General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsYou Can't Say That!
Theres no doubt that for us to take on climate change in a serious way would involve making some tough political choices and understandably, you know, I think right now the American people have been so focused and will continue to be focused on our economy and jobs and growth that if the message somehow is that were going to ignore jobs and growth simply to address climate change, I dont think anyones going to go for that. I wont go for that. If, on the other hand, we can shape an agenda that says we can create jobs, advance growth, and make a serious dent in climate change and be an international leader, I think thats something that the American people would support.
Whats wrong with this picture? Well, almost everything.
Yes, the most effective way to slow climate change is to shrink the economy. That statement is inconvenient as hell, but its true. Sure, efficiency and renewable energy can nibble around the edges of our carbon emissions, but just three or four percent economic growth per year would be sufficient to cancel out any gains wed be likely to achieve with solar panels and electric cars. Understandably, this makes the post-carbon transition a tough sell.
But heres what the president didnt sayand it makes all the difference in the world: Real economic growth will be elusive anyway. For the past couple of years weve been enjoying a species of faux growth based on massive injections of cash from the Fed and $100 billion a month in Federal deficit spending. Take those away and the anemic residue of growth weve been enjoying will go too (which is why so many analysts are frightened of the fiscal cliff). Indeed, economic growth has been waving a long, slow goodbye since 1980: in the past three decades, total debt in the US has expanded at three times the rate of GDP growth. Weve been hocking our grandkids future for a little more spending money today. In recent years, the amount of GDP growth weve gotten per dollar in new debt has declined. Whether the debt-for-growth swap ever made sense, the fact is its succumbing to the law of diminishing returns.
But it gets worse. The costs of climate change are mounting. With more record droughts and massive storms well see those costs mushrooming to the point where they are equal to or greater than the amount of economic growth the U.S. has been clocking per annum. Thats right, if we decide to forget climate change in order to go for the growth, Mother Nature will make sure whatever growth we do see comes mostly from spending on disaster recovery.
So the real trade-off, the real choice we face, is not between climate protection on one hand and economic growth on the other. Its between planned economic contraction (with government managing the post-carbon transition through infrastructure investment and useful make-work programs) as a possible but unlikely strategy, and unplanned, unmanaged economic and environmental collapse as our default scenario.
Mainstream environmental organizations dont want to mention any of this because they dont want to be pilloried as anti-growth or socialist by right-wing politicians and powerful free-market think tanks. The president wont touch it with a forty-foot pole, for the same reasons.
Some of us are under no such constraint. We can tell it like it isand we might as well do so. What do we have to lose, other than illusions?
http://www.postcarbon.org/blog-post/1306494-you-can-t-say-that
Richard Heinberg is one of the few who are telling it like it is on Climate Change:
1.) It's Real
2.) There are no easy answers
3.) We're going to have to learn to live with less, together, as a society or we'll descend into chaos that'll make Black Friday at Walmart seem like a church service.
reusrename
(1,716 posts)The most effective way to reduce global warming is to switch to wind and solar and away from fossil fuel.
Shrinking our economy will be an effective and immediate way to conserve resources, but it doesn't provide a long term solution because we have too many emerging economies.
But for sure, both remedies should be moved forward.
Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)The problem is that wind and solar provide less energy than fossil fuels for the foreseeable future. You would have to site and build 14,000 wind turbines to replace current electric generation needs, much less the capacity we would need if we went to electric cars.
Wind and solar are great. But we would also need to use mass transit and move away from everyone driving to work with a piece of their living rooms each day.