America’s March Towards 100% Clean Energy

We frequently lament that the U.S. federal government is going backwards vis-a-vis renewable energy, yet we are prone to overlook what is happening at the state and local level.  A new report from the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation documents how “13 states, districts and territories, as well as more than 200 cities and counties, have committed to a 100 percent clean electricity target — and dozens of cities have already hit it.”

David Hochschild, chair of the California Energy Commission, puts it like this: “An enormous amount of authority still rests with the states for determining your energy future. So we can build these policies that will become a postcard for the future for the rest of the country.”

Understandably, however, progress is uneven, which is the rationale behind GreenTech Media’s recent article: Tracking Progress on 100% Clean Energy Targets and its tagline: “Clean electricity programs are proliferating across U.S. states, cities and even utilities. But not all 100% targets are alike.”

Anyone who cares about what the future will look like needs to hope for the success of these efforts, and, of course, that some sort of turnaround can be engineered at the federal level.  Insofar as the United States is the most powerful country on Earth, we need to stand together and insist that our nation not abandon the welfare of our civilization in its hour of need.