What can be counted?
If we take down our clothesline and buy an electric clothes dryer, the electric use of the nation rises slightly. If we go in the other direction and replace the dryer with a clothesline, the consumption of electricity drops slightly, but there is little credit given anywhere on the graphs to solar energy which is now drying our clothes.
If we depend on the more customary old-fashioned uses of solar energy like growing food, drying clothes, sun bathing, or warming a house with south facing windows, the sun credit is virtually ignored.
Driving a motorcycle would show the gasoline consumed in the nation’s energy budget. But if we get a horse to ride and graze the horse on range nearby, the horse’s energy which we used does not appear in anyone’s energy accounting.
(We do note the obvious: our hydro-electric power is solar energy no older than our weather patterns and that coal and natural gas are all solar products stored ages ago by photosynthesis.)
As Einstein points out, we do tend to underestimate and devalue the things that we can’t precisely measure or price or even guess at with certainty.
It is worth remembering that even if we can’t derive a formula for exactly how and at what cost the sun and wind did their magic, after a couple of hours the clothes are indeed dry!
So…let’s think on those things that count for us, even if they can’t be counted!