In this post, I argued that the best, simplest, and most impactful message for advocates of climate legislation is this: Good climate policy will rescue American families from a sinking ship.
I meant to add that the Dems not only seem to miss the power of this message, but are by all appearances working to undermine it.
What do I mean? Well, core to the message is a simple truth: Fossil energy costs are going up. They're going to keep going up. The reasons are complex, a mix of supply constraints, skyrocketing demand, and commodity speculation, but the important thing to note is that the reasons are deep, structural, and unlikely to be reversed. As long as our transportation, electricity, and agriculture are dependent on fossil fuels, we face a grim future of domestic inequality and strife coupled with international tension and conflict. Sticking with fossil fuels is a ticket to nowhere. The status quo is not an option.
But Dems keep encouraging the delusion that high fossil energy prices -- particularly gas prices -- are some sort of weird aberration resulting from the greed of oil executives or Saudi intransigence. They keep encouraging the delusion that with a few policy gimmicks we can bring those prices back down. They are reinforcing the notion that Americans are entitled to low gasoline prices and that it is in the power of the federal government to provide them.
As long as Americans think that energy prices might go back down at any moment -- that the cheap-energy good times of the '90s are but a "windfall profits tax" away -- they won't support a policy they're told will increase those prices.
They need to be told the truth. We can sit back passively and become a victim of rising, volatile fossil energy prices. Or we can take control of our fate. We can take the edge of today's fossil prices with a coordinated efficiency campaign, and put the money we save toward building a stable, prosperous energy infrastructure for the 21st century. We can break our fossil addiction.
Tell voters the truth. That's the first step.
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Comments View as Flat
Sean Casten Posted 4:28 am
04 Jun 2008
The truth
There are very few in DC who really understand energy economics. Partly because it's complicated, and partly because - until very recently - it's never been an electoral issue. As such, there hasn't been any incentive for most politicians to spend time learning and understanding the nuances of our energy system. (Let's not forget that Bill Frist first came up with the idea of giving people a hundred bucks in response to high oil prices. Energy illiteracy is bipartisan.)
In other words, it's entirely possible that the Ds believe what they're saying about the possibility of returning to the days of cheap energy. In which case telling the truth is actually the second step. Learning the truth comes first.
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WWAGD?! Posted 11:14 am
04 Jun 2008
It's Always "Cheap"
The promise of alternative "sustainable" energy is not just that it doesn't pollute. For most of its history, it's promise...like that of nuclear...was that it would be essentially free. "Too cheap to meter" was what the nuclear industry touted.
The Green energies have always been saying that prior to ITruth. The promise was that either the utilities would build these limitless collectors of wind and solar power or that every home would produce overvoltage to sell back to the power company.
Hydrocarbons, which are produced inside the core of the Earth by abiotic processes, are in fact, a "limitless" and cheap form of energy. It costs Saudi Arabia $1.25 a barrel to extract oil. It's $5 a barrel by the time they ship it.
Everything else is add on fees.
But you have to live with it: Oil is a natural and renewable source of energy. If we could develop a fuel cell that ran on crude oil, the whole system would be as sustainable as the orbit of the Earth around the Moon.
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hapa Posted 11:35 am
04 Jun 2008
oh! i just learned about abiotic oil!
here's the relevant chapter of the textbook.
anyhow i love it when real life reinforces classroom material.
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Capster Posted 2:06 pm
04 Jun 2008
The truth, another take
As someone who lives in DC (please, no stones) my take is that many here are actually reasonably well informed about these issues. It's just hard to push through something that will raise prices on consumers, or allow high prices to continue, because, let's be honest - the american people are pretty short-sighted. There's not much incentive for a politician to take the long view, which you need with climate, when s/he is really concerned with getting re-elected in 2 years. Every 2 years.
Also, there's not much elasticity in rising gas prices. I am fairly confident (but welcome dissent) that the consumption of gas has not gone down materially while prices for gas have doubled in the past few years. That begs the question with politicians - if price increases don't appear to work, should we support price increases? The answer is "yes", because at some point they do work, but it will take some time to get there. Shifting behavior, shifting our economy - as many have pointed out, it won't be easy.
David, I agree with you - our country is pretty deluded. I hope that enough leaders in congress stand up to make these changes. But to be crystal clear, it won't happen this year. It will be 09 or 10 before a bill gets passed, regardless of who is in the WH.
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MAD MAC Posted 2:15 pm
05 Jun 2008
Tell the Voters the truth????
Whoa, whoa, whoa.......... stop right there.
Politicians don't do that. That would violate their code of ethics.
Dave, you are, of course, quite right. And people are fools if they just sit back and wait for the government (US or any other) to do something about this. People have to start modifying their lifestyles themselves. Government isn't positioned to tackle this issue yet.
So, you can take the bull by the horns, walk the dog, figure out the impacts of peak oil, and structure your lives to deal with those impacts, or not and suffer the consequences.
As they say here: Up to you.
Victory in Pattani
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caniscandida Posted 5:02 pm
05 Jun 2008
Just to be fair to authors,
let us name our sources: Gospel According to Saint John, 8.32: "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
The context is one of several disputes in that gospel between Jesus and some Jewish religious experts. But the words themselves have often been taken out of context, and applied in all kinds of new ways.
Circa 100 CE, the words sound kind of Gnostic: the enfleshed soul discovers the truth about about his/her true divine-related nature, and so is freed from the encumberments of material reality.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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