Editorials

...By 1983 the summer peak demand for electricity was 40 percent lower than had been projected in 1973...

...Proper insulation, efficient appliances, and triple-glazed windows could save energy and help forestall the need for new power plants...

...Talk of Israel's losing its "democratic soul" is countered by reminders about Israel's obligation not to "commit suicide...

...With elections, Palestinian mayors might be restored to their positions of influence within the region...

...Japan, highly dependent on imported fuel, spends a mere 4 percent of its GNP for energy to our 10 percent...

...They include hydro and wave power, wood, solar, thermal, wind, organic plant and waste sources...

...The attack by Al Fatah on an Israeli bus was a terrorist act showing the PLO's anxiety about maintaining its influence in the-uprising...

...Apply pressure on Israel, the Arab countries, and the PLO to negotiate for a settlement-rand mean it...

...The riots now raging within Israel are an eruption of frustrated nationalism...

...And last year alone, we Used 35 percent less oil and'gas in producing the nation's GNP than we had in 1973...

...What can the United States do...

...COMMONWEAL A light in the attic The energy crisis of the 1970s made this country take a deep look at itself...

...But contemplate the scenarios of escalating conflict and then reconsider the implausible and the incredible...

...But two things are sure...

...Conservation tax credits were excised, and the work of PURPA was stalled...

...Carbon monoxide pollution and acid rain, both produced by the burning of coal, are altering the earth's climate...

...As the Palestinian death toll has mounted steadily, so has the solidarity of the Palestinian resistance-its most recent manifestion, the resignation of half of the Arabs serving as policemen in the occupied territories...

...Perhaps...

...In Japan, companies with high energy consumption have full-time energy managers...

...A consortium of power companies in the Northwest now treats efficiency and new generating capacity equally, requiring conservation where it is more cost effective...

...A consensus must be reached about what constitutes a legitimate response to the rioters...

...Most immediately the Israelis must devise a strategy that distinguishes between the current uprising and terrorism...

...This initiative and its timetable for negotiations may be overly ambitious, given the refusal of Palestinian leaders to meet with Secretary of State George Shultz during his recent Middle East trip...

...The Department of Energy (DOE) now predicts that the U.S...

...Those, in fact, are the main ingredients of a sound national energy policy...

...as guarantors of a "secure peace" for Israel...

...Creative and dramatic gestures are called for...

...The adequate provision of energy is the right of all...

...power needs will continue to be tied to coal and nuclear production far into the next century, renewable and ecologically sustainable sources of energy are available and merit development...

...The present response has neither quelled the Palestinians, nor helped the Israeli cause...

...Mass transit was deemphasized, stronger mileage requirements for new cars were delayed, the speed limit was allowed to rise, and U.S...

...It is little wonder we have stationed twenty-five thousand members of our military in the Persian Gulf region...

...Domestic production is down (and will remain so), while consumption is being encouraged...

...Then there was conservation in the home and in the workplace...

...Congressional pressure to settle the question of Palestinian rights is in Israel's long-term interests...

...The commercial aviation industry increased its fuel efficiency by half...

...Arab leaders can facilitate and mediate contending Palestinian and Jordanian interests...

...Still, the U.S...

...efforts in the final months of a lame-duck presidency are commendable and crucial...

...They can join the U.S...

...After the Chernobyl accident, for example, Sweden decided to phase out all of its nuclear reactors, and to make up the shortfall by stressing efficiency and conservation...

...senators who publicly objected to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's lack of cooperation with the Shultz proposal may have overstepped their role in making foreign policy, but it is exactly such an out-of-the-ordinary move that may bring the contenders to see the limits of their intransigence...

...Divisions among Israeli leaders are mirrored in the American Jewish community...

...Acid rain, which kills lakes and forests, has been afforded little more than study by the Reagan White House...

...While oil as a source of generating electricity declines in the U.S., our chief modes of electrical production (coal and nuclear) continue to produce serious side effects...

...alone...

...They must reach a consensus about an alternative form of government for the occupied territories and then secure guarantees for defensible borders...

...And it will be achieved only by fostering conservation and the development of those renewable forms of energy which are environmentally respectful of the whole earth...

...This who-cares attitude in the administration, combined with lower prices for imported oil has eroded the valuable ground gained during the nation's effort at conservation...

...In the case of Israel, for example, it needs to become clear that our $3 billion annual package of aid and subsidies could be reassessed...

...More important, the 1978 Public Utility Regulating Policy Act (PURPA) helped inspire a host of local generating capacities that by law could sell their excess production to the larger utilities...

...Within a decade our automobiles averaged 26 mpg rather than 16...

...Japanese steel mills are 30-50 percent more efficient than a decade ago, which translates into a price advantage for Japanese products...

...Before joining this chorus of doom, we suggest there are some steps that could bring the impasse to the negotiating table...

...The State Department must think about how to include the PLO in negotiations, and continue behind-the-scenes diplomatic efforts toward that end (Secretary Shultz should climb aboard the diplomacy shuttle...

...energy research and development were permitted to fall to last place among the industrialized nations...

...The Arab nations: Work with Arab leaders who are willing to recognize the legitimacy of and the need to cq-exist with Israel and who are willing to negotiate rather than support terrorist tactics...

...The Worldwatch Institute reports that more energy leaks through American windows each year than flows through the Alaskan pipeline...

...COLLEGES & RACISM...

...Find out who represents Palestinian aspirations by cultivating local political leadership...

...The Solar Energy and Energy and Conservation Bank was eliminated...

...Gasoline consumption was reduced by 20 billion gallons a year, much of it imported from abroad...

...Many of them have the added advantage of minimizing carbon monoxide pollution...

...Incredible suggestions...

...Whereas the U.S...

...Allow the return of recently deported Palestinian leaders...

...With a proper balance of government credits and market incentives, these could offer flexible aggregates of affordable energy...

...Hold elections in Gaza and the West Bank to find leaders for the semi-autonomous Palestinian state...

...With federal tax credits as an incentive, 28 million Americans claimed conservation exemptions from 1979 to 84...

...It came not aboard a Trojan tanker, but was spawned at home by the Reagan administration's anti-policy policy...

...Freeze Israeli settlements in the occupied zones, while working out a plan for incremental Palestinian autonomy...

...As a result, the region will be able to avoid new plant construction until 1998...

...Loosening the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock will not be easy...

...Nuclear energy, once thought to hold the key to America's energy future, has faltered: poor management, plant accidents, waste disposal problems, rising costs, and general public disenchantment...

...That's why Congress ought to rescind its pre-uprising decision to close the PLO observer mission to the UN...

...Not all solutions will be as equally easy...

...While the DOE is predicting a resurgence of nuclear power in the mid-1990s, other reliable analysts believe that nuclear power will produce less power in the year 2000 than it does now, both here and world-wide...

...A POSSIBLE PEACE The world has watched, for four bloody months, while Palestinian riots in the West Bank and Gaza have been met by beatings, bullets, and broken bones...

...The thirty U.S...

...Government support of renewable energy and efficiency projects has ended...

...While U.S...

...Possibly...

...What can Israel do...

...The response was positive: a combination of individual restraint, a willingness to tailor new forms of energy provision, and a s& of government guidelines and incentives...

...imported 10 million barrels of oil a day in 1977, our all-time high, by the start of the Reagan era we had cut that figure in half...

...The Reagan administration quickly began to engineer a U-turn...

...We realized that we were not only squandering our resources, but polluting and threatening our environment...

...Many voices, too many voices, are saying it can't be done...

...Its political leaders must agree among themselves that continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is impossible...

...The figures are nowhere more evident than in the turnaround in oil import figures...

...Such independent enterprises now produce annually $5 billion worth of energy...

...Over 5.4 billion tons of carbon are added to the atmosphere annually, 23 percent of it from the U.S...

...Implausible scenarios...

...So is acknowledging the role the PLO can be expected to play in any regional settlement...

...Israel needs negotiating partners within the Palestinian ranks...

...will again be importing 8 to 10 billion barrels a day by the mid-1990s...

...The U. S. has seized the moment to push for an international conference to negotiate a "land-for-peace" settlement...

...But we are now in the midst of a second energy crisis, more insidious than the first because it has yet to produce gas lines and summer brownouts...