Dear Editor,
Green Scotland would not be complete without some reference to the oldest energy source under direct human control - our own muscle power. A few simple figures serve to indicate the, now neglected, potential of this immediately usable energy resource.
Performing physical work at a sustainable rate - such as steady cycling at a reasonable speed in calm weather on a flat road - a fit adult person is the equivalent of roughly a 180-200 watt motor. Assuming that this output can be maintained for eight hours out of every twenty-four this means that 5bn people could - if they were all fit adults - together achieve a continuously available output of 8/24 of 5 billion times 180 watts; this works out to be about 300,000 megawatts - or the equivalent of, say, 150 big power stations. These figures indicate the scale of the muscle power output of which we are capable.
The ancients performed wonders with human and animal muscle power aided by simple mechanical devices - rollers, inclined planes, levers, pulleys and the rest but I am not so much concerned with constructional engineering as with social engineering - the purposeful structuring of our practice to serve social needs in ways that the blind forces of the market cannot be expected to achieve.
Let us be brutally frank; very many people are being zombified by watching too much telly and at the same time they are not getting enough exercise; their brains and their bodies are being softened by want of activity.
Let every TV be powered by a treadmill generator; then people would exercise more and watch with more discrimination. But, I hear you cry, what about the old, the ill and the infirm? What indeed? Make it a matter of a good turn for the day that young people should do community service treading away for the edification of unfit watchers. Baden Powell would approve of that. Young delinquents too should be made to do this for the physically disadvantaged and if people don't want young thugs in their houses then the offenders could be set to work on treadmill generators at secure battery charging centres.
There is also the tourist industry to think of. What fun it would be to tour the Greek Islands in a boat powered by galley slaves. These could be real offenders doing something useful or they could be young tourists working their passage. It would be better for them to have a bit of sun and sweat tourism rather than the sun and sex tourism now so much in vogue.
Such imaginative uses of People Power could meet health and social needs as well as being an intelligent use of a neglected natural resource.