Editor’s note: This commentary is by Jeffrey Reel, a writer/lecturer living in Lyndon Center, and general manager of Natural Provisions, in St. Johnsbury. He was previously sustainability manager at the Omega Center for Holistic Studies in Rhinebeck, New York.
[I]t’s often said that of all the published scientific research on climate change, 97 percent of the papers conclude that global warming is real, problematic for the planet, and has been exacerbated by human activity. And the remaining 3 percent? Scientists set out to replicate those studies and found them all to be biased, or flawed in their methodology. (Theoretical and Applied Climatology, November 2016, Volume 126, Issue 3–4, pp 699–703)
The days of arguing with climate-science deniers are over. There is a preponderance of evidence that climate change is real, induced by human activity and the greatest single threat to our health and survival. These critics belittle state efforts, and they deny what our senses readily see when we look toward, say, Europe, for examples of enlightened change. Germany has recently announced its intention to expend $91 billion to phase out all of its coal-fired power plants by 2038, and to replace them with renewables. The Germans aren’t being naïve. They are being forward thinking and progressive. And they aren’t alone.
When, in the history of humankind, have societies pushed back against technological change in the way we witness today? With the invention of the wheel? The cart? The horse-drawn carriage? Trains, cars, the telegraph, radio, air flight, television, computers, smart phones …? And why here, specifically, in the United States, a country once known and admired for its entrepreneurial and innovative spirit?
Let’s look at just two inventions: the advent of the automobile and the computer/internet. These inventions radically, and swiftly, changed our lives, around the globe. Where was the measured resistance against these technologies? There was none. Why? There were no competing forces that stood to lose financially from their development. But not so with renewables in this country.
Frankly, our domestic critics are made up of largely older white men, who own financial stakes in 18th-century combustion-based technologies and nuclear, or feel nostalgic for the 1950s and ‘60s and wish to revive their version of American dominance on the world stage. Their ideas – and influence – will die out as they do, but, unfortunately, we don’t have that luxury of time.
Then there is always the question of whether all parties wish to engage in honest debate. Who is not aware of the disinformation campaigns funded by the fossil fuel industry and nuclear over the past 30+ years? One such regular commentator on this site is both a climate-change denier and a proponent of nuclear energy. As someone who proclaims himself an expert in all things nuclear, he publicly insists that it is safe technology. But in a series of emails on the subject, I asked him to explain the effects of the nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima (a disaster still unfolding eight years on), which includes, but is by no means limited to: 150,000 Japanese being displaced, forever, from their communities; and a World Health Organization report predicting that for populations living in the most affected areas there is a 70 percent higher risk of developing thyroid cancer for girls exposed as infants, a 7 percent higher risk of leukemia in males exposed as infants, a 6 percent higher risk of breast cancer in females exposed as infants and a 4 percent higher risk, overall, of developing solid cancers for females.
His response took my breath away: “I call those risks worth taking,” he writes. “Every energy production technique involves risks. Somewhere somebody fell off a wind turbine, and somebody fell off a solar panel rooftop array.”
A false moral equivalence if there ever was one.
Today we find ourselves on the cusp of swift, innovative change that will wean humanity, after 1.6 million years, from its dependence upon fire and combustion: for decentralized, clean, inexpensive, renewable energy sources. It is a gift bestowed upon humanity by evolution, but one that we must embrace, as we have always done throughout history. As physicist Arthur M. Young wrote after I asked him why civilization seems to be stumbling at this time: “Why does civilization move backwards? A difficult question but to me it suggests that evolution requires a current against which to swim. The river of time carries us along but it is only by our own effort that we evolve.”
There now exists a critical mass of people worldwide who understand the urgency of implementing swift technological change. Allow the critics their platforms – there is no real harm in it anymore – but the future doesn’t belong to them. For the rest us, we need to focus our time and energy and intentions on making dramatic course corrections.
There now exists a diverse array of technologies on both the small and large scale that will be successfully employed to usher in a clean, renewable energy grid. As we know from our observations of nature, diversity creates stability. So don’t get distracted by the cynics and those who disseminate disinformation as a way to forestall the inevitable. We have reached the point when we no longer have to swim against the tide of opinion. We now have to collectively press for change on the local, state and federal levels. This is not a technological challenge: it is personal in nature, it is social, it is spiritual.
