Clean Energy Revolution

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CLEAN ENERGY REVOLUTION
TALK BY TED GLICK
March 4, 2008, 7:00 p.m. in Reidy Friendship Hall

Review by Phoebe Hoss

Ted Glick, who has been a progressive social activist since the late 1960s, became a climate activist in the summer of 2003 after the extreme heat wave in Western Europe aroused him to the ongoing danger of such extreme climate events (droughts, monsoons, etc.) to the earth and our way of life. He is a co-founder of the Climate Crisis Coalition and a coordinator for the U.S. Climate Emergency Council; his twice-monthly column, "Future Hope" is available at: http://www.ippn.org. His talk was sponsored by the All Souls Peace Task Force, and he was introduced by Lawrene Groobart.
    Mr. Glick was eloquent about the urgent need for a clean energy revolution, saying that our survival depends on a major policy shift in respect to energy. He warned that even with such a shift, there will be decades of warming; our task is to avert catastrophic climate change.
    First, we have to curtail off our addiction to fossil fuels – coal, oil, natural gas -- and shift to a worldwide economy using clean and renewable sources of energy – solar power, wind, tides -- that don't heat the earth. At the moment, oil companies have a stranglehold on the fossil fuels, but wind power is competitive with the production cost of coal. As for nuclear power, it is not renewable.
    We also need to reduce our use of energy. Today in the United States, 30%-50% is wasted, while Europe -- with a similar standard of living -- uses half what we do.
    Today the worldwide demand for oil is growing, while easily available oil is decreasing. We've extracted half of the oil in the earth, what was relatively easy to take out; the second half is much harder and more expensive to get at. Already we're setting up permanent military bases in Africa to protect the sources of oil there.
    Not only would a climate revolution reduce our reliance on foreign oil and avoid catastrophic climate change, it would create jobs by making for a green economy. "Green-collar workers," for example, would be making houses more energy efficient, building more public transportation, working on wind farms, and so forth.
Another benefit is that it would give power to the people, reducing the power of remote corporations. Where today five out of the ten top companies are oil companies, the people would control energy through solar panels on a house's roof, and a community through its own windmills.
    Finally, in such a revolution the United States would be able to cooperate with countries and people around the world – rather than stand alone, as it does now, holding out on the Kyoto Protocol.
    Nonetheless, a climate movement is growing quietly in this country, with such environmentalists as Bill McKibben and such programs as the 1Sky Campaign, which makes science-based – as opposed to political -- demands on the federal government. This movement has been strongly supported by Nancy Pelosi of the House of Representatives.

QUESTIONS
1.What about the Western states where there is little public transportation and cars are necessary? GLICK: Extreme weather events will keep happening and force change: "Reality will drive the shift."

2.Why are fasts such as Mr. Glick has undertaken (he started one on 9/4/07 on the return of Congress and lasted until 12/19/07) useful as a protest, instead of speaking or writing? GLICK: It's a nonviolent way of dramatizing people's feelings about and the urgency of an issue; it catches people's attention, makes them think.

3.What of technology? GLICK: There's good technological development going on; there needs to be more.

4.Why isn't Al Gore a major energizer? GLICK: I don't know.

5.What about the pollution of the livestock industry? GLCK: 18% of greenhouse gas emissions around the world come from food production.

6.What about individual changes in lifestyle? GLICK: That's the base, but we need to go beyond with legislation and other measures.

7.Why hasn't the government done more? GLICK: While a Pentagon 2004 study did predict droughts and other catastrophes, it recommended beefing up the military.

8.What of drought in the United States? GLICK: In 2007, 43% of the country was in drought condition; and water wars between states are going on now.

9.Does wind energy adversely affect the migration of birds? GLICK: More birds are killed by cats than by windmills. These have been modified to go slower, giving the same energy, and their height has been lowered.

Finally, we need to have a positive relationship to the earth, not exploiting it for ourselves but working for the benefit of all life forms. If we fail in establishing such a relationship, there will be ever more conflict -- as today in Iraq -- around the world. For the massive change an energy revolution requires, we need a massive program similar to the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb, but one that would benefit everyone on earth. The climate revolution has to be universal.