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Al Gore, Clean Energy and A Better Nation
Normally, I try to think in planetary terms and avoid parochial nationalism, so it's somewhat ironic that today a global perspective actually leads me to believe that what happens in America over the next 18 months is the most important global uncertainty we face. As we choose how to confront a host of planetary problems -- especially climate change -- will we have an America that leads or drags?
Al Gore stood up and showed what an America determined to lead would look like last week when he delivered a sharp speech calling for a bold policy -- the complete conversion of our electrical supply to renewable sources within ten years:
There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the challenge of a present danger. In such moments, we are called upon to move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big changes. Those who, for whatever reason, refuse to do their part must either be persuaded to join the effort or asked to step aside. This is such a moment. The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk. And even more -- if more should be required -- the future of human civilization is at stake.
I don't remember a time in our country when so many things seemed to be going so wrong simultaneously. Our economy is in terrible shape and getting worse, gasoline prices are increasing dramatically, and so are electricity rates. Jobs are being outsourced. Home mortgages are in trouble. Banks, automobile companies and other institutions we depend upon are under growing pressure. Distinguished senior business leaders are telling us that this is just the beginning unless we find the courage to make some major changes quickly. The climate crisis, in particular, is getting a lot worse -- much more quickly than predicted.
...Yet when we look at all three of these seemingly intractable challenges at the same time, we can see the common thread running through them, deeply ironic in its simplicity: our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges -- the economic, environmental and national security crises. We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change. ...The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels.
This is vision. Make no mistake. We need a clean energy economy: such innovation will slash U.S. emissions (especially if our transportation system electrifies), will bolster the American economy, will spur development of renewables around the world, and will help reduce geo-political tensions. Clean energy is a critical solution.
But there's a problem here as well. The problem with Gore's speech is its single-answer clarity, it's attempt to boil down our problems into their most important part. Renewables may or may not be "the lynchpin" of a sustainable society, but they are clearly far from the only answer.
“We need to make a big, massive, one-off investment to transform our energy infrastructure," Gore told a reporter. That's true.
But it's only part of the truth: that we need a series of parallel "big, massive, one-off investments." The problems we face will not be solved with one big effort, even a big effort on the scale of the lunar landings or the War on Poverty. The problems we face will only be solved by a wholesale transformation of many interlocking systems at once -- a transformation that aims to overcome many problems at once.
Do we need wind farms and solar arrays? Yes! But we also need to redesign our cities, so that we're able to grow green, dense, walkable communities that let us change our transportation systems, redefine our architectural practices and recreate our infrastructure.
We need revolutions in farming, fishing and forestry, one that makes sure that the food we eat, the clothes we wear and the materials we use are healthy and sustainable -- and we need better stewardship of the public lands and waters we all rely on.
We need a new relationship to water, water supplies and water consumption.
We need transformed product designs, new industrial processes, green metals systems, green chemistry and zero waste solutions to the garbage we create.
We need a massive wave of innovation, right now, in every single part of America's material civilization.
And we won't get that without a massive transformation in how this country works. We need tax reform (towards green taxes), new regulations, intellectual property reform, campaign finance reform, a restoration of our lost rights and judicial reform (to restore the integrity of our legal system), a huge move towards governmental transparency and the democratization of information, and active support for citizen media and public foresight. We need a new culture of corporate accountability, financial reforms to stabilize the system and restore confidence, an explosion of entrepreneurial energies and spurs to innovation (like new R+D investment incentives, competitive prizes, university research funding and the like). We need social innovation throughout our society, finding new ways to help people who are currently trapped in this nation's scandalous combination of poverty, debt, joblessness, lack of education and lack of health care to become people who are helping to create and build the solutions. That will take green collar jobs, sure, but also civic empowerment, labor rights and legal protections for those at the bottom; not only health care reform but a restored priority on public health; social marketing and community education to spread new innovations, and an overall focus on social well-being and human development, rather than merely GDP, as the measures of our success. In all these fields, radically successful models can be found around the world.
Bob Herbert tells of a Rockefeller Foundation poll finding that nearly half of 18- to 29-year-olds “feel that America’s best days are in the past.” That pessimism will be well-founded if we fail to realize that we have left behind us the time for incrementalism, for issue silos, for short-term thinking, for single answers.
The alternative is to engage a catastrophic moment with the politics of optimism. Existence is the ultimate proof of the possible, and we know that new solutions and better models exist now which answer nearly every problem we face. In most cases, we even know that employing these solutions together lowers their costs and increases their efficacy. It pays to think big.
And thinking big is also the only way we can restore American leadership on the international stage. As Al says, we must move first.
No one should underestimate the immediacy of the crisis or the scale of the work ahead, but we shouldn't let either frighten us into inaction. We have it in our power to remake this nation, and lead the world out of a moment of grave crisis. That alone should make it worth doing, but in this case, there's more -- because if we succeed at remaking America, we'll end up with the kind of country most of us want to live in, a country that's wealthier and more secure, sure, but also more creative, more dynamic and more in line with our core values of liberty and justice.
So as we start this journey, maybe it'll help to keep in mind Alasdair Gray's motto, "Work as though you lived in the early days of a better nation." Or, even, a better planet.
Photo: Windfarm outside of Walla Walla, WA, Creative Commons credit.
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(Posted by Alex Steffen in Features at 1:08 PM)
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