BUH-BYE BAN — MORE GAS!
Lifting the 4 decade-long US crude oil export ban was a part of a “Grand Deal” to fund the government and get some Democratic wins, including getting renewable energy tax incentives extended. As Bill Mc Kibben observes, it is hypocrisy (and bad policy in so many ways). With the Paris accords, "solemn and pious talk about saving the planet”, Bill wants a word for such “simultaneous hypocrisy” — I’ll try to think of a word, but the essence of that, with regards to the planet, I suggest, is encapsulated in the phrase “F**k the planet, F**k you very much”. That, because it will be “Frack, baby, frack.”
As Bill points out, it’s ultimately about the math of the physics. It’s as inescapable as driving a car too fast, approaching a cliff. This deal steps harder on the gas pedal. It’s the wrong thing to try to bargain with. While the deal is one step forward for renewable energy, it’s a larger step backwards toward the cliff (108 million new cars, or 135 coal-fired power plants). I’m not sure what other poker chips the Democrats could “cash in” or “sell out”, but make NO mistake, this was a costly, costly “victory”. Costly for our future. Very costly to our children’s future, and very, very costly to their progeny, our (civilization’s) future. This is a fracking 100 megaton carbon bomb.
BAU and BAU
I agree with Republican Representative Ann Wagner of Missouri who said ...
the proposal to lift the crude oil export ban ‘is huge’ and would have a ‘much bigger’ effect than building the Keystone XL pipeline.
US exports could become 467,000, 500,000, or more (one estimate is 2,300,000) barrels a day. It will be a fracking frenzy. Compare that to Keystone’s 830,000 barrels a day (click here for why Keystone would have been 1% of giga-death), some of would moved by rail. Beyond the sheer carbon pollution — the actual speed of the car — (Keystone’s is 125,000,000 metric tons of CO2 a year), look at what each says about the throttle. If Keystone was approved, it would have been a blow to the climate movement, but it would have been Business As Usual (BAU) for pipelines. Lifting the crude export ban is Business As Usual for governments. Problems in the future are hard to prioritize. So, there is a lack of urgency, certainly compared to the scope of climate crisis. As BIll says
“perhaps it’s time for the movement to worry a little less about the feckless politicians and a little more about the guys pulling their strings”.
So I’m upset and angry that Dems made what I consider a “Devil’s Deal”. But maybe it was the best deal to be had. Personally, I think if the Dems felt the weight of history, the scope of this struggle, heard the voices of their great-great-great-grandchildren, then they would have bargained something else to get both renewables and keep the oil in the country. They would be relentless in eliminating emission and sunsetting fossil fuels. They would be stomping on the brakes. As politicians, the temperament of the body politic and money are principal drivers. The level (lack) of public concern for the climate, IMHO, made this deal acceptable, even sensible. Compare this to the resolve of WWII, which is broadly a similar scope…
RENEWABLE INCENTIVES PHASE OUT — OIL SUBSIDIES FOREVER
I will say, the Dems did not make the best deal regarding renewables tax incentives. By agreeing to phase them out, they will be dying:
Still, there is some concern about the tax credit being phased out. The extensions include 2015, so the five-year period only runs through 2019 and their values start getting reduced after 2016. The PTC currently provides for a tax credit of 2.3 cents for each kilowatt-hour generated over a 10-year period.
According to the budget deal, the PTC and ITC are extended through 2016, but then continue at 80 percent of present value in 2017, 60 percent in 2018, and 40 percent in 2019. As before, the rules will allow wind and solar projects to qualify as long as they start construction before the end of the period.
While it’s something in the short-term, this step down practically guarantees that any following renewables deal will be non-existent or weak. This, at a time when we should be maximizing these- applying brakes. Oil subsidies should have been on the table — taking the foot of the pedal. Tit for tat. More sacrificing the future, for the short-term. Costly.
DAILY KOS AND AMERICAN CLIMATE APATHY
So the Dems didn’t have a high level of political capital from public sentiment, demanding climate action. While there is concern for the climate, it hasn’t risen to be a central priority. Climate apathy, in this sense, is even here at DK — it’s a present, but not a predominate or central issue. While we are all fighting for very worthy causes, climate is more than a little different from the rest — it has a clock. Like a car headed to a cliff, this one has the urgency of math. The physics of the planet won’t wait. As David Roberts says, that "Climate change is not 'a story,' but a background condition for all future stories." ISIS? Exacerbated by climate change. Katrina, Sandy, wildfires, pests and diseases, also. All progressive issues will suffer under the chaos and suffering of food shortages, drought, heat waves, floods, sea rise and extreme storms. What if in any progressive issue, a physical process made any issue worse, year after year, but we could stop it by choosing how we power our cars and homes?
Maybe I am preaching (or pleading) to the choir, but if climate isn’t a central or context issue to all of us at DK, it certainly won’t become one in the general public.
SLOWING THE CLIMATE JUGGERNAUT RANT
Bill’s 3 things from the Oil Ban Ban:
- Elect fewer oil soaked politicians
- “Watch the world’s capitals like hawks”
- “Clip the wings of Exxon and its ilk.”
The real bad guys here are the oil companies, though the (mostly) Republicans carrying their water for them are a close second. I’m sure they are personable people, but anyone in the oil business or for oil politics, should admit to themselves that what they are doing for their livelihood is sacrificing the future of generations to come. We, the public and our leaders, must come to understand that the oil business is killing us and killing the future for the children of the future. If an industry was found to be poisoning the world, we would, of course stop that industry (witness ozone vs Freon). Well, this industry is powering the world, and it still needs to be phased out quickly for its clean replacement. Divesting, even couched in financial reasoning, pulls social currency from oil companies. Its past time to revoke their social license. It’s past time for a just transition to clean energy for workers and frontline communities.
Climate change is not for a generation or two, it’s for tens of thousands of years. If we are relying on our smarts, our science and technology to save the day, we had better listen to the science now. By far the best way to fix the global warming problem is to not warm the planet. It’s too late for some warming. The “inertia” of the carbon in the air now will warm the planet for centuries. While many know this, few act like this is important.
RANT FOR YOUR CLIMATE ACTION
Ultimately, that is my point. The lifting of the ban indicates it simply wasn’t valued as a levee against the growing tide of carbon pollution — a case of “a little more won’t hurt so much”. Adding to the climate debt, pushing harder on the gas pedal, should be the last thing that progressives (actually, anyone rational) should accept. Paris accords give us an opportunity, working around the Republican roadblock, but we have to lean in hard to make voluntary goals happen— what’s been called “the moral imperative of our time”. In that light, America supplying oil to the world, when we weren’t, constitutes a moral outrage (think, blood of children)— another cost of this deal.
Here’s my 3 things, especially for progressives:
- Put climate action higher in your priority stack — include climate calls to actions
- Find the resonance between climate and your principal issues: How does a chaotic climate impact your issue?
- Connect the dots organizationally — Climate coalitions should be the biggest tent around. 350.org, or your local 350 group is a great place to start.
With a louder climate drumbeat from issue leaders, from the Pope to you and me, we can take the foot off the gas pedal and stomp on the brakes. We can avoid the worst of the climate cliff. We just have to highly value not driving off the cliff and f**king up our future. Never again sacrifice the world’s future with a million ton a year carbon bomb “compromise”.