Conservationists Cannot Escape the Laws of Energy
By Warren BrownSunday, August 19, 2007; Page G02
Washington Post

I came here to discuss energy conservation with several engineers from General Motors. We wound up talking about religion.

That is not as far-fetched as it seems. It has everything to do with the laws of thermodynamics -- that energy can be changed from one form to another but cannot be created or destroyed; and that in all energy exchanges, absent the addition or subtraction of energy from a given system, the potential energy of the changed state will always be less than that of the initial state.

Engineers call the changed state entropy, a condition lacking heat or motion. Most of us refer to that condition as death, the end of what we commonly construe to be useful physical life.
It was in that context, over a luncheon of killed and cooked fish we were eating to fuel our bodies, that we ventured into a conversation about Christian religious beliefs and how, if we really accepted them as much as many of us claim we do, we would have a more realistic understanding of energy conservation and, thus, more realistic expectations of current conservation efforts.

To wit: We are managing the inevitable transformation of all physical life to something else, the change of energy from one form to another, the gradual movement toward entropy until what was is renewed or reenergized and turned into something else.

In spiritual terms, we refer to that exchange as the death of the physical body leading to the eternal life of the soul. For purposes of this discussion, it matters not that you personally accept that belief. What matters is that it is a prevalent notion, the basis of which is this: There is no free lunch. The fish we ate once lived. They died to feed our lives. For those of us who believe in eternal spiritual life, there is the concomitant belief that the only way we'll get there is by leaving this one.

In short, when it comes to energy use and conservation, trade-offs are inescapable.

Consider America's affection for gasoline-electric hybrid cars. Many in the media and in politics have hailed the devices as the answer to energy conservation and environmental stewardship in the transportation sector. In truth, they represent energy consumption and environmental problems in a different guise.

To read more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/16/AR2007081601183.html