Humankind's Fate Lies in Its Energy Policy

Of all the great minds whose essays I read on the world energy scene and its surrounding geopolitical implications (global hostility, climate change, world economics, etc.) Michael T. Klare just may be my favorite.  Dr. Klare:

… is The Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. His newest book, The Race for What’s Left: The Global Scramble for the World’s Last Resources, has just recently been published.  His other books include: Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy and Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum.

With this article: How to Fry a Planet – The Third Carbon Age: Don’t for a Second Imagine We’re Heading for an Era of Renewable Energy, he argues something that I think we all fear the most: humankind, as it finds itself here and now in the 21st Century, is powerless to change its course vis-à-vis fossil fuels, and is essentially doomed to suffer the full consequences of climate change. Klare provides some totally credible reasons why this is the case – one of which is that for all the talk about the migration to renewables, it’s not happening.  Between now and 2030, the world is on a course to invest three times more into the development of the fracking of oil and natural gas and other technologies for the extraction and refinement of tar sands than will go into growing our capacity to produce clean energy.

I don’t doubt any of the evidence, in fact, I’ve seen most of it before, but I’m not satisfied with the conclusion.  If the future is a continuation and expansion of the past, then I think we should all say goodbye to human civilization and come to terms with the idea that all this planet will be in ruins – certainly within the next 100 years.  But let me point out this: the future always looks like the past – until it looks like something else.  Want to talk about powerless?  We’re powerless to see what lies around the bend, and we consistently underestimate the effect of these incredible twists and turns.

But what could that “something else” be?  Well, for one, it could be a profound awakening of people everywhere to the underlying truth:

There are a few extremely wealthy and powerful people who want to further enrich themselves by sucking the last molecule of crude oil out of the ground and selling it to you and me.  What’s more, they know that it’s ruining our planet — and they simply don’t care.  Does that sound like a textbook definition of the word “evil” to you?  If so, I won’t argue against you.

But on a practical level, what happens when the people of the world wake up to the fact that our entire discussion about energy is based on a network of lies?

Let me digress and offer this excerpt from another article on energy.

Koch-Sponsored Misinformation

(Groups supporting solar energy in the U.S. state of Georgia) in particular had to face down a barrage of misinformation from Americans for Prosperity (AFP), an organization founded and underwritten by the billionaire Koch brothers, whose predecessor organization, Citizens for a Sound Economy, virtually founded the Tea Party itself. AFP’s Georgia chapter mounted a scare campaign against solar power in Georgia that, as usual, supported the Koch’s bottom line as fossil fuel magnates even as it played fast and loose with the facts.

Virginia Galloway, director of AFP’s Georgia chapter, for instance, warned the group’s 50,000 members that the solar proposal would “reduce the reliability of every appliance and electronics gadget in your home” and could increase Georgia electricity rates by up to 40 percent. As the Associated Press pointed out, neither of these claims bore much resemblance to the truth.

I predict that people won’t sit still for this indefinitely.  There will be a tipping point in our future, when we’ve all seen so many Hurricane Sandys, so many pictures of the melting ice caps, and so many articles from the few remaining climate change deniers disavowing their previous positions.  It won’t be long until a huge group of previously uninvolved people say:

We’ve had enough of the lies.  We’re obviously headed down an embankment toward an abyss, but we’re better people than this.  With each passing year it’s becoming harder and more expensive to solve this problem.  Yet the world is in possession of the technology necessary to turn the corner on an impending disaster that is becoming more evident and closer every day — and we demand a sustainable course for humankind.  We won’t rest knowing that we’ve ruined any chance for a decent life for future generations.

It’s simply a matter of telling this story.  Btw, you and I can make it happen.