“Imagine a giant asteroid on a direct
collision course with Earth. That’s the equivalent of what we face
now.” That’s what I said in my TED talk on global warming a decade ago. Don’t Look Up,
to be released December 24 on Netflix, uses the same idea to telescope
time by two orders of magnitude – from half a century needed to change
global energy systems down to half a year to divert an asteroid. Six
months is an action timescale that can engage the public. (I took the
photo above of the stellar cast[1] of Don’t Look Up at its world premiere.)
Scientists are frustrated as they try to communicate the emergency in
both the asteroid story and the real-world climate story. Villains in
the asteroid story include greedy industrialists, incompetent and
corrupt government, media that abdicate responsible reporting in favor
of ratings, and a public focused on tabloid entertainment. With all
that headwind, can the asteroid story have a happy ending? I won’t
spoil that, but the film achieves a degree of satisfaction on Earth and
on a far-away planet with the help of colorful, carnivorous animals.
The real climate story faces those headwinds and more. The long
timescale brings intergenerational conflict: today’s adult leaders fail
to take needed actions, but today’s young people and offspring bear the
consequences. The story is complex because the villain is a hero.
Fossil fuels are remarkable condensed energy that has raised living
standards in most of the world. The world won’t turn its back on fossil
fuels without better alternatives.
The climate story could have a happy ending
– but young people must play a leading role to achieve that. They have
incentive and tools to fight with, but winning requires understanding
the big picture. Perhaps we old people can provide information, so I
address my comments to young people.
It is helpful to look first at the global picture. China and the United
States together are responsible for almost half of global fossil fuel
carbon emissions today, with China’s emissions more than double those of
the U.S. However, climate change is driven by cumulative historical
emissions, for which the U.S. is most responsible.[2]
During the three decades since the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate
Change was agreed upon, global carbon emissions have increased about 60
percent. The 26 Conferences of the Parties (COPs) in the past three
decades did not even stem emissions growth, let alone achieve the rapid
emission reductions that are needed.
That is not surprising because the COP meetings did not address the two
fundamental requirements to drive down global carbon emissions rapidly:
(1) a simple, steadily rising carbon (oil, gas, coal) fee enforced
near-globally via border duties on products from countries without a
carbon fee, and (2) development of modern nuclear power[3] as cheap as
fossil fuels.
A carbon fee is needed to make the fossil fuel price honest; the entire
fee must be distributed uniformly to the public to achieve public
acceptance and social justice. Modern nuclear power is needed as a
complement to intermittent renewable energies; otherwise, the complement
will be gas. If we choose gas, we choose fracking, we choose
groundwater pollution, we choose methane, and we choose disastrous
climate change.
These two requirements were not pulled out of a hat. They are the
result of 20 years of open-minded interaction with students,
conservationists, “big green” environmental organizations, utility CEOs
and their technical staffs charged with “keeping the lights on,” two
workshops with scientists from China and India at the East-West Center
in Hawaii, and more, as described in Bright Future2 and several draft chapters[4],[5],[6],[7] for Sophie’s Planet.
The American dream was alive and well in the years after WWII, when I grew up.
It’s still alive today, but not well. That’s where your opportunity
comes in. We have two crises today: the climate crisis that most people
don’t notice because it grows on decadal time scales, and the political
crisis that is in our face.
The climate crisis cannot be solved in a decade, but it can be solved
during your lifetime. This next decade, the fourth decade since the
1992 Framework Convention, is crucial for getting the climate story
pointed in the right direction. This must be done in the context of
fixing the urgent political crisis. If we do not fix the problem of
political polarization, there is a danger that the climate situation
really could go haywire.
How can young people help restore the American dream? The first step is
to understand the underlying problem that has caused things to go off
track. The following is in part extracted from the longer Bright Future2.
The long-recognized underlying problem is the role that money is allowed
to play in our democracy. When President Eisenhower was preparing his
farewell address, in which he warned the nation of the threat of a
growing military-industrial complex, an early draft of the speech
described the military-industrial-congressional complex. But Ike backed
off. When his brother, Milton, asked about the deletion he replied “It
was more than enough to take on the military and private industry. I
couldn’t take on the Congress as well.”[8]
Eisenhower’s focus on the danger of militarism for our democracy,
unfortunately, had little impact. Investments in defense contractors
still outperform the overall stock market.[9] More important, the reign
of the military-industrial complex leads to “wars of choice”[10] that
the public does not want. Our Constitution grants decision-making over
war and peace to Congress, but Congress has allowed the President to
usurp that role and even employ the CIA as an unaccountable secret army.
Eisenhower’s omission – the role of Congress in this distortion of the
democratic process – is the fundamental problem: Congress is permitted
to accept bribes under the rubric of “campaign” funds. This problem
grew to a monstrous scale when the Supreme Court – supposedly the
guardian of our democracy – ruled in Citizens United that corporations – with their vast resources – are free to participate in this vulgar, legalized corruption.
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