Republicans dug themselves an enormous hole by denying climate change. As the effects worsen, they have no way to gracefully climb back out into the light of day. Unfortunately, they pulled us all in with them. Now what?
We Need a Progressive Policy
It’s time to prepare for a world beyond Republicans. Yes, Minority President Donald Trump is already running re-election commercials! But in November 2020 the Republicans and their President will be run out of town. What policies should Democrats pursue when they do, finally, take back government?
I’m crunching through policies proposed by Bernie Sanders and updating them for the next cycle. You may remember the first of these, on healthcare: Replace “Obamacare” With Publicly Funded Healthcare. Here I take on climate change policy and pump it up.
The effects of global warming are alarming and well-documented. Not long ago, Meteor Blades pointed us to Senators discussing climate change near Mar-a-Lago.
As I read his article, I noted with wry humor I lived in a house on Riverside Drive under the dot on the Florida map where it said “Cape Coral”. Gulf American Land Corporation constructed Cape Coral by floating barges through a swamp to scoop out canals and create building sites. Cape Coral has a mean elevation of 5 feet. Virtually all Cape Coral and its nearly 80,000 homes would disappear under a six-foot sea level rise, which is what Republicans plan for the not-too-distant future.
People in Mar-a-Lago can expect pretty much the same experience. Palm Beach has a mean elevation of 7 feet. Bye bye!
In response to this dire threat, Trump unilaterally decided to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement. A progressive policy obviously would include a re-commitment to the agreement’s goal “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels”. A strong progressive policy would go beyond re-upping. It would set concrete objectives that stop climate change. The proposals here would, I believe, go a long way toward doing so.
There’s already plenty of material out there to convince you the world is warming and explain how bad that’s going to be. This article isn’t about that. The issue here is: What do we do about it?
Let’s start with the obvious. Here’s the obvious plan:
- Stop using fossil fuels.
- That means, replace them with renewables.
- Mitigate the damage of future greenhouse gasses—the damage that will inevitably come from their use before we can shut them all down.
- Start to repair the damage caused by the climate change we already have.
That’s a tall order, especially with an administration that won’t even acknowledge the problem and is actively doing everything in its power to stop any efforts to address it. But we need to look past that. The Republicans will be largely gone in four years, in part because in four years the effects of global warming will be unavoidable. They are all-in on denial, and they have no fall-back plan.
So, let’s talk about the specific initiatives needed to fix the problem.
Let Me Be Brief
Yes, this is a long article. So, for those in a hurry, here’s the essential takeaway:
- Companies will be prohibited from counting as assets most proven reserves of fossil fuel.
- The fossil fuel industry receives around $40 billion of annual subsidies in the U.S. These will be eliminated over four years.
- We will institute a carbon tax to recover the externalities of the industry and rebate the revenue to consumers to use on renewable energy.
- Subsidies now given to the fossil fuel industry will be directed to renewables to (1) increase funding for research, (2) help fund deployment, (3) build infrastructure to transmit electricity.
- A new urban corridor stretching from Youngstown, OH, to Des Moines, IA, will be developed, based on high-speed rail and high-capacity electrical transfer, to absorb up to 45 million of the estimated 135 million new U.S. residents expected between now and 2050.
- Current communities will be supported with programs like one to add energy retrofits in poor areas. This will use a catch-and-release program that acquired housing as it went on the market, upgraded the energy use profile, and returned those homes to the market.
- Brownfield areas will be rehabilitated for expanded manufacturing, consistent with manufacturing jobs being returned to the U.S. through better trade policy.
- The military will be substantially reduced in size and ordered to become carbon neutral by 2040. Congress will be induced to reduce funding over ten years to the 5X level.
In addition, I talk about the politics of this and provide references to reliable sources on the Web.
Fossil Fuels End-of-Life
I want to stamp out fossil fuels. To do that, we need to remove all incentives to use them, and then create disincentives for their continued use.
Let me put that as bluntly as possible. I want to stamp out fossil fuels. Part of the problem convincing people to take on climate change is that proponents don’t want to offend anyone or ask people to do anything that might inconvenience them. Fixing global warming will inconvenience people and require significant change to society. Get used to the idea that what we are doing is transformative.
To stamp out fossil fuels, our first policy initiative should demand the industry write off the percentage of their proven reserves that can’t be burned. An estimated two-thirds to four-fifths of these reserves can’t be used without increasing global temperatures beyond the 2 °C increase commonly agreed would make global warming unacceptable. Fossil fuel companies are global, so this means leaving significant worldwide reserves in the ground. By one estimate this would be about 82% of coal, 49% of natural gas, and 33% of oil reserves.1
I believe the SEC could require public companies to show on their financial filings that they are not counting these reserves. That should be backed up by action in Congress to eliminate these as legitimate balance sheet calculations for filing corporate taxes. Doing this would limit the investment value of these companies, putting enormous pressure on them to move from fossil fuels to renewables.
The second policy initiative is to eliminate subsidies. For example, we should stop allowing extraction of oil, coal, and natural gas from public lands. Also, we should reduce tax dollars going into highways where we can shift those dollars to public transit or rail.
As of July 2014, Oil Change International estimated United States fossil fuel subsidies to be $37.5 billion annually. A fossil fuel subsidy is “any government action that lowers the cost of fossil fuel energy production, raises the price received by energy producers, or lowers the price paid by energy consumers.”2 This includes direct funding and tax giveaways, guarantees of favorable pricing, the use of government land/water by companies at below-market rates, and other similar policies.
As soon as Democrats regain control of the government, I want to see all these subsidies phased out, and quickly. That will not be an unreasonable demand, given that millions of Americans will be getting a clear picture over the next four years of the harm fossil fuels are causing. Congress can systematically eliminate subsidies over a period of four years. This is plenty of time for the industry to adjust.
If climate change isn’t enough incentive, the public can look at deaths caused by burning fossil fuels. Overall, coal pollution, alone, causes about 30,000 deaths per year in our country.3 Just fine particles from coal power plants “kill an estimated 13,200 people each year in the U.S. alone”.4
As a third initiative, we need to increase taxes on fossil fuels. At a minimum, we should implement a carbon tax and use the proceeds to build alternative energy sources. One way to do that is to rebate it to consumers that buy renewable energy. This provides strong incentive for consumers to stop buying energy based on fossil fuels. We should look for a carbon tax that recovers the estimated costs of adapting to climate change. This means companies could no longer externalize these costs, and they would be forced to pay the true costs of the resources they use.
And forth, of course, we need to reverse Trump executive orders intended to halt progress on climate change. I want one, succinct order to get this rolling: “To all departments, henceforth you will tell the public the truth about any facts or conclusions you may have about climate change.”
Think regulations like this will kill jobs? Climate change will kill all jobs. This is the conservative approach to saving jobs.
Build Renewable Energy Infrastructure
The main sources of renewable energy are sunlight, wind, rain (translated to hydroelectric), tides, waves, and geothermal heat.5 In 2016, it is estimated renewables contributed almost 20% to human energy consumption (globally).6 Let’s talk about some key issues and opportunities.
Solar
You may immediately think of solar panels when I say “solar”. There’s plenty out there, but as of last year it only accounted for about 1.8% of global electricity demands,7 and solar panels are only part of the solar energy solution.
Solar cells are still not very efficient. The top modules may be around 37%. This efficiency is partly determined by cell efficiency, which tops out around 45%.8 So, government could put its foot on the accelerator by putting more money into research. This is not a panacea, of course. The physical limit to efficiency might not be much higher.
Still, a small percentage change in efficiency translates to a large total gain. We were around 200 gigawatts of installed PV in the U.S. as of 2015.9 But by 2050, solar power is expected to be the biggest source of electricity worldwide, around 4,500 GW. Even a modest improvement of one or two percent in efficiency bought with better government funding would create an enormous gain as solar rolls out.
Aside from PV, solar energy can be captured with solar water heating and concentrated solar power facilities. Solar water heating is great. It works well in all climates to bring water up to a temperature that makes it easy to heat for washing or cooking. A really good solar water heater has vacuum tubes around the heating elements that isolate them from the environment, so that even in the northern parts of the U.S. this kind of system can significantly cut energy use.
One of the biggest pushes recently is concentrated solar power. This is now used by utilities to generate electricity on a massive scale to feed into the grid. In a typical system, a field of mirrors focuses sunlight on a heating tower, which absorbs heat and uses it to drive a turbine. Systems can use molten salts to store energy during the day, which allows them to run those turbines around the clock. Concentrated solar may be somewhat expensive compared with PV, but built-in heat storage eliminates the need for batteries further down the line.
Our government should encourage solar power by clearing away regulatory obstacles and setting up new electricity transmission. It should make sure solar research is well-funded, and it should encourage low-cost loans for individuals who want to install solar power.
We need an aggressive target. PV grew in the U.S. by about 7 GW in 2014 and was expected to grow about 9 GW in 2015.10 I would like to see a target of 20 GW per year of new PV by 2025. This gives us five years after winning the White House to get on track.
Wind
Humans have used wind power for hundreds of years.11 Even though it is an old technology, there is still room for technical improvements.12 This is another area where the government could increase funding for research. Again, small changes in efficiency given the scale at which wind energy will be harnessed would produce large changes in overall production. Right now, in the U.S., wind power provides just over 5% of all generated electrical energy.13
Wind could easily power the entire country if we had suitable distribution and energy storage.14 It doesn’t have to be our sole source of power, but this shows its enormous potential. We have no excuse to pursue additional fossil fuels.
Just as with solar, there is an opportunity to accelerate research with more government funding. But since wind power is already cost-competitive with fossil fuels in many parts of the country,15 the place to focus our efforts is on distribution and storage. The Midwestern Expansion Corridor, explained below, would provide a way to develop some of our best wind resources, while smoothing demand and developing our capacity to distribute the resulting power.
We need an aggressive target. To support bringing electric power from wind farms in the plains states to the Midwest, I want to see new electrical transmission in the most efficient form possible installed by 2030 capable of transmitting all wind power available at the source to Chicago and points east. This fits into the Midwestern Expansion Corridor proposal below.
To facilitate this, I suggest converting oil pipelines to electrical conduit. This would make use of, for example, the Dakota Access Pipeline. We would drain any oil out of the pipeline and lay electrical conduit inside it. This avoids many issues of access rights, makes it less susceptible to environmental damage, and reuses an otherwise mostly useless asset. I’d use eminent domain to take the pipeline away from the companies that have it and make it a public asset.
Geothermal
Does “geothermal” remind you of Iceland and volcanos? Yes, the earth is hot, and we can tap that energy as it makes its way from the center of the earth. That’s not the only kind of geothermal heating available, but let’s talk about it first.
The U.S. already has over 3 GW of geothermal electricity production. We are on track to have as much as 15 GW by 2025.16
The best places to develop geothermal power is where the underground heat sources are over 150 °C. States with subterranean temperatures in this range include most of those from the Pacific coast through the Rocky Mountains. One strategy for taking advantage of this is to systematically replace fossil fuel power stations in these 11 states with geothermal, to the extent possible. By concentrating on this geographical area, we not only reduce the use of fossil fuels we reduce the infrastructure supporting fossil fuels in those locations, eliminating their transportation as an additional source of greenhouse gases, and creating a “fossil fuel free” zone.17
The map here shows power plants in the western U.S.18
Some states, such as Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, and Utah, might be able to eliminate all fossil fuel plants by concentrating on geothermal supplemented by wind and solar.
A broader application of geothermal is the ground-source heat pump. This uses the natural warmth of the ground to lower the cost of heating and air conditioning. The temperature of the ground below about 20 feet is relatively stable and about the same as the average air temperature in the area. This ranges from about 50 to 70 °F (10 to 21 °C) in the U.S. In a ground-source system a fluid is passed through pipes underground and this fluid is used to preheat or pre-cool air going into the home.
As noted in Wikipedia, “The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has called ground source heat pumps the most energy-efficient, environmentally clean, and cost-effective space conditioning systems available.”19 This is true in most areas of the country, except where the system is driven by mains electricity which is produced by natural gas, which can be competitive.
Geothermal power is not without undesirable side effects. Water extracted for power can contain toxic minerals. Geothermal power usually requires fracturing rock deep in the earth, which could cause earthquakes or subsidence. So, this industry will require good regulation to keep it from becoming the fracking disaster of the future. But, fortunately, these side effects are a tiny fraction of those from extracting fossil fuels for an equivalent amount of power.20
Find more information about geothermal energy by just going to Wikipedia.21
The government should accelerate adoption of geothermal power where it is feasible, both by investing more heavily in research and by promoting deployment.
We need an aggressive target. We should call for at least 10 GW of new geothermal power in the western U.S. by 2025. We should also require a feasibility study be done for each new home built that assesses whether a ground-source heat pump would be beneficial to that home. For anywhere it is, the U.S. government should provide an interest-free loan for building it.
In General
I know I’m skipping over hydropower, wave generated energy, and a number of other technologies, as well as nuclear power, not to mention efforts to increase efficiency. We need to keep an open mind about where power can come from, but I’m not prepared to address any of these here.
The biggest place our government can make a difference is in deploying renewable energy. We can encourage that by moving subsidies now applied to fossil fuels over to renewable energy.
The U.S. has the opportunity to be a leader in developing renewable energy. Right now we are lagging behind China and India. If they solidify their leadership in this field, the U.S. might never catch up.
The market leader in any industry enjoys an enormous advantage. The leader in an established industry typically takes in half the revenue and sometimes as much as 80% of the profits.22 Ceding this industry to our rivals would have catastrophic implications for the economy of the United States.
One big advantage of renewable energy is that systems last for a very long time. Each solar panel may only create a small percentage of energy, but it effectively displaces that percentage in the market forever. If someone puts in a PV system with a 30-year lifetime, that demand for fossil fuel essentially will never come back.
We should not underestimate the benefits of this change. Fossil fuels are largely worldwide commodities. That means their price is critically subject to supply and demand. A recent oversupply of oil (the 2010’s oil glut) saw prices fall from $125/barrel in 2012 to less than $30/barrel in January 2016. Taking even a percent off global demand can send the prices of fossil fuels plummeting. That’s what we want to do by accelerating deployment of renewable energy.
Develop New Areas With Sustainable Habitat
Population growth creates enormous new energy demand. In order to avoid turning population growth into massive demand for fossil fuels, our sustainable habitat needs to grow sustainably. But, if we add those people to our existing neighborhoods, it will be nearly impossible to avoid powering them with coal, oil, and natural gas. Existing infrastructure makes this the path of least resistance.
Population in the U.S grew about 1% per year since 1980.23 At this rate, we will add about 135 million people by 2050, an increase of about 42%. It is unlikely we will want to restrain growth by, say, cutting off immigration. So, we need to plan for it.
In 2016, the combined New York-Newark metropolitan area had about 23.7 million people,24 so we are looking at finding homes for nearly six times the population of the Greater New York Area. Where do we plan to put six new New Yorks?
One way to absorb some of these people is to create a new urban corridor that would stretch from Youngstown, OH, to Des Moines, IA. I call this the Midwestern Expansion Corridor. This would pass mostly through what is now agricultural land that can be developed without tearing down existing infrastructure. Using sustainable development techniques, we can radically lower the carbon footprint of this expansion—both as we build it and as we operate it.
To minimize carbon use, I propose a high-speed rail corridor with integrated high-capacity electric transmission as the backbone of this new area.
By “high-speed rail”, I’m talking about Shinkansen or TGV technology, which would give us speeds around 200 miles per hour. This corridor is about 785 miles long, so a train could theoretically go the whole distance in under four hours. We would generally have stations about every 30 minutes, and a train that stopped for 15 minutes at each of those would take a little under 6 hours to make the whole trip. This makes the corridor a connected city.
To get to this new urban area from the East Coast, we would build a more modest high-speed link from Philadelphia, PA, through Pittsburg, PA, to Youngstown. For this, we can use a somewhat lower speed train, similar to the Acela, where we are looking for top speeds of around 150 mph. The total distance is around 370 miles, so this trip would take around 3 hours, with a couple stops.
The ability to transfer electricity along the expansion corridor allows us to add wind and solar capture to the whole area. We would balance load along the length. For example, if it were windy in Iowa but not so much in Indiana, we would ship the power from Iowa to Indiana and use it there immediately. This would eliminate the need for expensive power storage.
The Great Plains in the U.S. have a great capacity to generate electricity from wind.25 To take advantage of this, the Midwestern Expansion Corridor would include feeder lines to states like Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas, which have some of the strongest inland winds in the country.
In addition, we could integrate ground-source geothermal heat pumps to substantially reduce the heating and cooling needs.26
Cities in the U.S. west of the Appalachians were generally laid out in the 1800s. They typically follow the colonial plan*, with suburbs around a business area and a separate industrial area. They are auto-friendly and people-hostile. As they’ve grown, they’ve increasingly become urban jungles.**
A twenty-first century model for cities is a set of villages, with their centers well connected by light rail. In this model, most services are within walking distance, and people can move within villages quickly with street cars, bicycles, or buses. People rent cars rather than own them, and those cars are typically small, electric vehicles.
By planning these villages correctly, we can build local production of food into the same general areas. This should take advantage of the latest organic farming techniques. If we design this into the urban patterns, we will make farming these areas much more productive, while reducing the distances food travels. Today, much of our food is shipped long distances.27 That doesn’t have to be the case when a major city is also a major food producer.
Modern standards for homes and other buildings are substantially better than they were in the last century. If we built homes in this area to Passive House standards28 and did careful rainwater capture we would substantially reduce the ecological impact of population in the area. We could even set a target of LEED-Platinum on all major buildings.29 By planning this in a new area, we could use passive solar as a major component of site planning.30
Trucking is likely to shift to driverless, electric vehicles over the next 20 years. A city designed for smaller electric trucks for local delivery that also makes use of electric rail for long-haul delivery, would virtually eliminate fossil fuels for transporting goods.
Finally, the environmental impact of adding this kind of urban area in the Midwest would be far less than adding an equivalent area to existing cities. For those cities, we typically see sprawl. That growth may well come from ecologically-sensitive areas. While a megacity between Youngstown and Des Moines will certainly covert land from rural to urban use, this area has already largely been paved over with mono-culture farming. Rebuilding it with ecologically-friendly farming interspersed with high-density housing, would be much more environmentally friendly than unmanaged growth of current urban centers. It also creates an opportunity to designate reserved areas to rebuild native plant and animal habitat.
Many of these changes would be difficult to integrate into existing cities. It’s virtually impossible to turn an existing city into a cluster of villages with modern public transit and roadways geared to limited automobile traffic. Add in the requirement to have substantial urban food production, and you are asking for a major overhaul that most people in the existing city would resist.
It’s not impossible. For example, Portland, OR, is well on its way to achieving a twenty-first century urban model. But part of that came from completely replacing what used to be a giant rail yard and warehousing area with renovated buildings and new construction.31 Portland has a strict urban growth boundary, an existing cluster of towns internal to the city, and a popular network of streetcars and light rail. And, it has a large, dedicated and ecologically-friendly community, which includes a well-developed urban farming contingent. Nor is it perfect. Extensive population growth has pushed up house purchase and rental prices and shoved many people, including minorities, to more marginal areas with little access to public transit.32
I believe a key driver of poverty is the lack of green infrastructure in our cities. Poverty occurs where we draw wealth out of a neighborhood. Wealth is created by production. Local production of resources like food, water, and energy builds wealth in communities. A land use pattern that mixes homes, offices, and industrial production tends to build wealth in the community. Designing these concepts into a new rural/urban corridor attacks income disparity, wealth disparity, and poverty. We should combine this with an active program to make this a diverse community from the start.
Another aspect of this is to lower the cost of living. An environment build from scratch to be sustainable should be far cheaper to live in. Imagine how much less it would cost you if you didn’t have to maintain a car. No gas. No car repairs. No car insurance. No car payments. Already don’t have a car? Imagine how much less it would cost you without heating and cooling costs. On top of this, imagine a better quality of life, with lower air pollution and urban crowding.
Picking a new area and building it allows us to pull together all the most modern concepts in one spot. We can’t pack 135 million additional Americans into the Midwestern Expansion Corridor. Under the best conditions we could maybe get 45 million into this area,33 if we want to retain a good mix of urban and rural development. I don’t propose it as the one and only plan. However, this is an example of the kind of planning we need to get us through the next few decades if we are going to be serious about eliminating our dependence on fossil fuels.
The most obvious and immediate attack on this proposal is likely to come from people who ask, “What’s in it for me?” That is, if we concentrate resources on developing the Midwestern Expansion Corridor, what happens to the rest of the country?
I can’t say with any certainty this would have a positive effect in other communities. But, I believe it would relieve pressures on resources there. It also would substantially reduce the carbon needs of the country, which implies less global warming. For cities on the coasts that’s a huge net plus.
EDIT (30 June 2023): Another area we should consider for an Expansion Corridor is the land near I-75 between Atlanta and Tampa. This would be a good place to install solar power that could be delivered to those cities. High speed rail in this area would be a good alternative to auto traffic, and encouraging sustainable development here (where there’s likely to be development anyway) would be good public policy.
Current Communities
Not that we should write off our current communities. Even if we make it a national priority to develop new areas, like the Midwestern Expansion Corridor, we should not neglect the rest of the country.
The federal government should have a program to radically reduce energy use in homes by refurbishing them when they are sold. This would not only reduce climate change, it would stabilize the housing market and improve life in our poorest communities.
Here’s how:
In areas where housing prices were substantially below average for that geographical area, the government would offer to buy any house that went on the market at the market rate. The house would get an energy retrofit and then be put back on the market at the same price. If prices in that market declined while it was out of the market, the government would wait until prices came back to the level at which the house was purchased before offering it.
The government would hire local workers to do the energy retrofit. That would include:
- Finding and fixing air leaks in heating and cooling ducts,
- Finding and fixing air leaks in the building envelope,
- Replacing doors and windows to get better (lower) U-values,
- Adding insulation to walls, roofs, ceilings, floors, and foundation,
- Converting energy usage from oil and gas, where feasible, to electric,
- Installing solar panels and/or ground-source geothermal, where feasible.
While at it, they could fix other safety and health considerations:
- Replacing water pipes that are no longer safe,
- Removing toxic materials (like asbestos, plastics, and leaded paint) from walls, floors, ceilings, and fixtures,
- Adding active ventilation,
- Eliminating mold and unsafe construction.
Apartment buildings and other multi-family dwellings would be treated much the same way.
There are any number of benefits to this program.
- Private owners in poor neighborhoods are never going to fix these problems. They simply don’t have the money. Fixing them when the building is sold is an unintrusive way to fix energy and health problems that would otherwise not be addressed.
- It creates stability in the market. It acts as a break on falling home prices. This helps not only homeowners, but everyone, by mitigating recessions. This was something Congress should have done in 2008 during the housing crisis (to all houses). Housing is sensitive to the law of supply and demand. Take houses out of the market when prices are falling and the market will stabilize. Instead, our government gave billions (trillions, if you count behind-the-scenes lending) to the banks and let countless homeowners suffer crushing losses. Not on my watch.
- It helps poor communities thrive. This is especially helpful for minorities because a disproportionate percentage of minorities live in poor areas.
A bit on the mechanics:
First, this would use primary statistical areas34 as the basis of pricing. The cutoff for the program would be something like houses selling for less than 80% of the average price in that area. This means that homes in the Cleveland-Elyria, OH Metro Area, for example, very likely would have a lower price cutoff than homes in, say, New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metro Area. Also, the market rate is usually easy to calculate. It’s done all the time by buyers and banks, who look for comparable properties and use estimators to examine the home and estimate a fair price. Republicans will no doubt argue that the government is interfering in the market. However, by using the market price of the home, we aren’t. (Except, of course, if the market is collapsing, in which case we want to interfere in the market!)
Second, each of these homes should be scanned with thermal imaging, which is great for finding missing insulation and water damage, and they should be given a blower door test, to check for air leaks in the envelope. These techniques provide objective measures for deciding what to fix.
Third, I’m not keen on outsourcing government services. I would limit involvement of private firms in these energy updates. Possibly small businesses (if they really were small—none of the profits went to national firms) could provide some of the services. Instead, I’d have the government employ workers to do the work and to purchase the materials. This minimizes the cost. Remember: when the government outsources a service the taxpayer pays twice—once for the service and then again for the profits.
This program has enormous payback. The amount of energy saved and the number of lives saved by taking these simple steps on homes would pay society back in ways that go beyond stopping climate change. Reducing demand reduces price. It puts fewer demands on the world’s resources.
In addition to upgrading energy efficiency in housing, we need to fix it in the manufacturing sector. Brownfield areas would be refurbished for expanded manufacturing, consistent with manufacturing jobs being returned to the U.S. through better trade policy. In doing this, we should focus on building in energy efficiency as we add production.
Transforming Rural Areas
Rural areas are often hit hard by Republican policy. Yet, these areas have some of the most reliably Republican voters. This isn’t because farmers are natural Republicans—they aren’t. Many progressive movements came from rural areas, like those in the states of Washington and Minnesota.
You can probably think of plenty of reasons why Republicans get these votes, but a key reason is because we don’t offer them any compelling reason to vote for Democrats.
Here’s a compelling reason: We will offer development funds to convert all family farms to carbon neutral centers. This is a simple program: anything the farm needs to stop using fossil fuels or start using techniques that make it take in as much carbon as it produces (using cradle-to-cradle accounting) would be paid for by the federal government.
This would not apply to corporate farms, only those owned by families or co-ops.
And, to make sure that living on the farm is viable, we would provide high-speed internet access to all homes outside the corporate limits of cities.
With these two policies, we can not only change climate change in rural America, we can rebuild the economy of rural America.
Transformation of the Military
One of the quickest ways to change our carbon profile is to change the military and its use of carbon. This can be accomplished quickly because the President has the power to do it. Therefore, it only takes one executive order to set that in motion.
Then, physics takes over. It’s not like you can wave a magic wand and get rid of fossil fuels in the military. So, it’s going to take a while. We need to keep a progressive in the Oval Office until the task is finished.
Congress can help, of course. And should. They should adopt my 5X plan, which would limit total spending by the military to the combined totals of the next five largest military budgets in the world. To do that, I suggest reducing the military budget by about $35 billion each year, year over year, for ten years. This would get it down to the order of $400 billion, which is approximately the 5X level. That $35 billion would go to communities where we currently spend money on military goods and services to help companies and employees there convert to civilian jobs.
By reducing total spending on the military, we automatically cut carbon use.
Reducing our dependence on fossil fuels is not just a nice thing to do for the environment. It’s not just a critical thing to do for our survival on the planet. It’s also essential for our national security.
The primary reason (and perhaps the only reason) there are wars in the Middle East and major drivers of terrorism from that region and others is because we burn oil. Because we burn oil we have sent trillions of dollars to the Middle East, and that money fuels these wars. Without oil revenue there would be no wars in the Middle East. Iran and Iraq would not have fought a roughly 8-year war in the 1980s. Iraq would not have invaded Kuwait in 1990 and the U.S. would not have ousted them from Kuwait. The U.S. would not have invaded Iraq in 2003. Neither Al Qaeda nor ISIS would have risen as terrorist organizations, because neither would have had the funds to do so. No oil. No money. No wars.
At least nothing on the scale that demands U.S. involvement.
Beyond that, overspending on the military takes money away from the working part of the economy. The biggest threat to our security is not an invasion. The biggest threat is the takeover of our economy by foreign governments and nationals. Anyone against reducing military spending is weak on national security and should be called out as unpatriotic.
Ending our dependence on fossil fuels, particularly oil, is a national security imperative.
The President should order the military to become carbon neutral by 2040. Congress should cut funding for the military to the 5X level. The public needs to see this as a national security issue and demand it.
Politics
To get progressive climate change policy implemented, we need to overcome lobbying by the fossil fuel companies. According to the Sanders’s site, “oil companies, coal companies and electric utilities spent a staggering $2.26 billion in federal lobbying since 2009 and another $330 million in federal campaign contributions.” Eliminating special interest money from politics is its own topic, and may not happen in time to avert the most serious effects of climate change.
We need to build a movement now that will dominate the lobbyists. Every congressional district will feel the effects of climate change in the next four years. My goal is to sweep Republicans out of every office over the next two elections. Making these climate change proposals a centerpiece of congressional campaigns is one way to win.
The best way to do that is to find a progressive candidate for President who will be uncompromising on climate change. That candidate should run on something very close to the policy described here. Their stated goal should be the elimination of fossil fuels as quickly as that transformation can take place.
We’ve seen how Republicans run against climate change. They talk about it killing jobs. They talk about regulation. They talk about big government. They talk about the free market.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm (previously Governor of Michigan) appeared on CNN on 2 June 2017. She took on five other panelist and ran down how in each of their states jobs in renewable energy outsized jobs in fossil fuels. Killing fossil fuels in favor of renewables causes job growth. Our candidates need to fight against job-killing climate denial.
As for regulation, the reason we have regulation is to protect the public from harm. What harm do Republicans want to cause by stopping regulation? Who do they want to suffer or die? No progressive should ever allow their opponent to bring up regulation unchallenged. When a Republican talks about regulation we need to ask them, “Which children are you willing to kill for profits?”
As for big government, how is that any different from big business? It’s different because you get representation in government, but you don’t in any business. Exxon Mobile typically rakes in over $200 billion a year and has over 70,000 employees. About half of the states have a lower Gross State Product.35 When companies are the size of governments, it’s fair to put away the talking point “government bad, business good”. Besides, half of all companies go out of business in the first ten years. How are companies good at things but governments aren’t? When was the last time the U.S. government went out of business?
Which brings us neatly to the free market. Will the free market solve climate change? Let me put it this way: The free market got us into this mess in the first place.
No, the politics of this is on our side, the progressive side. It’s time for us to frame the discussion our way. I’m putting multiple, concrete proposals on the table. If conservatives have ways to solve the climate change problem, fine. Let them put up their proposals. Then, we’ll compare and see who wins. I believe the American people will vote for the proposals here over anything the other side puts up. Let’s have some elections where this is the defining issue and let’s just see the results.
What I Didn’t Say
First, part of addressing climate change is to develop a more sustainable food cycle. This is also its own major topic, so I’m not going to address it here.
Second, this set of proposals doesn’t include things you may expect. For example, it doesn’t discuss carbon capture and sequester. It doesn’t talk about nuclear energy. It doesn’t cover geoengineering schemes or climate engineering. While some of these ideas might help around the margins, I think we need to make fundamental changes to the way we operate. So, I’ve concentrated there.
Third, this didn’t address international, state or local initiatives, nor anything individuals can do to halt climate change. This is about what the federal government can do and what the federal government should do. This is an undiluted manifesto for the federal government.
Conclusion
Progressives should adopt specific policies. A big reason we see Republicans taking over government is because progressives stopped talking about major goals and campaigning for them. We, especially politicians in the Democratic Party, have often adopted defensive goals. We want to “save Social Security” or stop Republicans from undermining Roe v. Wade.
That’s not good enough.
To win, we have to define the future and force conservatives and their Republican field workers to defend their policy. This article puts specific, doable, but aggressive goals on the table for fighting climate change.
Let them defend a bleak earth of harsh winters, dust bowls, and inundated cities.
That’s how we win and they lose.
The Disclaimer
I have a company that promotes green community. To the degree anyone takes up the cause and moves forward on these policies it is possible that I would benefit, along with everyone else.
Call to Action
If you feel passionately about political policy and would like to join me in developing more progressive policy, contact me through Daily Kos. Together, we can create a better future. In particular, I would love to see this policy and the previous one on healthcare further developed. I can’t do that alone, and no one would care if I did. But people will care if there’s a progressive movement that gives our world a much better vision for the future. Please do your part.
Footnotes
* By “colonial plan”, I mean they were intended as colonies of New York and Washington, DC. This isn’t my idea; I’m just passing it on. And, obviously, some cities, like New Orleans, substantially pre-date the 1800s.
** “Urban jungles” isn’t my original idea, either. Obviously.
Endnotes
1 Scientific research on how much of fossil fuel reserves can safely be burned:
The geographical distribution of fossil fuels unused when limiting global warming to 2 °C by Christophe McGlade and Paul Ekins (Nature, 18 February 2014): https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v517/n7533/full/nature14016.html
They say: “to have at least a 50 per cent chance of keeping warming below 2 °C throughout the twenty-first century, the cumulative carbon emissions between 2011 and 2050 need to be limited to around 1,100 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide” and “the greenhouse gas emissions contained in present estimates of global fossil fuel reserves are around three times higher than this”. Also, “Our results suggest that, globally, a third of oil reserves, half of gas reserves and over 80 per cent of current coal reserves should remain unused from 2010 to 2050 in order to meet the target of 2 °C.”
Leave fossil fuels buried to prevent climate change, study urges by Damian Carrington (The Guardian, 7 January 2015): https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/07/much-worlds-fossil-fuel-reserve-must-stay-buried-prevent-climate-change-study-says
“Global reserves, per cent that cannot be burned, Coal 82%, Gas 49%, Oil 33%”
Source: McGlade & Ekins, Nature, 2015. [See above.]
How much of the world's fossil fuel can we burn? by Duncan Clark (The Guardian, 25 March 2015): https://www.theguardian.com/environment/keep-it-in-the-ground-blog/2015/mar/25/what-numbers-tell-about-how-much-fossil-fuel-reserves-cant-burn
“The situation boils down to this: fossil fuel is immensely useful, valuable and politically important, yet if we want to avoid taking unacceptable risks with the planet we need to leave most of that fuel in the ground” and “Limiting global warming to the agreed global target of 2C means staying within a ‘carbon budget’ of 565 GT (gigatonnes or billion tonnes). That is a fifth of the 2,795 GT that would be released if all the world’s proven oil, coal and gas reserves were burned. Therefore four-fifths of the fossil fuel must stay in the ground.”
2 Fossil fuel subsidies. “As of July 2014, Oil Change International estimates United States fossil fuel subsidies at $37.5 billion annually, including $21 billion in production and exploration subsidies. Other credible estimates of annual United States fossil fuel subsidies range from $10 billion to $52 billion annually…”.
Resources:
Fossil Fuel Subsidies Overview on Oil Change International: http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/
U.S. Fossil Fuel Production Subsidies under Obama: http://priceofoil.org/2014/07/09/cashing-in-on-all-of-the-above-u-s-fossil-fuel-production-subsidies-under-obama/. “In 2013, the U.S. federal and state governments gave away $21.6 billion in subsidies for oil, gas, and coal exploration and production.”
Cashing in on All of the Above: U.S. Fossil Fuel Production Subsidies Under Obama: http://priceofoil.org/content/uploads/2014/07/OCI_US_FF_Subsidies_Final_Screen.pdf
Subsidies to Energy Industries by D Koplow, Earth Track Inc.: https://www.earthtrack.net/sites/default/files/uploaded_files/Subsidies%20to%20Energy%20Industry_2015_Egy%20Encyclopedia_web%20version.pdf
“Subsidies remain a large, though increasingly recognized, presence in energy markets throughout the world. The scope, complexity, and politics of these policies help to explain why there is not yet global subsidy data set. However, all indications are that these subsidies cost hundreds of billions of dollars per year, impede market penetration of cleaner and more efficient methods of providing energy services, and increase damages to human health and the environment.”
International Institute for Sustainable Development, Global Subsidies Initiative: https://www.iisd.org/GSI/fossil-fuel-subsidies
United States ‒ Progress Report on Fossil Fuel Subsidies: https://www.treasury.gov/open/Documents/USA%20FFSR%20progress%20report%20to%20G20%202014%20Final.pdf
3 “In the U.S.A about 30,000 deaths/year from coal pollution from 2000 TWh [terawatt-hours].” “Fossil fuels: Deadlier than nuclear radiation” by Siel Ju in Mother Nature Network, 23 March 2011: http://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-well-being/blogs/fossil-fuels-deadlier-than-nuclear-radiation
It quotes Next Big Future, “Deaths per TWH by energy source” by Brian Wang, 14 March 2011: http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html
4 “Fossil fuels are far deadlier than nuclear power” in New Scientist, 23 March 2011: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928053.600-fossil-fuels-are-far-deadlier-than-nuclear-power/
5 Renewable energy on Wikipedia:
Renewable energy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy
Solar energy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy
Photovoltaic system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_system
Solar water heating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_heating
Concentrated solar power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power
Wind power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power
6 “Based on REN21's 2016 report, renewables contributed 19.2% to humans' global energy consumption…”. From Wikipedia article on Renewable Energy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy. REN21 is “the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REN21).
7 “By the end of 2016, cumulative photovoltaic capacity reached at least 302 gigawatts (GW), sufficient to supply 1.8% of global electricity demands.” Wikipedia “Growth of photovoltaics” article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics.
8 Resources:
“Which Solar Panels Are Most Efficient?” by Zachary Shahan: https://cleantechnica.com/2014/02/02/which-solar-panels-most-efficient/. This article was originally written in 2014, but was updated in August 2015.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell_efficiency
9 “As of 2015, the fast-growing global PV market is rapidly approaching the 200 GW mark – about 40 times the installed capacity of 2006.” From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_system.
10 “…according to IHS, U.S. deployment amounted to 7 GW in 2014” and “sources see U.S. deployment to increase by approximately 9 GW in 2015”.
From Growth of photovoltaics in Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics#Global_long-term_forecast_.282050.29
11 “…the first known practical wind turbines were built in Sistan, an Eastern province of Iran, from the 7th century.” Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine
12 An example is the “wind lens”, which adds structural components around the turbine to accelerate the air flowing through it. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_lens
13 “For calendar year 2016, wind power in the United States amounted to 226.5 terawatt-hours, or 5.55% of all generated electrical energy.”
From Wind power in the United States on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_States
14 Also, “According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the contiguous United States has the potential for 10,459 GW of onshore wind power. The capacity could generate 37 petawatt-hours (PW·h) annually, an amount nine times larger than current total U.S. electricity consumption.”
From Wind power in the United States on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_States
15 “A 2012 report by a clean energy consulting group concluded that new wind farms can produce electric power in the 5-8 cents per kWh range, making wind power cost-competitive with fossil fuels in many areas.”
From Wind power in the United States on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_States
17 Subterranean temperature map of U.S.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Geothermal_resource_map_US.png
States with temperature over 200 °C in continental U.S. include: Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, South Dakota, and small parts of Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana.
This map appears to have come originally from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
18 Power plants in western U.S.
From U.S. Energy Information Administration
https://www.eia.gov/state/maps.php?v=Coal
19 Geothermal heat pump
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heat_pump
“The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has called ground source heat pumps the most energy-efficient, environmentally clean, and cost-effective space conditioning systems available.”
20 For a discussion of toxic chemicals and other negative affects of geothermal energy production, see the Environmental impact section of Geothermal power in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power#Environmental_impact
21 Geothermal in Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_cycle
22 Inside the Tornado: Strategies for Developing, Leveraging, and Surviving Hypergrowth Markets by Geoffrey A. Moore, Harper Collins.
23 From https://www.usafacts.org. Population. Data from 1980 to 2015. Average growth in this period was approximately 1.0047%.
24 From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_metropolitan_area.
25 Wind speeds in the plains is easily seen on this map, from Wikipedia, showing Land-Based and Offshore Annual Average Wind Speeds (at 80 meters): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wind_power_potential_map.jpeg
Note that states near Iowa have high average speeds.
26 Ground-source geothermal heat pumps. “They use the constant temperature of the earth as the exchange medium instead of the outside air temperature.”https://energy.gov/energysaver/geothermal-heat-pumps.
27 http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6064.
In the United States, the most frequently cited statistic is that food travels 1,500 miles on average from farm to consumer. That figure comes from work led by Rich Pirog, the associate director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. … In 2001, in some of the country's first food-miles research, Pirog and a group of researchers analyzed the transport of 28 fruits and vegetables to Iowa markets via local, regional, and conventional food distribution systems. The team calculated that produce in the conventional system—a national network using semitrailer trucks to haul food to large grocery stores—traveled an average of 1,518 miles (about 2,400 kilometers). By contrast, locally sourced food traveled an average of just 44.6 miles (72 kilometers) to Iowa markets.
28 Here are some resources for Passive House:
Passive House Institute U.S.: http://www.phius.org/home-page
Passive House California: http://www.passivehousecal.org/
International Passive House Association: https://passivehouse-international.org/
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house
29 Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (U.S.GBC). Resources:
U.S. Green Building Council: http://www.usgbc.org/
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Green_Building_Council
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design: http://www.usgbc.org/leed
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership_in_Energy_and_Environmental_Design
30 Passive solar uses the placement of a building on site, the location and types of windows, insulation, and thermal mass to minimize the heating and cooling needs of the building. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_solar_building_design
31 Beginning in about 1980, the City of Portland, OR, focused extensive redevelopment on an area previously “abandoned warehouses, long-forgotten industrial sites and blue-collar cafes”. This 200+ block area included about 18 blocks of rail yards.
Pearl District Neighborhood Association: http://www.pearldistrict.org/
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_District%2C_Portland%2C_Oregon
Pearl District Official Site (History): http://explorethepearl.com/about-the-pearl/history-of-the-pearl-district/
32 Articles on affordable housing in Portland, OR.
http://cni.pmgnews.com/but/355225
http://portlandtribune.com/pt/9-news/330245-209731-developers-are-saying-proposed-affordable-housing-mandate-isnt-feasible
33 For comparison, the Portland, OR, city density is about 4361 persons per square mile. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland,_Oregon.) For a density of 2000 person per square mile for the entire corridor of 785 miles with a width of 25 miles this is just under 40 million people. This allows about half the area to be very dense and half to be nearly empty farm land.
34 Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Area Population Totals Tables: 2010-2016: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2016/demo/popest/total-metro-and-micro-statistical-areas.html
35 Wikipedia says Exxon Mobile had annual revenue in 2016 of $218.6 billion. In its ranking of states by grows state product, Wikipedia shows the 25th state as Oregon with about $229.8 billion and South Carolina as 26th with about $212.5 billion (in 2016).
ExxonMobil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil
List of U.S. states by Gross State Product (GSP): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_Gross_State_Product_(GSP)