By Daniel Rigney
Transformative social movements in the past have usually arisen around charismatic leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. But where are our visionary leaders now?
Today we can no longer afford to wait for extraordinary figures to show up and lead us in concerted response to the urgent challenges of our time, such as the slow-motion but accelerating climate crisis that we homo sapiens (“wise humans”) have unintentionally brought upon ourselves and our planet.
Responsive leadership now comes increasingly from ordinary women and men, rising up from below, bound by shared aspirations and mutually supportive actions. As the saying now goes, we are the leaders we've been waiting for.
Some popular movements arise suddenly and die early. Others grow slowly, perhaps not even recognizing themselves as movements at first, and proceed to organize, connect, accelerate, and endure. I believe such a movement is rising now before our eyes. It could be called the Renewable Energy Movement (REM).
REM is not a sly reference to the rock band R.E.M., nor to the rapid eye movement that characterizes dreamful sleep (though REM certainly has its share of deep dreamers). Rather, REM is a loose but rapidly tightening and accelerating network of clean energy providers, political advocates, university research and development pioneers, religious organizations dedicated to creation care, and environmental activists driven by the dream of creating a renewable, sustainable home for future generations.
Here are some key nodes in the tightening network of groups dedicated to making the smoothest and most rapid transition possible from our outmoded and dangerously toxic carbon economy to a healthy, renewable, sustainable one. This transition is perhaps the most important economic transformation of our time, comparable in scope to the transition from agrarian to carbon-industrial economies in the past. The time to tip the balance from fossils and fossil industries to renewables has arrived.
Key Nodes in the U.S. Renewable Energy Network:
Renewable Energy Industry
Renewable energy providers themselves, of course, are central to the success of the whole project. Al Gore argues optimistically that with the dramatic development and increasing affordability of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, we’ve turned a corner in our race to reach sustainability. Renewable industry lobbies such as the American Wind Energy Association, the Solar Energy Industries Association, and the American Council on Renewable Energy are up against the big boys at the American Petroleum Institute and the well-oiled Koch machine, but with enough political support they may yet prevail against the oil boys.
Major financial backers of renewable energy, including Warren Buffet, Tom Steyer, John Doerr, and several large civic-minded (or PR-minded) corporations are now investing heavily in renewable energy projects. Big information technology companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google and Amazon are getting into the act, some claiming that their operations now run on 100% renewable energy. This claim can be slightly misleading, since it usually means that the company buys carbon offsets or credits that fund projects (wind/solar/water) that feed clean energy into the grid to compensate for the dirtier energy that flows directly from the grid into their operations. Nonetheless, purchasing well-certified (e.g., green-e) renewable energy and carbon offsets is a step in the right direction, helping to clean the energy in the grid as a whole.
Political Allies
Political decision-makers at all levels, from the global to the local, are crucial to the success of REM. The United Nations sustainable development goals provide a general framework for reaching sustainability, within which nations such as the United States and China can cooperate to find intermediate solutions to the eventual goal of putting the people of earth on a fully renewable energy path. Several European countries, and most notably Germany, are leading the world in the race to sustainability.
The U.S. renewables movement has found unexpected allies among those in military and national security circles who recognize that our dependence on (addiction to) fossil fuels has drawn us into needless oil wars. Continuing climate change will create dangerous political, economic and social instabilities throughout the world if greenhouse gas emissions are not dramatically reduced by replacing fossil fuels with clean energy.
Opposition to renewables remains strong among denialists who continue to ignore the overwhelming scientific consensus that fossil fuels are the principle culprit in the emerging climate crisis. In the context of U.S. politics, pro-science members of every party (Democratic, Republican, Green or other) can form multipartisan alliances against scientifically illiterate political actors and opportunistic industries that have deep financial and ideological interests in maintaining the existing carbon order and thwarting the renewable revolution.
Critical to the future success of the rising renewable industries are governmental investments and subsidies in scientific research, environmental protection, and renewable energy R&D funded through science-based agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, EPA, NASA and NOAA. The success of solar and wind development will also require fierce protection of politically vulnerable tax credits (such as wind’s PTC and solar’s ITC ) to counterbalance the historically massive government subsidies to coal, gas and oil production which continue even to this day.
Are subsidies to the carbon industries “rational” in the 21st century? They may be economically rational from the narrow and short-term financial perspective of the owners of oil and gas stocks, but wildly irrational (barking mad) from the standpoint of posterity’s well-being. We must start thinking and talking about the difference between short-term vs. long-term and narrow vs. broad, economically inclusive “rationality.” Neoclassical economists have misused the word “rational” long enough. It’s time to bequeath the word to future generations. What is rational about creating a wildly erratic and feverishly overheated climate for our posterity?
The passage of a carbon tax, or a more complicated cap and trade system, for limiting carbon emissions would go far toward making renewable energies more economically competitive with fossil fuels. Friends of renewable energy can promote political efforts to put a price on the external environmental and health costs of carbon -- even in the face of stiff resistance from the fossil lobbies. One leading voice on behalf of a carbon price is Citizens’ Climate Lobby.
Not all important political initiatives are occurring at the federal level. Many are happening in the states and cities, our laboratories of democracy. California is taking the lead in its energy and environmental policies at the state level, and innovative initiatives are emerging at the regional and municipal levels as well. Portland, Oregon has been called the greenest city in the U.S., and other Pacific coast cities are close behind, but Boston/Cambridge and, surprising to some, Chicago and Austin are also recognized as leaders in the quest to create environmentally sustainable cities. Renewable activists can work at the regional or local level to make their own states, cities and workplaces more carbon neutral and environmentally responsible.
Nature Lobbies
Yet another important node in the REM network are the environmental organizations and lobbies -- Bill McKibben’s 350.org, Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, Nature Conservancy, Greenpeace and many others – which deserve participation and support even while they sometimes compete with and criticize each other. Some may call the nature lobbies “Big Green,” but their resources are scant compared to those of Big Carbon. (If we call David "big," what do we call Goliath?) Friends of renewable energy don’t have energy to waste fighting each other. That energy is better invested in building Big Wind, Big Solar, and Big Waterpower. Environmental publications are also crucial to REM's success, supplying the movement with a rich base of up-to-date information to guide smart action. REM's information streams includes a multitude of renewable energy magazines, websites (such as grist.com) and books bringing current news from the frontiers of the renewable energy industry.
This would be a magnificent moment to launch an intenstive national public service or advertising campaign touting the urgent need to support renewables economically, politically, and as a humanitarian cause. PSAs anyone? Anyone? Mr. Steyer?
Scientific Research and Development Centers
Publicly and privately funded research and development projects, from which breakthroughs in renewable energy are now emerging, give hope of a cleaner, cooler future. Some of the world’s best minds are now at work on projects that point the way toward more efficient and affordable power sources. Here are three that seem particularly noteworthy. Of course, there are many others.
The MIT Energy Initiative (MITei) and hundreds of other universities and research centers around the world are undertaking an array of promising research and development projects aimed at advancing renewable-friendly technologies such as advanced solar cells and battery storage systems. One project, MIT’s Newberry Geothermal Project, is described by some as “the most important power plant in the country,” mining volcanic heat to produce vast amounts of power.
Stanford University is another major center of renewables research, including work done at its TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy. A Stanford group led by Mark Z. Jacobson has produced a detailed 50-state plan for reducing carbon emissions dramatically, “eliminating 80-85% of present-day greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions by 2030 and 100% by 2050 … while growing the number of jobs and stabilizing energy prices.” The plan was unveiled at the 2014 meetings of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science in Chicago. If you’d like to help make this happen in your own state, visit the Solutions Project for further information about how wind, sunlight and water (WSW) can fuel the world.
Cornell University's Howarth-Marino Lab Group is conducting and collating critical research which demonstrates that methane, and especially shale gas, is as dirty or dirtier than coal when we take into account leakages in the aging methane distribution system, from the wellhead to the kitchen stove. Howarth argues that methane, once touted as a “bridge fuel” to renewables, is actually a bridge to nowhere. The discovery that methane leakage is a far greater problem than was previously thought gives further impetus to renewable alternatives. (Note: Howarth is also connected to the Stanford team that produced the 50-state plan.)
Projects like these underscore not only the urgent need to move from hydrocarbons to renewables at an accelerating pace, but also the feasibility of doing so.
Religious Responses to the Climate Crisis
Religious institutions by and large have come late to the climate protection movement, and even then their response has seemed rather timid. Until recently, for example, the Roman Catholic Church has been eerily quiet on the subject of climate change, though there are indications that Pope Francis may take the church in a more future-oriented direction on this issue. Protestants have not covered themselves in glory either, though the Congregationalists (UCC), the Unitarian Universalists (UU), and the World Council of Churches have now divested most or all of their carbon holdings. Other religious bodies are considering doing so.
Many Christian denominations, along with Hindus, Buddhists, and those of other faith traditions, were represented in the recent People’s Climate March in New York, in which I marched with 1,500 UUs and thousands of others in the event's interfaith contingent. My first-hand accounts can be found here and here. Evangelicals were also in evidence at the march. Evangelical environmentalism, sometimes known as “creation care,” is a small but growing presence among theologically conservative denominations not generally known for their embrace of progressive causes.
The finest spiritually-oriented environmental website I’ve found thus far is “Ecological Buddhism,” (ecobuddhism for short), featuring a section on renewable energy.
Progressive religious bodies are not the only institutions moving to divest their endownments of carbon stocks. Many universities and other institutions are doing likewise. For the latest news on the divestment movement in the United States and abroad, visit gofossilfree.org.
How Can I Join?
How can each of us become a part of the Renewable Energy Movement? The answers are many. First and foremost, in many locales we can switch our utilities to 100% renewable energy at competitive prices and buy certified carbon offsets to further reduce our carbon footprints to zero. This is a fast route to carbon neutrality (in net effect) for both individual households and organizations.
If we are able to, we can divest carbon stocks and reinvest in something less harmful, like renewables.
We can consider making our next car electric, and run it on clean energy if we can find it.
We can reduce our home or workplace consumption of dirty grid electricity by investing in building improvements (e.g., insulating, sealing leakage, solarizing, installing smart thermostats). As Ben Franklin said, a kilowatt saved is a kilowatt earned.
Politically, we can practice “renewable citizenship” by supporting the adoption of carbon tax or cap and trade systems to disincentivize carbon emissions by building the very real external health and environmental costs of carbon into their price. In so doing, we make renewables more economically competitive.
We can work to expand funding for climate-related scientific research and development, and back state and local initiatives to clean our regions’ energy supplies. We can join and donate to environmental organizations and nature lobbies that promote renewable energy and ecologically sane public policy, and write letters to editors and political representatives in support of renewables.
And we can lead by example, influencing others to follow our lead.
If you do some, or any, of these things, congratulations! You’re now a vital participant in the Renewable Energy Movement as it continues to tighten its networks and build momentum.
REM, in whatever form it evolves, is essential to the well-being of future generations, who will not have a bright future without it. And the longer we wait, the more expensive the solutions will become -- if, indeed, there are any solutions to be had at that late hour.
Fortunately, REM is already here, and it’s growing and accelerating. Shine on.
-- originally posted in Danagram at opensalon.com
P.S.: Shortly after posting this article, I read the opening pages of Naomi Klein's powerful This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. She writes:
And I started to see signs -- new coalitions and arguments -- hinting at how, if these various connections were more widely understood, the urgency of the climate crisis could form the basis of a mass movement, one that would weave all these seemingly disparate issues into a coherent narrative about how to protect humanity from the ravages of both a savagely unjust economic system and a destabilized climate system. I have written this book because I came to the conclusion that climate action could provide just such a rare catalyst.
Please read this book.
I also discovered the websites of the New Energy Movement and New Vision, which you may wish to check out as signs of movement in the renewable energy community.
Transformative social movements in the past have usually arisen around charismatic leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. But where are our visionary leaders now?
Today we can no longer afford to wait for extraordinary figures to show up and lead us in concerted response to the urgent challenges of our time, such as the slow-motion but accelerating climate crisis that we homo sapiens (“wise humans”) have unintentionally brought upon ourselves and our planet.
Responsive leadership now comes increasingly from ordinary women and men, rising up from below, bound by shared aspirations and mutually supportive actions. As the saying now goes, we are the leaders we've been waiting for.
Some popular movements arise suddenly and die early. Others grow slowly, perhaps not even recognizing themselves as movements at first, and proceed to organize, connect, accelerate, and endure. I believe such a movement is rising now before our eyes. It could be called the Renewable Energy Movement (REM).
REM is not a sly reference to the rock band R.E.M., nor to the rapid eye movement that characterizes dreamful sleep (though REM certainly has its share of deep dreamers). Rather, REM is a loose but rapidly tightening and accelerating network of clean energy providers, political advocates, university research and development pioneers, religious organizations dedicated to creation care, and environmental activists driven by the dream of creating a renewable, sustainable home for future generations.
Here are some key nodes in the tightening network of groups dedicated to making the smoothest and most rapid transition possible from our outmoded and dangerously toxic carbon economy to a healthy, renewable, sustainable one. This transition is perhaps the most important economic transformation of our time, comparable in scope to the transition from agrarian to carbon-industrial economies in the past. The time to tip the balance from fossils and fossil industries to renewables has arrived.
Key Nodes in the U.S. Renewable Energy Network:
Renewable Energy Industry
Renewable energy providers themselves, of course, are central to the success of the whole project. Al Gore argues optimistically that with the dramatic development and increasing affordability of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, we’ve turned a corner in our race to reach sustainability. Renewable industry lobbies such as the American Wind Energy Association, the Solar Energy Industries Association, and the American Council on Renewable Energy are up against the big boys at the American Petroleum Institute and the well-oiled Koch machine, but with enough political support they may yet prevail against the oil boys.
Major financial backers of renewable energy, including Warren Buffet, Tom Steyer, John Doerr, and several large civic-minded (or PR-minded) corporations are now investing heavily in renewable energy projects. Big information technology companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google and Amazon are getting into the act, some claiming that their operations now run on 100% renewable energy. This claim can be slightly misleading, since it usually means that the company buys carbon offsets or credits that fund projects (wind/solar/water) that feed clean energy into the grid to compensate for the dirtier energy that flows directly from the grid into their operations. Nonetheless, purchasing well-certified (e.g., green-e) renewable energy and carbon offsets is a step in the right direction, helping to clean the energy in the grid as a whole.
Political Allies
Political decision-makers at all levels, from the global to the local, are crucial to the success of REM. The United Nations sustainable development goals provide a general framework for reaching sustainability, within which nations such as the United States and China can cooperate to find intermediate solutions to the eventual goal of putting the people of earth on a fully renewable energy path. Several European countries, and most notably Germany, are leading the world in the race to sustainability.
The U.S. renewables movement has found unexpected allies among those in military and national security circles who recognize that our dependence on (addiction to) fossil fuels has drawn us into needless oil wars. Continuing climate change will create dangerous political, economic and social instabilities throughout the world if greenhouse gas emissions are not dramatically reduced by replacing fossil fuels with clean energy.
Opposition to renewables remains strong among denialists who continue to ignore the overwhelming scientific consensus that fossil fuels are the principle culprit in the emerging climate crisis. In the context of U.S. politics, pro-science members of every party (Democratic, Republican, Green or other) can form multipartisan alliances against scientifically illiterate political actors and opportunistic industries that have deep financial and ideological interests in maintaining the existing carbon order and thwarting the renewable revolution.
Critical to the future success of the rising renewable industries are governmental investments and subsidies in scientific research, environmental protection, and renewable energy R&D funded through science-based agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, EPA, NASA and NOAA. The success of solar and wind development will also require fierce protection of politically vulnerable tax credits (such as wind’s PTC and solar’s ITC ) to counterbalance the historically massive government subsidies to coal, gas and oil production which continue even to this day.
Are subsidies to the carbon industries “rational” in the 21st century? They may be economically rational from the narrow and short-term financial perspective of the owners of oil and gas stocks, but wildly irrational (barking mad) from the standpoint of posterity’s well-being. We must start thinking and talking about the difference between short-term vs. long-term and narrow vs. broad, economically inclusive “rationality.” Neoclassical economists have misused the word “rational” long enough. It’s time to bequeath the word to future generations. What is rational about creating a wildly erratic and feverishly overheated climate for our posterity?
The passage of a carbon tax, or a more complicated cap and trade system, for limiting carbon emissions would go far toward making renewable energies more economically competitive with fossil fuels. Friends of renewable energy can promote political efforts to put a price on the external environmental and health costs of carbon -- even in the face of stiff resistance from the fossil lobbies. One leading voice on behalf of a carbon price is Citizens’ Climate Lobby.
Not all important political initiatives are occurring at the federal level. Many are happening in the states and cities, our laboratories of democracy. California is taking the lead in its energy and environmental policies at the state level, and innovative initiatives are emerging at the regional and municipal levels as well. Portland, Oregon has been called the greenest city in the U.S., and other Pacific coast cities are close behind, but Boston/Cambridge and, surprising to some, Chicago and Austin are also recognized as leaders in the quest to create environmentally sustainable cities. Renewable activists can work at the regional or local level to make their own states, cities and workplaces more carbon neutral and environmentally responsible.
Nature Lobbies
Yet another important node in the REM network are the environmental organizations and lobbies -- Bill McKibben’s 350.org, Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, Nature Conservancy, Greenpeace and many others – which deserve participation and support even while they sometimes compete with and criticize each other. Some may call the nature lobbies “Big Green,” but their resources are scant compared to those of Big Carbon. (If we call David "big," what do we call Goliath?) Friends of renewable energy don’t have energy to waste fighting each other. That energy is better invested in building Big Wind, Big Solar, and Big Waterpower. Environmental publications are also crucial to REM's success, supplying the movement with a rich base of up-to-date information to guide smart action. REM's information streams includes a multitude of renewable energy magazines, websites (such as grist.com) and books bringing current news from the frontiers of the renewable energy industry.
This would be a magnificent moment to launch an intenstive national public service or advertising campaign touting the urgent need to support renewables economically, politically, and as a humanitarian cause. PSAs anyone? Anyone? Mr. Steyer?
Scientific Research and Development Centers
Publicly and privately funded research and development projects, from which breakthroughs in renewable energy are now emerging, give hope of a cleaner, cooler future. Some of the world’s best minds are now at work on projects that point the way toward more efficient and affordable power sources. Here are three that seem particularly noteworthy. Of course, there are many others.
The MIT Energy Initiative (MITei) and hundreds of other universities and research centers around the world are undertaking an array of promising research and development projects aimed at advancing renewable-friendly technologies such as advanced solar cells and battery storage systems. One project, MIT’s Newberry Geothermal Project, is described by some as “the most important power plant in the country,” mining volcanic heat to produce vast amounts of power.
Stanford University is another major center of renewables research, including work done at its TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy. A Stanford group led by Mark Z. Jacobson has produced a detailed 50-state plan for reducing carbon emissions dramatically, “eliminating 80-85% of present-day greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions by 2030 and 100% by 2050 … while growing the number of jobs and stabilizing energy prices.” The plan was unveiled at the 2014 meetings of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science in Chicago. If you’d like to help make this happen in your own state, visit the Solutions Project for further information about how wind, sunlight and water (WSW) can fuel the world.
Cornell University's Howarth-Marino Lab Group is conducting and collating critical research which demonstrates that methane, and especially shale gas, is as dirty or dirtier than coal when we take into account leakages in the aging methane distribution system, from the wellhead to the kitchen stove. Howarth argues that methane, once touted as a “bridge fuel” to renewables, is actually a bridge to nowhere. The discovery that methane leakage is a far greater problem than was previously thought gives further impetus to renewable alternatives. (Note: Howarth is also connected to the Stanford team that produced the 50-state plan.)
Projects like these underscore not only the urgent need to move from hydrocarbons to renewables at an accelerating pace, but also the feasibility of doing so.
Religious Responses to the Climate Crisis
Religious institutions by and large have come late to the climate protection movement, and even then their response has seemed rather timid. Until recently, for example, the Roman Catholic Church has been eerily quiet on the subject of climate change, though there are indications that Pope Francis may take the church in a more future-oriented direction on this issue. Protestants have not covered themselves in glory either, though the Congregationalists (UCC), the Unitarian Universalists (UU), and the World Council of Churches have now divested most or all of their carbon holdings. Other religious bodies are considering doing so.
Many Christian denominations, along with Hindus, Buddhists, and those of other faith traditions, were represented in the recent People’s Climate March in New York, in which I marched with 1,500 UUs and thousands of others in the event's interfaith contingent. My first-hand accounts can be found here and here. Evangelicals were also in evidence at the march. Evangelical environmentalism, sometimes known as “creation care,” is a small but growing presence among theologically conservative denominations not generally known for their embrace of progressive causes.
The finest spiritually-oriented environmental website I’ve found thus far is “Ecological Buddhism,” (ecobuddhism for short), featuring a section on renewable energy.
Progressive religious bodies are not the only institutions moving to divest their endownments of carbon stocks. Many universities and other institutions are doing likewise. For the latest news on the divestment movement in the United States and abroad, visit gofossilfree.org.
How Can I Join?
How can each of us become a part of the Renewable Energy Movement? The answers are many. First and foremost, in many locales we can switch our utilities to 100% renewable energy at competitive prices and buy certified carbon offsets to further reduce our carbon footprints to zero. This is a fast route to carbon neutrality (in net effect) for both individual households and organizations.
If we are able to, we can divest carbon stocks and reinvest in something less harmful, like renewables.
We can consider making our next car electric, and run it on clean energy if we can find it.
We can reduce our home or workplace consumption of dirty grid electricity by investing in building improvements (e.g., insulating, sealing leakage, solarizing, installing smart thermostats). As Ben Franklin said, a kilowatt saved is a kilowatt earned.
Politically, we can practice “renewable citizenship” by supporting the adoption of carbon tax or cap and trade systems to disincentivize carbon emissions by building the very real external health and environmental costs of carbon into their price. In so doing, we make renewables more economically competitive.
We can work to expand funding for climate-related scientific research and development, and back state and local initiatives to clean our regions’ energy supplies. We can join and donate to environmental organizations and nature lobbies that promote renewable energy and ecologically sane public policy, and write letters to editors and political representatives in support of renewables.
And we can lead by example, influencing others to follow our lead.
If you do some, or any, of these things, congratulations! You’re now a vital participant in the Renewable Energy Movement as it continues to tighten its networks and build momentum.
REM, in whatever form it evolves, is essential to the well-being of future generations, who will not have a bright future without it. And the longer we wait, the more expensive the solutions will become -- if, indeed, there are any solutions to be had at that late hour.
Fortunately, REM is already here, and it’s growing and accelerating. Shine on.
-- originally posted in Danagram at opensalon.com
P.S.: Shortly after posting this article, I read the opening pages of Naomi Klein's powerful This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. She writes:
And I started to see signs -- new coalitions and arguments -- hinting at how, if these various connections were more widely understood, the urgency of the climate crisis could form the basis of a mass movement, one that would weave all these seemingly disparate issues into a coherent narrative about how to protect humanity from the ravages of both a savagely unjust economic system and a destabilized climate system. I have written this book because I came to the conclusion that climate action could provide just such a rare catalyst.
Please read this book.
I also discovered the websites of the New Energy Movement and New Vision, which you may wish to check out as signs of movement in the renewable energy community.
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