The FDR era comes to an end
And so we will need to build the next new thing under the sun
I am, of course, sad.
I had hoped, almost more than I let myself really feel, that American was about to elect a smart black woman president of the United States, moving us further down the path that we have haltingly followed throughout my life. Instead, quite knowingly, we elected someone who stood for the worst impulses in our history. I think the next four years—and perhaps longer—will be very hard on many fronts. One is the concern of this newsletter, climate and energy, where we can expect the oil industry to have carte blanche.
But I actually think the message and the moment is much deeper than that. What happened last night was that the cord that stretched back to FDR snapped. It had been badly frayed, especially in the Reagan years, but the Depression and World War II had been such deep and defining events that the formula that got us through them—a kind of solidarity at home and abroad—more or less held. No more.
Everything is up for grabs now, including the basic entitlement programs that defined the New Deal. (If you haven’t read Project 2025 this would be a good day to start). In foreign policy terms it’s all far more complicated, and has been from Vietnam through Gaza—but today is a bad day to be Ukrainian, Taiwanese, or a Palestinian on the West Bank. Can things get worse? I think they can, and I think we will find out, here and around the world. But I don’t think it will last either, because the promises on which this new MAGA order are built are mostly nonsense.
And I also think the sun rose this morning—there was a leaden sky in the Green Mountains of Vermont when I went out to walk the dog, but I could sense the sun behind it.
And in that sunrise there is for me the hint of where that next huge realigning New Deal-sized thing will come from. The reshaping of our energy system—to cope with climate change, and to reflect the rock-solid fact that we live on an earth where the cheapest way to make power is to point a sheet of glass at the sun—may offer, if we are clever and good-hearted, a new basis on which to remake the world.
More local, more peaceful, less controllable by oligarchs and plutocrats. I don’t know if we can make it—the headwinds are stronger than they were yesterday—but I know we can try. And I know that only this project is big enough in scale to give us a real chance at a fresh start.
That’s what this community will continue to focus on, and I’m glad you’re a part of it.
In other energy and climate news
+New data seems to indicate that recent spikes in methane in the atmosphere are caused by a warmer planet causing more microbial activity. That’s a nasty feedback loop. As Shannon Osaka reports
“The changes that we saw in the last couple of years — and even since 2007 — are microbial,” said Sylvia Michel, lead author of the paper published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Wetlands, if they are getting warmer and wetter, maybe they’re producing more methane than they used to.”
In practical terms, of course, that means
“if wetlands are releasing methane faster than ever… there should be an even greater push to curb methane from the sources humans can control, such as cows, agriculture and fossil fuels.”
+Blue state politicians need to step up, now more than ever. As the Albany Times Union reminds us in a forceful editorial, Exhibit A of those who are waffling is New York governor Kathy Hochul
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s decision to delay congestion pricing in New York City — which would have helped reduce traffic and pollution and generated significant money for mass transit — is an unfortunate example of that.
The next casualty may well be the state’s cap-and-invest plan, which would put a declining cap on carbon emissions and make polluters pay if they exceed their limit. The proceeds would be invested in emission reduction endeavors and in rebates to lower-income people to offset potential increases in the cost of energy as companies pass on the cost of the fee. It offers a way for the state to boost research and investment in things like charging station infrastructure and other green energy projects.
+Thanks for being part of all of this. I don’t know if it will help anyone else, but I’ve been playing John Coltrane all day.
Thank you for this. I think we've been a little spoiled by recent successes, and an administration that was largely supportive. But the movement has a long history of battling entrenched powers. We know how to do that, and we will.
This is the first moment of hope I’ve had since about 1030 last night. Thank you, Bill. Time to rethink and rebuild. Everything is on the table now