It seems
some folks didn’t care for my last post. They reserved their comments for some
direct emails to me instead of using the comment button below, but hey, at
least it got some people thinking about the points I raised. I’ve been observing the efforts to get climate
policy in place for years. The climate hawks and enviros seem to prefer using messaging
that climate change is “scary” and that “people need to change their behavior”,
and pay more through taxes, appliance upgrades, etc. In other words, they mostly
spend a lot of time saying “Hey everyone, why don’t you start listening to Me!”
Meanwhile, they seem to be content to
allow the renewable energy profits to be controlled by the same companies that
control the energy industry now. Not a
recipe for building public support for stable renewable energy or climate policy.
It’s also not a recipe to get people thinking
about acting more sustainably. People
need to get their hands on renewable technology and “take that solar array out
for a spin”.
In Iowa,
that strategy has played out by allowing most of our wind energy to be owned by
Warren Buffet, who hasn’t parked his coal train or shut down his coal plants.
Conservative
messaging seems focused on the cost of mitigating climate change, acknowledging
climate change is occurring, but denying humans are causing it, not picking
winners in energy technology, and preserving status quo. Again, Advantage MidAmerican Energy, owned by Buffet.
I promised
no zombies in this post, so let’s look at some articles by folks who are truly using
their brains to think about what we should do.
First, does
anyone see a trend here? The public seems to be more polarized and ginned up
than ever, making legislative progress on this issue seem unlikely, while the
renewable energy profits keep going to a lot of the same companies that are responsible for most
of our co2 emissions. Both of our political
party’s seem to be doing an equally poor job of looking out for the little guy
on this issue. Here’s an interesting
post by R J Eskow , who thinks he knows why.
Next, Chris
Nelder seems to think that climate hawks need to change their messaging as
well. Check out his post - “To change behavior around energy scarcity
and climate change, focus on transitions and solutions, not danger and loss.” Chris also had an interesting recent post
titled - Obama’s
new climate plan isn’t nearly enough,
in which he maintains - “clamping down
on emissions is the wrong strategy”. “It engenders direct resistance from the
fossil fuel industry, which is firmly entrenched and prepared for that battle
after decades of fighting it. Instead of trying to stuff up the tailpipe, we
should focus on what fuel we put into the engine.
A third reason is that stifling emissions
will not automatically create an alternate energy supply. It might just result
in rising power prices and leave us struggling to maintain adequate supply
while flirting with grid outages.”
And sure
enough, an internet search turned up Britain
turns to DR and distributed generation to solve its power woes. It seems that countries growing reliance on
wind coupled with strict carbon mandates may cause power shortages in a couple
years. Distributed generation to the rescue!
Chris is a
proponent of widespread ownership of renewables, using a national feed in tariff
and “climate Judo” (great one Chris!) to advance renewable and climate
policy. Using your opponent’s weight against
him seems to be a viable option when you read How
the far right developed an unlikely interest in solar energy. Which examines how fossil fuel companies in
the state of Georgia and Australia were thwarted in their attempt to gut renewable
energy policy by conservatives.
And,
finally, just to prove that you NEVER know what an internet search engine will
turn up, and the fact that I’m still trying to better entertain blog visitors,
here’s a link to quite a new agey post- Greed Ate
Winter. - “A foundational aspect
of Buddhist teaching is that suffering comes from greed, hatred, and delusion,
hence the reference - our collective greed leads to excess consumption, and
therefore emissions, and therefore climate change.”
Hmmmm… It
seems to me that this locally owned wind – solar- biomass idea just might help
channel that “greed energy” into a more healthy care for the environment and a
better sustainable and stable financial future. It might also get us talking TO each other, instead of PAST each other.
I put his
post together pretty fast, so be gentle. However, I’ve been thinking lately of
the quote “Insanity:
doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”,
attributed to Albert Einstein.
Frankly, it’s
way past high time for a new discussion of this issue.
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