Can Gore’s Climate Proposal Take Flight?
I heard Al Gore speak two weeks ago. For someone in my position, this was a bit like seeing Britney Spears or Angelina Jolie. Only I actually recognize Al Gore. The presentation was truly inspiring. In fact, I was moved to tears. The former Vice President and Nobel Prize laureate challenged the United States to transition to 100 percent carbon-free electricity in 10 years. And as I walked out of the auditorium, amid a mob of hundreds of other “climate fans,” I believed it could be done.
As Gore noted (and the Daily Kos confirms), we have the resources and the technology. Gore related scientific reports confirming “enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world’s energy needs for a full year.” Sure, we’ll need to perfect transportation and storage – but the potential is there. And with the right price on carbon, people will go the extra mile to work out the details. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy challenged America to land a man on the moon within 10 years. Eight years and two months later – on July 16, 1969 – the world listened as Apollo 11 lifted into the sky. Thirty-eight years later (almost to the day), Al Gore established a goal of equal magnitude – and I believe greater import. For one could argue that the fate of the Earth rests on accepting his challenge.
And for at least ten minutes, I was confident that America would rise to the challenge.
But as the crowd dispersed along the streets of Washington, D.C., I felt my own confidence dispel. Last December, Congress could not commit to providing 15% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. How can that same Congress pass a law requiring 100% renewable electricity by 2018? As Hank Green of “EcoGeek” writes, this is a “football-sized” pill to swallow. Will Congress actually prescribe such medicine for the American people? And will the public actually take it? For although this prescription is in the long-term interests of our country, there will be many disenfranchised patients along the way. As Green notes, the typical coal-fired power plant is designed to last 30-50 years. Power companies will not dismantle a plant prematurely without compensation. Sure, Gore acknowledged the need to “guarantee good jobs in the fresh air and sunshine” for all displaced coal miners, but that doesn’t account for the disenfranchised factory workers – and the vested interests – in maintaining those factories.
Gore invoked the Apollo mission as an example of American determination and ambition. Yet, in many ways, landing a man on the moon was an easier goal. For one, as Climate Progress notes, “the countries [sic] leadership could make landing people on the moon a goal is because there wasn’t a more powerful lobby to make sure that it didn’t happen.” And, as Cal Tech Chemistry Professor Nathan Lewis explains, “We already have electricity coming out of everybody’s wall socket,” whereas no one had ever been to the moon. Converting the existing electricity system is not like NASA sending a man to the moon for the first time, “It’s like finding a new way to send a man to the moon when Southwest Airlines is already flying there every hour handing out peanuts.”
I want to believe that Gore’s vision is achievable. After all, mankind has achieved the inconceivable in the past: Noah saved the world from destruction by constructing the ark. What do you think? Can Gore’s vision take flight – or is it simply an impossible dream?
Click here for a link to a video and text of Gore’s speech.
Click here for more on Gore’s inspirational campaign.
It’s next to impossible. But that doesn’t mean we should give up.
We’ll never know unless we try
Dear Jennifer
I enjoyed your posting on Gore’s proposal. But these days I confess to being somewhat bewildered about the prospects of short term gains from alternatives vs. efficiencies and other conservation efforts. I have solar on my roof, but I point out to my family that we achieve significantly greater energy savings by our conservation efforts (low
thermostat settings and no air-conditioning, my carpooling, shorter showers, water conserving efforts for dishwashing, cold water washing of
clothes, cfl’s etc.). My wife’s synagogue has solar on the roof, but significant greenhouse gas reductions result from efficiency efforts (and we
have pushed, through our local JCRC, to get all of the area synagogues and agencies to conduct audits).
I agree with the need to push on alternatives. My standard line now in discussing the Bush Administration’s resistance to a 15% target is to note that Texas is set to achieve this on its own in the next few years, due to the wind power program established during the administration of its former governor.
In any case, I found the following from Salon interesting on the conservation front. You may have addressed this in some of your previous postings. I was also intrigued by a recent NPR piece, in which
one engineer claimed that we could meet 20% of our electrical power needs from industrial waste heat. Even if he is exaggerating, and a more realistic figure is, say 10%, this would seem quite extraordinary.
It seems that in Europe, where pricing policies for energy are very different, that such efforts exist on a much larger scale than in the U.S. I am curious as to your thoughts.
Best regards
Michael Dine
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/07/28/energy_efficiency/print.html
Michael,
Thank you for your very insightful commentary. First, with respect to renewables – you are absolutely correct that Texas has adopted a renewable electricity standard. My records show that Texas has committed to 5.5% renewables by 2015 (though perhaps they are ahead of schedule as your post suggests). In fact, Texas is not alone — twenty-six states, plus Washington DC, have adopted renewable electricity standards. To see if your state is among them, visit the Union of Concerned Scientists database: http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/clean_energy_policies/res/overviewtargets.html
Despite these individual gains by states, however, I think it is essential that we adopt a uniform national policy. This predictability is very useful for industry – which needs to develop the technology to help us meet our renewables goals.
As for efficiency,I agree that it has to be part of the solution.
In fact, Environment America recently issued a White Paper on the tremendous potential for efficiency. Their analysis concludes that bthe country’s energy consumption could be cut by 11 percent by 2020 through simple building efficiency measures: http://environmentamerica.org/home/reports/report-archives/new-energy-future/new-energy-future/building-an-energy-efficient-america-zero-energy-and-high-efficiency-buildings
I don’t think these things are mutually exclusive. I think Gore’s proposal was intentionally “hyper-optimistic.” Let’s suppose we get to 50% renewables by 2050 (or 2018). We should also support other efforts to make our buildings more efficient. I think all of these assessments are about the “best-case scenarios.” Once you build in room for error (and the political process), we’ll have to use more than one approach to address climate change.
In the meantime, I’ll keep powering my home on home-grown wind power (http://coejlblog.blog.com/3130809/) … even though I replaced my 70-year old windows just last week!
The potential is enormously exciting, with new options arising constantly. Though I don’t know if this is feasible, I just read about solar panels that orbit the earth and beam down the energy: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/opinion/23smith.html?ex=1217649600&en=e8b2258a120e8179&ei=5070&emc=eta1
It seems to me that it’s all in the hands of the public. You would need a major public outcry to give Congress the cover to make it a reality. They have to be able to say to their lobbies: look, if I don’t do this, I’m not going to be re-elected no matter how much money you give me. It seems to me that that is what happened in the 70s with the clean air act, clean water act, creation of EPA, etc. And that same kind of public initiative is needed now.
I think that Al Gore took a major risk by asking for something so big. It troubles me that even environmentalists are asking themselves “is this something we can do?” If it doesn’t happen, I think it will really hurt us in the future because people will know that we make declarations without following up.
I feel there should have been an effort before the speech to galvanize support among the major environmental groups — including religious environmental groups — so that we wouldn’t be left wondering if this was a great idea or just a pipe dream.
That’s my two cents.
You make an excellent point about the risk of being overly ambitious. I plan to explore this more in my next post. For now, I’ll note that this was apparently Gore’s intent. The New York Times Blog Dot Earth (http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/the-annotated-gore-climate-speech/) calls Gore’s challenge “intentionally super-sized.” In the environmental community, I’ve often heard people in the “mainstream” groups (e.g., Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife) talk about how useful fringe groups like Earth First! are – since they make the maintstream demands more palatable. Perhaps this was Gore’s intent. That said, I understand your concern about losing credibility when one issues challenges that can’t be accomplished.
What makes Gore’s proposal additionally difficult is today’s rising gas prices and the sense of urgency that goes along with them. More and more people today are changing their minds about offshore drilling, thinking that it will lower the cost of fuel oil. Public opinion, especially during election time is going to influence the energy policy of our future president and according to this Times article, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/opinion/01krugman.html?ref=opinion, McCain changed his mind on the issue and now supports drilling. Gore and his supporters are up against a lot more than oil and business lobbies, they are up against the public, whom I think with clearer sense of the economics behind drilling (b/c that alone will not help the situation much or in the near future at that), will not give in to hysteria.