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Three very compelling cases for tackling America’s dependence on fossil fuels and foreign energy (by extension, global warming) came across our media transom over the past week, each in different forms.
First, I got an email alert for a Business Week Special Report that prompted me to click on America’s Green Policy Vacuum. Next, I checked the ecorazzi blog and learned about the TED presentation of Al Gore’s New thinking on climate change. And just this morning, I took Vanity Fair’s Green Issue into my “office” and read Robert Kennedy Jr.’s manifesto, The Next President’s First Task (which is also available online). All share this common theme but make their case in different ways from different points of view, which is exactly what it will take to solve this hydra-like crisis.
Business Week is a call to action for government to catch up with clean tech investors and the rest of the world in developing renewable energy and taking advantage of the greatest economic opportunity in a generation. “The green economy could produce as many as 40 million jobs and $4.53 trillion in annual revenue by 2030.” This estimate is based on the assumption of “aggressive, sustained public policies at the federal and state level during the next two decades.” We certainly have nothing of the sort in place today, and BW speculates that we could “trade oil dependence for reliance on alternative energy products built by other nations already far ahead of [us].” That’s called going from bad to worse, which is precisely the path America is on if we and the next President don’t heed the messages of BW and Kennedy’s manifesto.
Whereas Gore’s new campaign draws comparisons to the heroic efforts and seemingly insurmountable odds faced by our forefathers and those who fought and died in WWII and the civil rights movement, Kennedy looks to the abolition of slavery by British Parliament more than 200 years ago.
“At that time slave commerce represented one-fourth of Britain’s G.D.P. and provided its primary source of cheap, abundant energy. Instead of collapsing, as slavery’s proponents had predicted, Britain’s economy accelerated. Entrepreneurs seeking new sources of energy launched the Industrial Revolution and inaugurated the greatest era of wealth production in human history.”
The analogy is fitting in many ways, since the challenge for America and all of humanity is to free ourselves from the slavery of fossil fuels. There was a time when I thought it wasn’t entirely possible, but I’ve been inspired by recent advancements in biofuels as well as the accomplishment of nations like Iceland, Brazil, and Sweden to dramatically or entirely become energy independent.
“[America] sits atop the second-largest geothermal resources in the world. The American Midwest is the Saudi Arabia of wind; indeed, North Dakota, Kansas, and Texas alone produce enough harnessable wind to meet all of the nation’s electricity demand. As for solar, according to a study in Scientific American, photovoltaic and solar-thermal installations across just 19 percent of the most barren desert land in the Southwest could supply nearly all of our nation’s electricity needs without any rooftop installation, even assuming every American owned a plug-in hybrid.”
In terms of laying the groundwork, Kennedy calls for a carbon cap-and-trade system and a massive upgrade of our electricity infrastructure. While Gore and many economists advocate for a carbon tax, Kennedy argues that “since it is precisely targeted, cap-and-trade is more effective than a carbon tax. It is also more palatable to politicians, who despise taxes and love markets. Industry likes the system’s clear goals.” I tend to agree, though the goal is the same: put a price on carbon.
“There’s a second thing the next president should do, and it would be a strategic masterstroke: push to revamp the nation’s antiquated high-voltage power-transmission system so that it can deliver solar, wind, geothermal, and other renewable energy across the country.” This solution is compared to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which ultimately brought you mass broadband, and Kennedy further paints the picture of a decentralized energy grid, where anyone is free to produce or consume the energy that makes most sense for them. It empowers the individual over large and inefficient utilities. It puts the tools of energy creation and entrepreneurship in the hands of anyone who wants to participate, and it emphasizes personal responsibility.
“Businesses and homes will become power plants as individuals cash in by installing solar panels and wind turbines on their buildings, and by selling the stored energy in their plug-in hybrids back to the grid at peak hours.”
It’s been 200 years in the making, but with enough political will and vision, we’ll enter the era of Energy 2.0.
1 response so far ↓
1 morizongreen // Apr 13, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Help is on the way…educated, world-traveler, eco-savvy, and only 20 years old, activist, Kelley Greenman, is diving into the policy of climate change. Check out NPR.org’s “A Climate ‘Policy Wonk’ in the Making”. It is Kelly and other of her generation that are challenging the theory that we’ve past the tipping point when it comes to global warming! And, its not only environmental issues that concern them, its social justice, as well…Kelly is a part of what we are calling the Blue Movement.
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