In the face of these facts, and given the predominant role within the world of the U.S. government which, under oil millionaires Bush and Cheney, is literally obstructing efforts to address this issue, it is easy to feel pessimistic about the chances of reversing global warming in enough time to avert worldwide disaster. Indeed, the United Nations, as contained in an official publication, El Diario, circulated at the Conference of Parties 10 international meeting last year, reported that global warming has led over the past decade to nearly 500,000 deaths, has impacted over 2.5 billion people and has generated economic losses of over $690 billion.
Some people say, as I�ve heard it expressed, that �It�s too late.� They believe, with justification, that there is so much carbon dioxide and methane either in the atmosphere or certain to enter it no matter what is done in the coming years that we cannot avoid tremendous climate instability and negative impacts for decades to come.
That is probably true. But other things are also true.
-No one alive is absolutely certain of what the future holds in store, either as regards the specific effects of global warming or as regards the equally important process of popular mobilization on this issue.
-If it turns out to be the case that there are an unfolding series of steadily more destructive global warming impacts, that does not mean we should relax our efforts to enact a clean
energy/sustainability revolution as quickly as possible. The longer it takes to enact that revolution, the more extensive will be the damage done to all forms of life on the earth and the more difficult it will be to bring into being that badly-needed, new, equitable and sustainable society.
-Oil, coal and natural gas are finite resources. Many energy analysts, including those in the pay of Exxon Mobil, are predicting that we will soon be at the point of �peak oil,� the stage at which we will go, in the words of �The End of Peak Oil,� an article in the June, 2004 National Geographic, �from an increasing supply of cheap oil to a dwindling supply of expensive oil.� This is occurring as demand for energy is accelerating around the world and as a greater percentage of the oil that remains is more difficult to pump and more expensive to extract from alternative sources such as tar sands, oil shale or coal. As stated elsewhere in that article, �In the end the quest for more cheap oil will prove a losing game: Not just because oil consumption imposes severe costs on the environment, health and taxpayers, but also because the world�s oil addiction is hastening a day of reckoning.�
If there was no crisis of global warming, a transition to wind, solar, tides, biomass, geothermal and other forms of clean energy would be necessary in this century on economic grounds alone.
-And there is a number of positive aspects to this deep and wide energy crisis. It will only be solved by the nations of the world working together, as is already happening within the framework of the Kyoto global warming treaty. It will only be solved if the tremendous power of the oil and coal corporations over U.S. energy policy is significantly lessened. The needed clean energy revolution will directly create large numbers of new jobs producing, installing, maintaining, teaching about and improving these systems. And the kind of massive and sustained political movement needed to bring about these changes, built of necessity on principles of not just environmental sustainability but, if is to be broad enough to be successful, economic and social justice, can generate the political forces to make the United States not a nation to be feared and hated but a constructive partner in a world moving towards social, environmental, racial, gender and economic justice for all.
Specifics of a Transition
Given that, as this is written, the USA has spent close to $300 billion in the last three years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, resources for a clean energy transition are not an issue. The resources are unquestionably there if there is a political will.
Other countries are far ahead of the USA in the �political will� area. In his book �Boiling Point,� Ross Gelbspan reports that, �Holland, for example, recently completed a plan to cut its emissions by 80 percent in forty years. Germany has committed to cuts of 50 percent in fifty years. British prime minister Tony Blair has pledged the United Kingdom to reducing carbon emissions by 60 percent in fifty years. Even China, whose economy grew by 36 percent between 1995 and 2000, cut its emissions by 19 percent during the same period.�
In the area of energy efficiency, Gelbspan refers to �Amory Lovins, director of the Rocky Mountain Institute, (who) has identified and developed an extraordinary array of efficiency technologies that, if adopted, would reduce our carbon emissions considerably. Whereas most economists estimate that the industrial world could cut its aggregate emissions by about 30 percent through efficiencies, Lovins contends that figure is closer to 50 percent.�
Defense of the world�s forests and the spreading of community-run, not corporate-run, tree planting campaigns is a concrete way to preserve and spread an absolutely essential natural resource in the battle to stabilize our climate. It was a positive development when the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize was given to Wangari Maathai of Kenya, leader of the Green Belt Movement which has planted 10 million trees since 1977.\
Gelbspan has outlined a World Energy Modernization Plan, developed in the late �90s by a group of �energy company presidents, economists, energy policy experts and others,� which has since received the support of other organizations and individuals. It involves three �interacting strategies:� ending subsidies for fossil fuels and using them instead for the development of clean energy (approximately $20 billion/year in the U.S.); the creation of a large fund to transfer renewable energy technologies to developing countries, possibly financed by a � of a cent per dollar tax on international currency transactions, yielding $300 billion; and the development within a �Kyoto-type framework� of a �progressively more stringent Fossil Fuel Efficiency Standard� under which every country would reduce its carbon fuel use by 5 percent a year until there has been a global 70 percent reduction.
Without question the rapid development of solar, wind, geothermal, clean biomass, tides and perhaps other non-polluting energy sources is an absolute necessity. Wind power in particular is growing rapidly in Europe as it has become increasingly competitive economically with fossil fuels.
Another necessary step�some environmental activists believe the key step-- is to shift from regressive taxes like sales taxes to �carbon taxes.� Analyst Charles Komanoff has explained the concept: �Such a tax directly addresses the buildup of carbon dioxide in the Earth�s atmosphere that is causing global warming. The tax revenues would also let fiscally pressed state governments eliminate regressive sales taxes while maintaining vital services, making carbon taxes palatable to otherwise hostile constituencies and officials. Based on the chemical make-up of fossil fuels, a carbon tax would be lightest on natural gas, around 40% higher on petroleum products like gasoline, and another 20% higher on coal.� Such a tax-shifting plan would create a more equitable and progressive system of taxation while encouraging energy efficiency and conservation.
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