Mar. 19, 2012 Technology alone won't help the world turn away
from fossil fuel-based energy sources, says University of Oregon
sociologist Richard York. In a newly published paper, York
argues for a shift in political and economic policies to embrace
the concept that continued growth in energy consumption is not
sustainable. Many nations, including the United States, are
actively pursuing technological advances to reduce the use of
fossil fuels to potentially mitigate human contributions to
climate-change. The approach of the International Panel on
Climate Change assumes alternative energy sources -- nuclear,
wind and hydro -- will equally displace fossil fuel consumption.
This approach, York argues, ignores "the complexity of human
behavior." Based on a four-model study of electricity used in
some 130 countries in the past 50 years, York found that it took
more that 10 units of electricity produced from non-fossil
sources -- nuclear, hydropower, geothermal, wind, biomass and
solar -- to displace a single uni