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Job One, Day One: Bright Green Economic Recovery
Alex Steffen, WorldChanging
With the U.S. presidential race in its final few weeks, and momentum towards a possible Obama/ Democratic landslide building, it’s worth beginning to ask, “What next? What happens here in America after the election?”
The world needs a strong and future-focused United States, but what we have is a U.S. nearing complete collapse. Our financial institutions have nearly failed, our dollar is weak, our government is in deficit spending, our people are neck-deep in debt. Our infrastructure is literally falling apart. Our military is in a shambles. Our health care system is the joke of the developed world, our education system fails half of our children, and we imprison more people than China. Meanwhile, we are the world’s worst polluter, having built a car-dependent suburban way of life that pumps money out of our economy and planet-threatening emissions into the sky.
Many Americans, especially young Americans, see this nation’s future disintegrating in front of their eyes, and realize that we no longer have options or time to debate. We have only one choice: launch ourselves immediately into a bright green economic transformation, or sink into a potentially irrecoverable decline.
We know that transformation is within our grasp. We know that we can move quickly to transition to smart growth and urban revitalization, green building, efficient electric cars, power generation from renewables, sustainable farming, ecological restoration of our wild lands and rivers, green taxes (with a carbon cap) and a strong commitment to education, public science and diplomacy. Solutions exist to the problems we face.
(14 October 2008)
Scott Brinkman, corporate and finance attorney
Courier-Journal (Kentucky)
Was the bailout a good idea?
In my opinion, the bailout had to be done, but it was the worst vote anyone had to cast simply because of what it’s going to do to our deficit and the amount of debt future Americans are going to have to repay. However, we do have a liquidity problem in this country, people aren’t lending, and until we free up those bad assets, get them off the books and get cash into our financial institutions, I think the credit crisis is going to continue.
… After 9/11, President Bush told everyone to go shopping. Isn’t that what we all did?
That’s exactly what we did. If you read Thomas Friedman, and he’s dead on, then what President Bush should have said is, we’re going to have a Manhattan-type project to promote energy independence, and we should have put a tax on fuel to force conservation, and used that money to invest in R&D.
… So you see a resurrection of New Deal programs?
Absolutely.
And you’re a Republican and you believe that.
What I see is, the biggest long-term challenge for our country is our dependence on foreign oil. Unless and until we get serious about developing alternative sources of energy on a long-term basis, we’re going to continue to be held hostage to oil prices. I don’t care which business you’re in, you can’t plan if you don’t know next week if it’s going to be $150 a barrel or $70 a barrel. You have to create certainty. That’s the No. 1 thing we have to do, develop a plan to get us off oil. The second thing — and this is an opportunity — is to develop mass transit and get serious, not only in cities but between cities.
(1X October 2008)
Interviews with Matt Simmons, Clayton Williams and others (text and video)
WorldEnergy.TV, press release via Business wire
WorldEnergy.TV interviewed Clayton Williams, Matt Simmons, Rod Erskine and several other high-ranking executives on the presidential candidates and their energy policies, prior to tonight’s third presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama at New York’s Hofstra University. To watch, visit www.WorldEnergy.TV.
“We’ve survived in spite of politicians, and the free market has worked through some of the idiotic things that are done in Washington,” Clayton Williams, Texas independent and industry legend, told WorldEnergy.TV.
Oil investor Matt Simmons asserted that about half of Obama’s comments make some sense, and only about 10 percent of McCain’s make sense. Rod Erskine of Erskine Energy, by contrast, believes that “McCain has a little better handle on energy than Obama does, but I don’t think either candidate — or the American public — really understands what it takes to drill for, find and develop oil and gas.”
Bill Daugherty of NGAS Resources told World Energy Television that both candidates have similar plans, now that Obama has agreed to some offshore drilling, but that Obama wants a windfall profits tax and McCain doesn’t. Said John W. Robinson of North Ranch Resources: “I see energy policies being a broad-based set of criteria through which we address both the production and demand sides, do conservation work and look at all alternatives. Unfortunately, some political factions want to limit one or more of those.”
(15 October 2008)
Florida relases state climate plan:
Huge economic gains, redefines national discussion
David Sassoon, Daily Kos
Florida today is releasing its plan of action to address climate change, and the news is good and big.
Fifty separate policy recommendations pave the way for Florida to realize $28 billion in net economic savings between now and 2025, and to significantly reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The report’s executive summary, posted today here, calculates that emissions would be reduced 64% from business-as-usual projections by 2025 if all fifty policy recommendations are implemented. That translates into a 51% reduction of emissions below 2005 levels, and a 33% reduction below 1990 levels. The reductions blow past the targets Governor Crist asked the Action Team to hit.
Florida’s fuel consumption would also decline dramatically and lessen its dependence on both dirty and foreign sources of fossil energy — a projected total fuel savings of 53.5 billion gallons of petroleum, 200.2 million short tons of coal, and 6.394 billion cubic feet of natural gas during the period of 2009 through 2025.
What is particularly noteworthy is that this plan emerges from the Republican stronghold of Governor Charlie Crist’s administration, a man who was on the short list for Vice-Presidential nominee. Secretary of Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection Michael Sole headed up Crist’s Action Team on Energy and Climate Change which produced the plan. He was deputy secretary of the department under former governor Jeb Bush.
Kathleen Shanahan, who was Jeb Bush’s chief of staff, also served on the Action Team. She also served as Chief of Staff for Vice President-elect Dick Cheney during the 2000 presidential campaign and transition. Also on the action team was Mark Kaplan, who also served in the capacity of Chief of Staff for Jeb Bush when he was governor. Rick Baker, Republican Mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida also helped produce the plan. All 50 recommendations were adopted unanimously by the 27 members of the action team.
Although the plan’s focus is on Florida, its release is timely and important to the national dialogue on the fate of climate change solutions during these economically troubled times. The authors state in no uncertain terms that they believe climate action is not a costly policy package best postponed for better times, but the central and vital engine of economic recovery.
(15 October 2008)
Also at David Sassoon’s blog.
A 1979 GAO Energy Report – A Template for the Future?
Nate Hagens, The Oil Drum
With the dramatic increase in oil prices over the last decade, and even more dramatic dive since July, the perception for urgency regarding long term energy change is on a roller coaster ride of its own. As former Sec. of Energy James Schlesinger sums up “Americans have only two modes when it comes to energy – complacency and panic”. Unfortunately, as financial deleveraging grabs center stage, we have shifted to full complacency mode, while simultaneously our long term energy situation is deteriorating rapidly. Changing our energy mix and more importantly, how we use it, has been relegated to the sidestage, as concerns about credit, jobs, and 401ks override. After all, crude oil is under $70 per barrel, and gasoline is cheap and plentiful. What’s there to worry?
Below is an energy report from the General Accounting Office presented to Congress in 1979, (hat tip energymaven), followed by my own conclusion. After reading the GAO report (pdf warning), it becomes clear, almost painfully so, that we have missed a generation of opportunity.
[GAO Report… ]
The world is likely to continue to experience periods of tight supply and upward pressure on prices in the next few years. The time is approaching when crude oil production capabilities will peak. While we now are faced with the need for quick actions to meet the problems created by the Iranian oil shortfall, we also must face up to the reality that we cannot continue to rely on short-term crisis management in the energy area and that now is the time to get our energy conservation act together.
We believe a strong, coordinated national energy conservation program cannot only mitigate the adverse impacts of future Iranian-type situations, but more importantly it would reduce the likelihood of oil embargoes being used as a weapon against the United States. Further, a strong conservation program is also needed to allow an orderly transition to renewable resources. Our February 13, 1979, letter to the Chairmen of Energy-Related Committees and Subcommittees highlighted the following three overriding problems which, in our opinion, must be solved before the Nation will achieve any significant level of energy conservation:
–A lack of specific planning and direction from the Government in the energy conservation area. In our June 30, 1978 report (EMD-78-38), we concluded that the Federal Government had not developed an overall energy conservation strategy for the Nation. While DOE generally agreed with our position, no strategy has been forthcoming.
–The absence of an aggressive, coordinated effort by the Government to conserve energy in its own operations and facilities. We have issued a series of reports on various Federal in-house conservation programs which show the lack of commitment by the Administration to aggressively pursue energy conservation within the Federal Government.
(17 October 2008)
