Tomorrow night, thousands of students will gather around their own personal computers and in larger viewing parties to hear the words of one of the leading climate campaigners in the world. Al Gore will probably say many things, including thanking us for our work on Power Vote, asking us to mobilize around Get-Out-the-Vote, and perhaps even hint at the need for Obama to win the presidency. I fully agree with all of these points, and believe them to be important.
But Gore will (or at least should) say one more thing: that we should rally behind his goal to RePower America to obtain 100% of our Electricity from Clean Sources by 2018. The Massachusetts State Network (Massachusetts Power Shift) is rallying behind this goal. We encourage others to join us.
I am writing to lend him some strong pre-emptive support for this policy ask, and compare it to the ask that has risen to prominence among many climate change activists - 80% reductions below 1990 levels by 2050.
Our Generation’s Policy Demands for Climate Solutions
More specifically, I will lay out:
A) What we want in a target,
B) Why 80% reductions below 1990 levels by 2050 fails in almost all of these criteria; and
C) Why 100% Carbon-Free Electricity by 2018 meets almost all of these criteria.
I will then hope to alleviate any remaining concerns by addressing:
D) The Political Feasibility and Technological Feasibility of the 100% by 2018 goal.
________________________________________________________________________
A) What we want in a target:
1) Immediate
The target should require action to begin immediately. Our planet and the people on it - are suffering; further delays will only exponentially increase the harms. We must act now.
2) Bold
The target should be bold. It should be equal in scale to the grave challenge at hand.
3) Accountable
The target should be quantifiable, and something that we can easily hold our elected politicians to.
4) Comprehensive
The target should seek to solve the entire problem, not just a piece of it.
5) Forward-looking; Inspirational; Positive Imagery
The target should inspire in us a positive vision of the future. It should be about building up, not tearing down.
6) Scientifically-Based
The target should comport to the best available scientific knowledge.
7) Green Jobs Now
The job market is weak, and especially with this greed-induced financial crisis, people need hope and relief. The target should create green jobs now. Today.
B) Why 80% reductions below 1990 levels by 2050 is almost none of these things:
1) Immediate: Thumbs Down.
80% reductions below 1990 levels by 2050 is not immediate. It suggests we wait 42 years to solve this problem that we are claiming is urgent.
2) Bold: Thumbs Down.
80% reductions below 1990 levels by 2050 is not bold. It is not equal in scale to the challenge at hand.
3) Accountable: Thumbs Down.
80% reductions below 1990 levels by 2050 does not allow us to hold politicians accountable. Those who are in office now are not the ones ultimately responsible for meeting the target. Thus, while it is quantifiable, it does not allow us to hold our politicians’ feet to the fire. (see endnote)
4) Comprehensive: Thumbs Up.
80% reductions below 1990 levels by 2050 does suggest economy-wide emissions reductions, so while it is a few decades late, it is appropriate in its scope.
5) Forward-Looking; Inspirational; Positive Imagery: Thumbs Down.
80% reductions below 1990 levels by 2050 does not inspire action. Few people are inspired to cut or reduce things. It does not convey a strong challenge that the American people can easily visualize and rally around.
6) Scientifically-based: Thumbs Down.
80% reductions below 1990 levels by 2050 is NOT scientifically based. It is based on out-dated scientific evidence, and its claims to be the scientifically based solution, while well-intentioned, were flawed. (see endnote).
7) Green Jobs Now: Thumbs Sideways.
80% reductions below 1990 levels by 2050 creates some green jobs now, but potentially holds off on many of the jobs for decades into the future.
C) Why 100% Carbon-Free Electricity by 2018 is most of these things:
1) Immediate: Thumbs Up.
100% Carbon-Free Electricity by 2018 is immediate. It requires a complete re-powering of our economy within 10 years. There is no time to lose.
2) Bold: Thumbs Up.
100% Carbon-Free Electricity by 2018 is bold. It is arguably a task equal to the challenge at hand.
3) Accountable: Thumbs Up.
100% Carbon-Free Electricity by 2018 allows us to hold our politicians accountable. It is a quantifiable goal that requires those who are in power now to act now, and it demands action from our next president, who will likely be in office for 8 of the next 10 years.
4) Comprehensive: Thumbs Sideways.
100% Carbon-Free Electricity by 2018 is not comprehensive. It addresses only electricity, and does not include targets for transportation and other sectors of the economy. So why focus on this goal at the expense of others?
A) If over the next ten years we continue R&D on electric cars, we could shortly eliminate the vast majority of emissions from transportation by having plug-in electric cars receive their electricity from the carbon-free electricity grid. So it could potentially include transportation as well in short order
B) It is the most politically difficult portion to achieve, with the most powerful vested interests lined up against us. If we are able to get this goal passed and stop big coal and big oil from running our nation, asking for increased efficiency, carbon sinks, better industrial standards, etc. will be a lot easier. And this goal captures the public imagination far better than the others. No one will fight hard against efficiency improvements, but you can bet groups will fight against this type of action.
5) Forward-Looking; Inspirational; Positive Imagery: Thumbs Up.
100% Carbon-Free Electricity by 2018 is forward-looking, inspirational, and positive in its imagery. It requires us to build big and build bold. There is nothing about stopping, reducing, or cutting; but instead about starting, growing, building, and re-powering.
6) Scientifically-Based: Thumbs Up.
100% Carbon-Free Electricity by 2018 is as scientifically-based as any solution yet proposed, because it is the fastest target proposed by someone with a high degree of legitimacy. Science tells us we are killing ourselves, and that we need to stop. NOW. This target immediately sets us upon that goal. (See footnote 2).
7) Green Jobs Now: Thumbs Up.
100% Carbon-Free Electricity will create green jobs now. We will need to not only construct hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of solar panels, windmills, and install countless small-scale hydro, geothermal, and tidal energy producers, but we will also need to re-wire America to enable for a new large-scale distribution system for this electricity. Such an undertaking will require a mobilization of domestic American labor in a way not seen since FDR’s New Deal Programs during the Great Depression. (See endnote 3).
D) Remaining impediments:
It all sounds great, but: “is it really possible?”
Yes. Regardless, we need to be thinking about what is necessary, not what is possible.
But I will evaluate the political and technological feasibility below.
1) Political Feasibility.
That is for us to decide. A supporting story:
Before our friends at Step It Up swept the goal of 80% by 2050 across the nation, most thought 80% by 2050 was asking for too much, that it was too bold. Now, less than two years later, several states have written that goal into law, leading politicians have embraced it, it is being seriously discussed at the federal level for national legislation, and in international circles as the basis for a global treaty.
The popularization of 80% by 2050 was a truly inspiring thing to watch (and perhaps be a small part of), and totally necessary at the time. Now, several years later, the science and politics have shifted enough that we know that we can and must ask for more. But the 80% by 2050 movement shows us that grassroots organizing can affect political discourse in a serious and substantial way.
2) Technological Feasibility:
Nobody knows. We have never tried to re-power our entire nation in a decade before. A supporting story:
In 1940, our nation produced a grand total of 4,000 aircraft. The United States was bombed in December of 1941. At the beginning of 1942, President Roosevelt (FDR) set what most thought was an entirely unrealistic set of goals, including the construction of 60,000 aircraft. Most thought he set these goals to inspire us to aim high, even though we would never reach it. If we fell short of the goals, maybe we would still have 20,000 aircraft, or 35,000, or maybe even 48,000 aircraft. Anything in that general range would be much better than the 4,000 aircraft we built in 1940.
Between FDR’s speech in the beginning of 1942 and the end of 1944, our nation constructed a full 216,600 aircraft. No one thought it was possible, but no one really knew. We had never then switched our economic might into constructing military weapons any more than we have now switched our economic might into constructing renewable energy. When there is a will, there is a way.
Conclusion:
Time is of the essence. The 100% by 2018 electricity target meets 6 of the 7 criteria laid out (immediate, bold, accountable, forward-looking, scientifically based, green jobs now) while the 80% by 2050 emissions target meets only 1 (comprehensive).
We only get one shot at tackling the climate crisis. We need to make sure that our aim is true. Our children, and indeed our future selves, will not forgive us for compromising before we began to fight.
This problem is diminished by setting intermediate targets – such as 20% by 2020 — but the intermediate targets are not our main rallying cry. They are seen as separate asks, all of which are fair game for people looking to strike a compromise. (For instance, in MA’s Climate Bill, our intermediate targets were partially sacrificed to get the longer-term target in place. But without intermediate targets, the longer-term target loses its power. It is better to have a single target that does not require intermediate targets.
Science cannot tell us the correct ‘solution’ for climate change. There is no “scientifically correct” amount of damage that we will absorb, no “scientifically correct” number of human beings who will die from climate change. Science can only give us estimated damage predictions for a given range of emissions. It is essentially a values decision for we the people to make to decide how much damage, death, and destruction is acceptable. There is no mathematical formula for that.
The target 80% by 2050 was based upon the notion that if we kept carbon dioxide particles to 450 Parts Per Million (PPM) in the atmosphere, we would have a 50% chance of avoiding the “worst consequences of climate change,” or those associated with a 2 degree Celsius rise in temperatures. Scientists now estimate that we will hit 450PPM not in 2050, but in the middle of the 2030’s, assuming emissions levels stay constant and do not increase (which they have been doing, year after year). Furthermore, head NASA Climate Scientist Jim Hanson has stated that 350PPM is the maximum amount of carbon in the atmosphere that could sustain our way of life. And we are already at 387PPM. That means we have to immediately begin reducing, as fast and as strong as we can, if we are to avert catastrophe.
Some proposals, such as a Green Jobs Corps or Clean Energy Corps, that will employ low-income and traditionally disadvantaged individuals to weatherize low-income homes, etc. fit just as well with the 100% by 2018 target as they do with the 80% by 2050 target, and indeed better, because they more strongly convey the need to start acting (and thus creating jobs) now.
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The first steps on the path to a clean energy future will be harder than the last ones. Overcoming inertia is the most difficult part. Just another reason that fighting for an abstract emissions reduction target forty+ years down the road has never made much sense to me. (No disrespect to friends at Step it Up. Their successful efforts to shift the debate on emissions reduction targets was and is well worth it… just not the movement-wide rallying cry we need today).
While I am more skeptical of the technical feasibility of a 100% conversion to clean electricity in a decade’s time (we’re talking about a massive infrastructure change, and that takes a long time), 100% clean energy is the only sensible target and as soon as possible is the only sensible time frame. And an aggressive, some might say impossible target is exactly what grassroots movements, especially youth movements, should be fighting for. It’s our job to shift the discussion, to push for the hard asks, and to keep momentum moving in the right direction. So on lobby day after Power Shift 2009, when thousands off us take over the halls of Congress, I do hope that calls for “100% clean energy” and “green jobs now” displace chants for “80 by 50.”
Thanks for starting this discussion Craig. I look forward to hearing other’s perspectives/thoughts.
Craig,
First I’ll echo Jesse’s thanks for starting this discussion.
Our movement needs a dramatic transformation not unlike the transformation we’d like to see of our energy infrastructure. You’ve hit the nail on the head with the shift in messaging - step two is to grow the movement to include all of the people who weren’t inspired by “save the polar bears” or “80 by 50.” Hopefully a positive message will do a lot to achieve that, but it will also require a kind of outreach and organizing we have yet to see.
We need collaboration on an unprecedented scale.
In the last few years we’ve seen the emergence of the youth climate movement - let’s make 2009 the year this movement grows up, and grows to include everyone who has an interest in bringing us into the new energy economy, which pretty much means, well, everyone.
okay
let’s give it a shot
Right on. We now need to get key politicians to support the goal to help it gain traction. The only way that will happen, I think, is if the youth climate movement makes it its rallying cry.
Albeit I have tried this rally cry since the early eighties, without the internet, I have a couple of suggestions….. One is clearly that everyone needs to be involved, the other is - this issue needs to remain bipartisan.
Stop touting elitist Democrats as the answer to all our problems. There are people on both sides of the political fence that share similar climate opinions and recognize the need for immediate reductions in emissions!
Corporate and Government greed and the American people turning a blind-eye to these issues are our problems today…. One particular candidate or the other is not going to shift a mind-set of mistrust and division in a Country.
Let’s all commit to this issue and let the politicians do whatever it is they do! I hear a lot of Democratic candidates and their supporters beating on the drum but, do they invest their elitist dollars into these green industries? When someone can prove to me that the likes of Al Gore, Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton have invested their hard earned dollars into the industry like Jay Leno has, I’ll begin to respect what they have to say. Otherwise, the Washingtonians are just another group of greedy yeah sayers that are out after more corupt dollars for themselves!
Lets get Canada involved in this mvement too. Canada has the people, the technology and some of the money to make a difference.
In fact, lets make this a world wide movement! No time to waste!
Sure is nice to see this starting, and yes, lets leave out the political labels, they serve only to divide, we’re all in this together, and so are the children, born and unborn.
Lets think ahead in the manner of the Aboriginal People of this land and try not only for to make it better for ourselves and our children but make it better for the next “Seven Generations”.
If each generation does so, it becomes a self full-filling prophesy!
Thanks to Craig!!!
Ray Solomon