When you go to the supermarket, you may be the kind of person who looks at the ingredients written on the packaging. Often you can also find the number of calories and the amount of fat in the product. But what you won't find is the amount of energy required to bring that product to the store: the cost to fly bananas to Europe; the energy needed to process and can vegetables; and the energy required to keep fish in the supermarket's frozen food section.

The Swiss publication énergie environnement, Number 14 (in French), refers to this hidden energy -- energy that is used but that we never see -- as énergie grise, which literally translates to gray energy.

The distance that an item has to be shipped is one aspect of hidden energy. The further away the food is grown, the more energy is required to transport it. Asparagus flown to Europe from California uses 12 times more energy than asparagus grown in France. Transporting by airplane uses roughly three times as much energy as transporting by ship.

Another aspect is the time of year: Is it currently the normal growing season for those vegetables you are buying, or have they been raised in greenhouses that are lit and heated? Even local greenhouses use lots of energy: Tomatoes grown in a Dutch greenhouse require three times more energy than tomatoes grown outdoors in Spain.

It is often said these days that the planet cannot bear the burden of everyone in the developing world owning as many cars, refrigerators, and other consumer goods as Americans, Europeans, or Japanese on average do. From the standpoint of global justice and equality, however, the solution cannot be a system of consumer apartheid that upholds western binge habits but denies the poor a decent standard of living. Instead, the rich need to curb their outsized material appetites.

Source: State of the World 2004

Some technology advocates do not actually come out and say it, but they strongly imply that advances in technology will solve our environmental problems, and that we in the developed world can continue to lead our lives of relative luxury. But they ignore the fact pointed out in the quote above: Considering the environmental damage that the developed North is inflicting on the planet, imagine what will happen when China and India, which together account for over 30% of the world's population, develop a middle-class. They aspire to a consumer lifestyle currently held up by the North -- and particularly the U.S. -- as the model for a modern society.

Welcome to www.jimrudolf.com, a site that has been up and running, but devoid of content, for almost a year.

The main goal of this site is to be a learning platform -- mainly for me, but perhaps for others as well! Some of the learning will be in the context of developing the software that powers the site. But most it will be in the area of sustainability and related topics. This can include a wide range of subjects, as diverse as the following:

• Global equality: One of the best ways to reduce terrorism is to ensure that every human being has the basics: food, water, shelter, democracy, health care, education. In other words, reason to hope. This is possible only after global inequities (between developed North and underdeveloped South) as well as inequities within countries are addressed.
• Redefining economic profit: The North's current economic model strives to employ as few people and produce as many goods as possible. This economic model needs to be adjusted to respect the health of the planet as well as every person's right to meaningful work.
• Democracy by the people: Governments must be accountable to their citizens and not to special interests and multinational corporations.
• Eat locally: Buying locally-raised meat and produce supports local farmers and reduces or eliminates costs of transportation, processing and packaging.