Faith

I attended the Rocky Mountain Electrical League's Workshop on Carbon Issues. The focus of the workshop centered on what the electrical power industry thinks about carbon dioxide emissions. As it turns out, they think about it a lot. That thought is leading them to plan an unprecedented upheaval in the way the United States generates electricity. The cost of that upheaval will also be unprecedented, both for energy consumers and society. Paradoxically, the short term large scale beneficiary of that upheaval will be the natural gas business, not the nascent renewable energy business.

One of the strong impressions I carried away from that workshop is a renewed appreciation of how our lives and society are governed by faith. I define faith as that which we believe, but can not prove. Our workshop began with an excellent presentation by Randy Udall. Mr. Udall is a charismatic presence that powers his presentation about why carbon dioxide is a problem and the dire consequences of ignoring its increased presence in our environment.

Everything that Mr. Udall said however, depends on acceptance of his underlying beliefs regarding global warming. I stress the word, beliefs. While there is an ocean of data regarding carbon dioxide and global warming, there are multiple interpretations of that data. None of which show predictive power. Therefore, an objective person must conclude any interpretation of that data is faith, sometimes known as a hypothesis.

But Mr. Udall's presentation is the faith that our culture and government has accepted. Alternative ideas about climate are simply no longer treated seriously, at least in the circles of culture and government that matter. We have a faith, and that faith is global warming. A faith needs those who interpret the faith and tell us what that faith requires of us. That is Mr. Udall's job.

Interestingly, the people I knew at the workshop weren't persuaded that global warming was real, and that therefore carbon dioxide emission controls were not necessary. But as you might guess, they were all engineers. And in matters of faith, engineers are generally not welcome as we have a tendency to raise inconvenient observations. But we did not loudly voice our critical thoughts. Instinctively we know that we are dealing with faith, and official faith is always alert to heresy. Heresy is never good for your career. We may talk about foolishness over beers, but not in the presence of those who interpret the faith.

But as I look over our energy industry today, we are poised to embark on actions that will cost us dearly. Those actions may well be necessary, but we take that on faith.