It's also odd that it barely registers with Rex that Biden's twin victories, IRA+the Infrastructure Act, are old school New Deal/Great Society level public investments in skilled job-creating construction works. It's a climate crisis take on Keynesian policy. (The Chips law makes it a trifecta actually). As advocates we need to highlight the economy building aspect of the renewable revolution.
Geoff is my new best friend - his new book "The Petroleum Papers" truly contains the "receipts" going back 50 yrs - Big Oil knew what they were doing to the climate and decided to keep doing it. Another gifted Canadian! https://greystonebooks.com/products/the-petroleum-papers
Why is it that climate activists are often also anti-markets? Market economies have performed so much better than any other forms. The caveat is that markets require regulation, akin to any sports game requires rules and referees. But the rules and referees are not there to determine the outcome of the game. That's up to the two sides. Markets should be approached in the same way. Rather than trying to determine the so-called "best" outcome (which is highly personal), we, as climate activists, should aim to set the rules. Methane and CO2 are unwanted side-effects of many activities, or, in market terms "externalities". We should aim to get the externalities priced fairly, best through a carbon-tax, but there are many ways to achieve this. Over 99% of scientist agree that CO2 is the main driver behind global heating. Let them estimate the damage CO2 has, is and will be inflicting, so governments an set a price for it. The markets will do the rest. And thinking along the same lines: fossil fuel companies are very good in managing huge investments, eliminating the risks such giant projects bring. Why don't we make it extremely attractive to them to solve the storage issue of renewables? If they solve it, they can make indecent profits as far as I'm concerned. That will help us starve investments in fossil and solve one of the most pressing needs in the giant conversion. And it will give the Exxons of this world a ticket to play a role in a game where they otherwise can earn nothing, as the energy itself is delivered free, courtesy of the Sun.
l'll admit when I first began reading the article I was downcast (euphemism) reading about Stephens and Teixeira, precisely for the reasons you later mentioned. I felt as horribly as I later did when I read about the big banks, Sweden's new right-wing gov't, the Enbridge fine, the PA legisature and fracking in general (Teixeira's idea), Exxon's profits, who the fracking industry's opponents are compared to, and, especially, the East African Pipeline. I am in contact with a minister in Uganda now who is caring for a handful of orphans and writes daily that he can't find food for them (no $$) and they have no $$ for school uniforms, so the kids don't go to school. He has not made the connection to the Pipeline yet but I understand there probably is. If I won the billion-dollar Powerball I'd set up a charity first and have them taken care of. Thanks for this article, Bill. I "enjoy" all of them so much and they inspire me with my own work greatly. If you ever need an extra pair of eyes to look over your piece for minor grammar mistakes let me know – I'd gladly do it for free (I am an unpaid subscriber). I noticed a few superficial boo-boos.
Upside down world. I used to read everything from Bill McKibben since early 1990’s. Now? I stopped following McKibben about 4 years because he is a fraud and loves burning our trees and belittling Dr McPherson years ago. McPherson is still correct all along. Even if ALL of our humans get together in “sustainably” right now it wouldn’t matter. The science is baked in and you were baked 20 years ago. We all failed.
The Teixeira and Stevens positions is truly frustrating. I do have a real problem with the lack of attention to long term outages that have been occurring with increased frequency. The trajectory of battery improvement does not seem anywhere near adequate to cover long term solar and/or wind outages such as the winter problem that happened in Texas, and similar earlier problems in the Pacific Northwest and in Europe. I am familiar with the study performed by Jacobson at Stanford that essentially concludes that adequate grid design can solve this problem. If it is as he says, that is wonderful, but has it been confirmed by other analysts? If not, we need to do more, whether it is green hydrogen, nuclear power, as well as the grid, or whatever.
“ There’s no question that the transition to renewable energy will be hard: it requires replacing a lot of stuff.”
Yes. Lots of stuff to replace. And also retire as it gets replaced.
That is our work in the 21st Century. To navigate through a replace-to-retire restructuring of the global energy economy and arrive at the other side with both energy parity and habitat longevity.
And social equity.
The hard truth to this work is that it is Net-no-growth.
Which brings into confrontation with a thorny technical problem: how are we going to use growth finance to finance a net-no-growth replace-to-retire technology swap-out?
The technical answer to this technical question is, We can’t. We have to find another way.
It's also odd that it barely registers with Rex that Biden's twin victories, IRA+the Infrastructure Act, are old school New Deal/Great Society level public investments in skilled job-creating construction works. It's a climate crisis take on Keynesian policy. (The Chips law makes it a trifecta actually). As advocates we need to highlight the economy building aspect of the renewable revolution.
Thanks for this. It’s so valuable to survey, quote and critique the opposition. You read them so I don’t have to!
Geoff is my new best friend - his new book "The Petroleum Papers" truly contains the "receipts" going back 50 yrs - Big Oil knew what they were doing to the climate and decided to keep doing it. Another gifted Canadian! https://greystonebooks.com/products/the-petroleum-papers
Why is it that climate activists are often also anti-markets? Market economies have performed so much better than any other forms. The caveat is that markets require regulation, akin to any sports game requires rules and referees. But the rules and referees are not there to determine the outcome of the game. That's up to the two sides. Markets should be approached in the same way. Rather than trying to determine the so-called "best" outcome (which is highly personal), we, as climate activists, should aim to set the rules. Methane and CO2 are unwanted side-effects of many activities, or, in market terms "externalities". We should aim to get the externalities priced fairly, best through a carbon-tax, but there are many ways to achieve this. Over 99% of scientist agree that CO2 is the main driver behind global heating. Let them estimate the damage CO2 has, is and will be inflicting, so governments an set a price for it. The markets will do the rest. And thinking along the same lines: fossil fuel companies are very good in managing huge investments, eliminating the risks such giant projects bring. Why don't we make it extremely attractive to them to solve the storage issue of renewables? If they solve it, they can make indecent profits as far as I'm concerned. That will help us starve investments in fossil and solve one of the most pressing needs in the giant conversion. And it will give the Exxons of this world a ticket to play a role in a game where they otherwise can earn nothing, as the energy itself is delivered free, courtesy of the Sun.
City abortion funding saves city school tax, so much so that cities can then fund country abortions as well, all without answering to country voters.
In this way, my guess is that 10 cities can cover the USA and 25 can cover the world.
I read the story on Enbridge's "cracking" the Aquifer, actually in 3 places I believe, I believed they were fined in excess of $11 Million
Already shared on LinkedIn! 8=)
l'll admit when I first began reading the article I was downcast (euphemism) reading about Stephens and Teixeira, precisely for the reasons you later mentioned. I felt as horribly as I later did when I read about the big banks, Sweden's new right-wing gov't, the Enbridge fine, the PA legisature and fracking in general (Teixeira's idea), Exxon's profits, who the fracking industry's opponents are compared to, and, especially, the East African Pipeline. I am in contact with a minister in Uganda now who is caring for a handful of orphans and writes daily that he can't find food for them (no $$) and they have no $$ for school uniforms, so the kids don't go to school. He has not made the connection to the Pipeline yet but I understand there probably is. If I won the billion-dollar Powerball I'd set up a charity first and have them taken care of. Thanks for this article, Bill. I "enjoy" all of them so much and they inspire me with my own work greatly. If you ever need an extra pair of eyes to look over your piece for minor grammar mistakes let me know – I'd gladly do it for free (I am an unpaid subscriber). I noticed a few superficial boo-boos.
Thanks Bill! Keep it up. I'm going to broadcast this to my email list of 80-plus
Upside down world. I used to read everything from Bill McKibben since early 1990’s. Now? I stopped following McKibben about 4 years because he is a fraud and loves burning our trees and belittling Dr McPherson years ago. McPherson is still correct all along. Even if ALL of our humans get together in “sustainably” right now it wouldn’t matter. The science is baked in and you were baked 20 years ago. We all failed.
The Teixeira and Stevens positions is truly frustrating. I do have a real problem with the lack of attention to long term outages that have been occurring with increased frequency. The trajectory of battery improvement does not seem anywhere near adequate to cover long term solar and/or wind outages such as the winter problem that happened in Texas, and similar earlier problems in the Pacific Northwest and in Europe. I am familiar with the study performed by Jacobson at Stanford that essentially concludes that adequate grid design can solve this problem. If it is as he says, that is wonderful, but has it been confirmed by other analysts? If not, we need to do more, whether it is green hydrogen, nuclear power, as well as the grid, or whatever.
Really excellent newsletter. Thank you!
“ There’s no question that the transition to renewable energy will be hard: it requires replacing a lot of stuff.”
Yes. Lots of stuff to replace. And also retire as it gets replaced.
That is our work in the 21st Century. To navigate through a replace-to-retire restructuring of the global energy economy and arrive at the other side with both energy parity and habitat longevity.
And social equity.
The hard truth to this work is that it is Net-no-growth.
Which brings into confrontation with a thorny technical problem: how are we going to use growth finance to finance a net-no-growth replace-to-retire technology swap-out?
The technical answer to this technical question is, We can’t. We have to find another way.
What might be that other way?