s and the world’s future renewable energy
needs.
To expect
wood-to-energy to be “perfect” – to have zero emissions and impacts – is
ludicrous. Society must weigh all
alternative energy options and not wait for the never-to-be-achieved perfection
as we test and develop acceptable alternatives.
We need to make progress toward a brighter and healthier future for
forests and for the people who steward as well as those who benefit from them.
Written by: Carlton Owen
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