Author Bill McKibben. Photo by Jennifer Esperanza, courtesy of 350.org
Two leading progressive thinkers brought their latest big ideas for political campaign reform and climate change activism to motivated audiences at the University of Vermont last weekend.
At 7 p.m. on Saturday author and 350.org organizer Bill McKibben staged a dress rehearsal of his multi-media Climate Change Musical Road Show before a packed house at Ira Allen Chapel. Also known as the “Do the Math Tour,” it is a frontal attack on fossil fuel industry plans to exploit reserves that threaten hopes of limiting climate change, and calls for a nationwide divestment campaign in response.
Across the campus earlier in the evening, scholar and author Lawrence Lessig offered his arguments for “citizen funded campaigns” and a cross-partisan movement to address the corrupting role of money in politics by calling for an Article V constitutional amendment process.
Article V states that the constitution can be amended in one of two ways: a vote of two-thirds of the House and Senate followed by ratification in three-fourths of (or 38) state legislatures; or else by two-thirds of state legislatures, if the proposed amendments are ratified by three-fourths of the states.
Only the first method has been used with success. Lessig likes the second and thinks state governments should call for a national constitutional convention populated by a “random proportional selection of citizens.” Why random? Because “politics is a rare sport where the amateur is better than the professional,” Lessig argues.
Several state senators, including Philip Baruth, Sally Fox and Virginia Lyons, attended Lessig’s PowerPoint-assisted lecture in Lafayette Hall. Asked in a Q and A session about the feasibility of pressing the issue in Vermont as a follow up to the advisory resolution opposing corporate personhood passed in the last session, Lyons said there is “a lot of interest in doing it.”
Two degrees is too much
McKibben’s presentation included film clips and photos from activists around the world, a musical interlude, and an updated version of arguments he has been making as instigator of 350.org, a global grassroots movement focusing on the climate crisis. His speaking tour will begin in earnest after the November elections.
“We’re running out of time,” he said. “We’re going to try to take away their money.”
McKibben wrote “The End of Nature,” the groundbreaking 1989 book that brought climate change to a mass audience. He has recently boiled his case down to three numbers – 2 degrees Celsius, 565 Gigatons, and 2,795 Gigatons.
The first, as he put it in a widely read Rolling Stone feature published in August, is “the bottomest of bottom lines,” the most global temperature can rise before entire countries begin to suffer seriously or even disappear. On Saturday McKibben defined it this way: “Two degrees is too much.”
The second figure refers to the most carbon dioxide that can go into the atmosphere and have the increase in global temperature stay below two degrees. Studies currently predict that, assuming emissions continue to grow at around 3 percent a year, we’ll pass 565 in 16 years or less.
The biggest number is also the scariest – the amount of carbon contained in the proven coal, oil and gas reserves of the fossil-fuel companies and countries such as Venezuela and Kuwait. Bottom line: What they plan to extract and burn is five times higher than the danger level.
At times McKibben acknowledged that he is not so sure industry’s power can be broken. But he proceeds on the assumption that moral outrage, combined with indisputable math, can still make a difference.
His strategic model is the 1980s campaign to divest from companies doing business in apartheid South Africa. Spreading from campuses to municipal and state governments, it ultimately led to divestment on 155 campuses, and in more than 80 cities, 25 states and 19 countries, according to McKibben.
On the big screen, Archbishop Desmond Tutu helped to make the argument for using the strategy again to “put the pressure where it counts,” calling on schools and other institutions to dump stock from companies whose business model threatens the planet.
Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson also showed up on the screen several times, repeating the corporation’s message that climate change, while real, is basically “an engineering problem.” McKibben disagreed. “It’s a greed problem,” he said. His goal is to “tarnish” the brand of such companies, to “make the case they should lose their social license. They should be stigmatized.”
As McKibben tours and volunteers from hundreds of 350.org groups fan out, the two basic demands he suggests to call on college and university boards to place a freeze on fossil fuel investments, and to “wind down” existing investments within five years.
Common means to stop corruption
Lessig, a Harvard professor best known for developing the Creative Commons alternative to traditional copyright, admitted some doubts when questioned about his proposal. “Is it possible?” he asked rhetorically, especially when Congress is “the farm league for K Street,” the geographical epicenter of federal lobbying.
It’s a “business model based on life after government,” he said.
The key is to move beyond the current “polarized frame on all issues,” Lessig argued, to build alliances that cross partisan lines, focus on common ground, and adopt a strategy that rallies people. The “common enemy,” he said, is corruption of the political process.
Lessig’s approach is a combination of step-by-step legislative reform and longer-term systemic change through the call for constitutional amendments. In states like Arizona, Maine and Connecticut matching grants can help level the playing field, Lessig noted. Tax credits, vouchers and the Grassroots Democracy Act, proposed by Rep. John Sarbanes, can also “amplify” small contributions and help to make candidates more responsive.
Sarbanes’ bill establishes a refundable tax credit and matching system to encourage small contributions, a People’s Fund to provide support in races where outside spending outpaces national norms, a Grassroots Democracy Commission, and increased access to affordable advertising. The bill would also institute an online donation platform and taxpayer check-boxes so that people could voluntarily fund the system.
On the other hand, Lessig believes that a state-by-state strategy focusing on the Article V approach to constitutional amendments can provide the “common means” that allows for different proposals to surface in various places. As a precedent, he pointed to the direct election of U.S. senators. For years proposals passed in the House but died in the Senate. But the adoption of state resolutions demanding a convention eventually pressured the U.S. Senate to approve the 17th Amendment.
When this was happening a century ago, the main fear was that if a constitutional convention actually assembled, it might move beyond the original reason it was called. The same concern persists. But Lessig, as well as Move to Amend organizer David Cobb, view the mounting chorus of calls for amendments and a constitutional convention as an effective prod to federal legislative action.
Lessig also thinks it could serve as a way to reach out to some Tea Party members who are disappointed with the hijacking of their movement by groups like Americans for Prosperity, which gets much of its financial backing from the Koch brothers.
If an actual constitutional convention sounds too risky at this point, Lessig suggests staging extra-parliamentary “citizen conventions,” or pressuring candidates and officials to take a pledge not to become lobbyists after their time in office. Whatever strategy various communities and states choose, his point is that calling for a constitutional amendment in response to Citizens United has turned out to be “just the first move.”
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It’s heartening that Lessig speaks about moving beyond the current polarized frame on all issues, and instead suggests building alliances that cross partisan lines, focusing on common ground, and to adopt a strategy that rallies people.”
It’s time. Most Americans are deeply yearning for a political system that works. The brokenness of ours, the obscene and immoral amount of money controlling our politicians and our so-called democracy is majorly discouraging and depressing.
As far as creating a ‘common enemy’, that being the corruption of the political process, I’m less enthusiastic. Common enemy is the language of war and cults. I cringe every time I hear – the war on woman, the war on the poor, etc.
How about creating a language of compromise (and even better – the Compromise Party)? James Madison’s constitution mandates compromise; his constitution can only work if there is compromise; it’s built into the system so that unlike Vermont, no one party controls. It is for lack of compromise that Americans are so discouraged about our political system, and fed up with our politicians. The lack of compromise harms this country and is therefore unpatriotic.
The Dalai Lama in Middlebury last week reminded us that, “Compromise grows out of mutual respect and mutual concern for well-being.”
For those of you not familiar with Krista Tippett’s ‘On Being” on NPR on Sunday mornings, she and others are involved in the ‘Creating Civility Project’. It too is heartening.
I recently listened to discussions on two of the most polarizing social issues of our time – abortion and gay marriage. If you are interested in healing rather than contributing to divisiveness, I highly recommend listening.
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Greg,
Whereas Bill McKibben, trained as a journalist, means well, knows how to energize/motivate a crowd (“fight climate change, reduce global warming”, as if that were possible, as the Earth intercepts from the sun about 12,000 times the energy used by all of mankind), unfortunately, he is tilting at windmills when it comes to energy systems.
RE solutions are not only excessively expensive, require much energy (CO2 emissions) to build, but their energy will not reduce CO2 anywhere near what is claimed by RE promoters, as Germany is quickly learning, and as energy systems analysts have been writing about for years.
Please read these 3 articles on global warming and China’s dirty burning of coal causing the Arctic ice to melt more quickly, because of soot/ash- laden precipitation on snow and ice-covered surfaces.
Instead of heavily-subsidized, environmentally-damaging, highly-visible wind turbines on ridge lines, it would be better to reduce CO2 emissions by much-less-costly energy efficiency.
Efficiency Vermont claims it can permanently reduce a kWh at about 3 cent, whereas wind energy on ridge lines costs about 10 c/kWh, subsidized, 15 c/kWh, unsubsidized.
http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/83704/reduce-co2-and-slow-global-warming
http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/89476/wind-energy-co2-emissions-are-overstated
http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/107316/global-warming-coal-combustion-and-sea-level-rise
http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/71771/energy-efficiency-first-renewables-later
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Efficiency works well in some cases, but not all. The trouble with efficiency is that as machines become more efficient, their use is increased and the overall amount of energy used is increases. For example, as air conditioning became cheaper and more efficient, its use dramatically increased.
The other problem is what happens with all the money that was saved by using efficient machines, such as driving a new Prius instead of a gas guzzler? We don’t just burn the money. It will simply be used to buy more stuff or but more energy. Perhaps to buy a motor boat or fly to Europe on vacation.
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Steve,
I am a power systems engineer, retired, on Social Security.
My 30-year-old, self-designed house is highly insulated and sealed, uses minimal thermal and electrical energy, has much lesser heating bills than similar houses. My use of the thermostat remains the same. Remember President Carter using a sweater in a cooler room?
My present car gets better mileage than my previous cars. My use of the car remains the same. Actually, I drive FEWER miles, about 7,500/yr, as I am adept at combining trips.
As I live on Social Security, the reduction of my energy expenses it helpful to pay for my health insurance premiums without having to use up my savings. The vast majority of people do not take trips to Europe with their energy cost savings.
A system of taxes to make it much more expensive to engage in high energy intensive activities would be much more useful to reduce CO2 emissions, than any costly, environmentally-damaging RE build-outs that produce variable, intermittent energy and are relatively ineffective for CO2 emission reduction.
http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/71771/energy-efficiency-first-renewables-later
http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/89476/wind-energy-co2-emissions-are-overstated
Wind energy cannot stand on its own, has no value on its own, is completely useless, unless the grid has an adequate capacity of quick-ramping gas turbines and/or hydro plants that are required to inefficiently operate at part-load to be able to ramp up when wind energy ebbs and ramp down when it surges, which happens at least 100 times per day, to maintain grid frequency and voltage within required limits. If a grid does not have adequate capacity of such ramping plants, it either must acquire it, or connect to grids that do have it and do not need it for their own variable wind and solar energy.
During periods of high wind energy generation, many grids, such as of Germany, the Bonneville Power Authority, Texas, Colorado, Germany, Spain, etc., do not have a sufficient capacity of such quick-ramping generators. As annual wind energy percents on the grids increase, the grid operators are unable to balance the wind energy and need to transfer it to neighboring grids for balancing, if possible, and/or implement curtailments, which upsets wind turbine owners, because subsidy payments may be at risk; in the US, the production tax credit, PTC, is 2.2 cent per kWh produced.
Example: German wind power output peaked at about 12,000 MW on July 24, 2011, four days later the peak was 315 MW. Germany’s wind turbines are located mostly in Northern Germany which lacks adequate transmission facilities to Southern Germany, where the unpredictable, excess wind energy is likely not needed, because it usually occurs at night when demands are minimal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Germany
Intermittency: Wind energy usually is minimal during summer (it is almost nonexistent in New England), moderate during spring and fall, and maximal during winter. Almost all the time, it is maximal at night.
In the US Great Plains, with good/excellent wind conditions most of the year, about 10-15 percent of the hours of a year wind energy is near zero, because wind speeds are insufficient (less than 7.5 mph) to turn the rotors, or too great for safety. During these hours, wind turbines draw self-use (parasitic) energy FROM the grid, and also during hours with slowly turning rotors when self-use energy exceeds the generated energy. Rotors are often kept turning with grid energy to prevent the rotor shaft from “taking a set”, or to not disappoint visiting lay public, including legislators, etc.
New England, with good wind conditions only on 2,000-ft or higher ridge lines, about 25-30 percent of the hours of the year no wind energy is produced, because wind speeds are insufficient, or too great for safety.
Offshore, New England wind energy production is technically feasible, but its subsidized energy cost would be at least 20 c/kWh, 2 times subsidized ridge line energy cost/kWh; this compares with New England annual average grid prices of about 5 c/kWh, unchanged for the past 3 years.
The capital costs of an offshore project is about $4,200,000/MW, of which about 35% is the capital cost of new transmission systems to connect the offshore wind turbines to each other and to shore, plus the cost of reinforcing the onshore grid to take the additional energy. See URLs.
http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/47519/base-power-alternatives-replace-base-loaded-coal-plants
http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/98061/irelands-wind-energy-export-plan
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Very glad to see the write up on this. I attended the “Do the Math” kickoff on Sunday. Bill McKibben and 350.org are really onto something. Divestment worked so well with South Africa. Of course we can’t deprive oil and coal companies of all their money. But the divestment campaign will highlight the unfair subsidies these companies get and what they are doing to wreck the planet.
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The divestment idea worked in the past for South African Apartheid. During the Civil Rights era, Rosa Parks and the bus boycott movement in Montgomery, AL was a form of “divestment”, in that the African-Americans in that city did not pay bus fares from about 12/1/1955 to 12/20/1956, depriving the bus company of those revenues.
However, I’ve been reading books on retirement investing post-2008, and due to pathetically low interest rates on CDs, many are recommending Stock Index Funds and also the “target funds” (i.e. Fidelity Freedom 20xx funds).
The “divestment” concept is difficult or impossible to achieve with stock index funds and target funds, since you are essentially very diversified, getting small number of shares across many companies, including the companies you might not actually want to invest in.
The dilemma is that as Mr. McKibben points out, if we don’t do “something”, our future is in doubt (future retirees and the younger generations alike). But if we somehow avoid this peril, you might outlive whatever savings you have, since you will succumb to inflationary deterioration of your so-called “nest-egg”.
It is fiscally prudent and responsible to save for your retirement. But the options were are presented with are far from optimal. Divestiture and Socially-responsible and inflation-risky versus maximum diversification but most likely not socially responsible. That is the apparent choice.
Divestiture implies either picking and choosing stocks or funds that are more socially responsible and selling off / not buying stocks or funds that are deemed more socially irresponsible (or detrimental to climate change issue). At the same time, picking individual stocks is more risky.
It sounds like Mr. McKibben is targeting colleges and universities investments, and eventually state and local government investments. But the same principles can apply to investing by individuals and institutions. Plus, these institutional investments are for retirement and pensions of college, university and government employees. So many of the same points above for individual retiree investments would apply to institutional investments for large classes of retirees.
It comes to how can you make a difference with divestiture without also jeopardizing the long-term viability of these retirement funds.
I do like the idea of divesture to put pressure on companies to do better, but it is not as easy as it looks, as far as actually implementing the idea.
It seems that Mr. McKibben will need some outside expertise to actually help sympathetic institutions proceed with divesiture, without jeopardizing the employees.
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Unprecedented level of climate fraud?: Don’t miss this stunningly brazen warmist misuse of Newsweek’s 1975 “The Cooling World” article http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2012/11/unprecedented-level-of-climate-fraud.html