Energy

So one needs to look outside of official policy to have any chance of finding a realistic plan to meet the obligations under the Paris Agreement. I recently came across one such plan – Le Plan de transformation de l’économie Française (The French Economy Transformation Plan) authored by The Shift Project, an influential energy and climate think tank in France led by the engineer and system-thinker Jean-Marc Jancovici.

Building and operating a bathhouse for 1,000 people requires much less energy than building and operating 1,000 individual bathrooms. A public bathhouse is also more efficient concerning materials, money, and space.

It’s eight years after the Dakota Access Pipeline resistance at the river. The Standing Rock tribe is still seeking to close down the pipeline, the Environmental Impact Statement is in draft form and oil still runs North Dakota. We might need more Water Protectors. You can’t drink oil.

The warming climate, at least to the billionaire mine owners and their Western accomplices, will remain an afterthought, as well as a justification to exploit more of Africa’s critical minerals. Consider it a new type of colonialism, this time with a green capitalist veneer.

If we can’t get to YIMBY and make fair decisions about near-term sacrifices, the end game is clear. When the planet goes into a carbon-induced death spiral, we’ll all, rich and poor alike, be forced to make the ultimate sacrifice.

In this episode, Nate is joined by longtime colleagues Tom Murphy and D.J. White for an in-depth exploration of the mounting ecological crises driven by human behavior and unsustainable energy consumption.