Harvard Magazine has a good survey article that discusses various actions that we can take right now here in the States that will minimize our dependence on fossil fuel, start to decrease our contribution to climate change and save our economy some serious money.

From the beginning of the article:

“I shall argue that by changing the way we fuel our cars and light trucks—by switching from continued reliance on hundred-year-old, internal-combustion-engine technology to a combination of oil and electrically powered transportation—we could reduce our dependence on imported oil and lower our emissions of CO2, and we could effect this transition at a net savings for the U.S. consumer. The key is to build on the success of the hybrid technology introduced by Japanese auto manufacturers (notably Toyota and Honda) in the 1990s.”

The article goes on to discuss the various options available and the consequences that each has in the three areas listed in the title.

It ends with a caution that any systemic change is going to be difficult given the entrenched economic interests of that want to see the present fossil fuel dependence continue. But it may be that, given an increasingly brittle supply chain, that resistance will end up being futile…

Read the rest here.

Thanks to Ann Fontaine for the tip. (Which I gratefully receive, in spite of the fact that the article was published in Harvard Magazine…)