All Comments on 'The Greening of America - 2021'

You have encapsulated the essence of the energy conservation "problem" very nicely. Everyone can agree that the concept of conservation is valuable. But when it cripples human productivity (or human life as in your extreme example, here), the focus has become warped and ultimately counterproductive.

There is another piece which you have subtly identified. In a world of drabness and enforced sacrifice for the common good, who gets the cushy jobs and luxurious offices? The people in charge! The people who get to tell everyone else how much THEY must "conserve" for the collective benefit.

This is an excellent piece of writing.

-- KK in Texas

I can really see Gore and the Eco-Freaks in action. You do remember getting rid of paper bags because they cut the renewable tree and changed to plastics that did not biodegrade. You remember changing the Freon in air conditioners to save the atmosphere to another type which damaged it much more than the first. You remember 25 years ago when Newsweek and Time preached at us saying the Earth was in another ice age. Do you remember the headlines of just a few weeks ago saying they were wrong about the global ice caps melting if we did not elect Gore. You remember the Polar Bears on the melting ice in a picture taken in mid summer. You remember all of the hurricanes that struck the US in the last two years? no?

You do remember Gore flying the in large private jets while a company he started sells the carbon footprints to other fools. BTW any footprints need to be added to each year becasue the footprint sold as an excuse was for energy used last year, we used trhat energy and will use moer this year, so we need new carbon exchange not just counting trees planted last year. Each year news the entire new conservation cycle to begin again the energy used last year is gone & it starts again.

The eco-freaks will always find a way for other people to pay for their usage.

Jenny,

I could really see the tree huggers doing this. Hell they already think the solution to all problems would be to eliminate humans. Except themselve of course, they "understand". I've heard that one before from a guy named Adolph.

The liberals take over the government and write eco-friendly legislation. Then the conservative get it back, and, in order to protect the energy lobby, they enforce the new laws with an iron fist. How lovely. I'm assuming the energy collector was made by Halliburton?

Your worlds are always so vivid, and you accomplish it in so few words. Excellent tale ^_^

Funny thing is that people in Europe manage to have an equal, in some aspects better quality of life than many people in the US, all with substantially lower per capita energy consumption. (United States per capita energy consumption in kilograms of oil equivalent per person in 2003: 7,794.8 European average at the same time: 3,698.9. Even cold, oil producing Norway only has 5,933.6, Germany and France were in the 4000s, Finland got close at 7,218.1. Now if the US consisted only of Alaska....)

And looking at figure 1 of this report: https://e-reports-ext.llnl.gov/pdf/239193.pdf

from a per capita annual electricity use of 4000 kWh onward, the human development index doesn't increase in any significant fashion.

Maybe you should just stop declaring being stuck in the mid 20th century "quality of life" and move on. The whole power distribution system in the US, which in large parts befits a developing country, is wasting a lot of energy already.

Once you learn that "efficient" means doing the same, with the same level of comfort, but using less resources, and not stripping oneself bare, you'll have made a large step into the 21st century.

No sex, no fun, and no real point to this story, is there?

Some might say Kafka-esque, but it reminds me of Soviet short stories from the eighties that I've read. Nice job.

I was fearing the worst and hoping for the best all through the story. I'm quite impressed.

Just the kind of biting satire that one can expect from this author.

scary end...

i would hope that new sources of energy are found, and ways to save energy in a better way, that something like this won't happen...

I hope you are well off the mark but, it seems things are getting worse and worse each day.

... for a reason. While this story is SciFi (or horror!), it is most definitely NOT erotic. I would expect someone who is able to write such a well-crafted story to understand the category descriptions. So, why didn't you post it where it belongs (non-erotic!)?