If you are scared of a zero carbon economy, you are confusing "carbon free" with "climate change."

Bill McKibben:   "[I]f our goal is to keep the Earth’s temperature from rising more than two degrees Celsius—the upper limit identified by the nations of the world—how much more new digging and drilling can we do?

Here’s the answer: zero.

That’s right: If we’re serious about preventing catastrophic warming, the new study shows, we can’t dig any new coal mines, drill any new fields, build any more pipelines. Not a single one. We’re done expanding the fossil fuel frontier. Our only hope is a swift, managed decline in the production of all carbon-based energy from the fields we’ve already put in production.

... 

'Managed decline' means we don’t have to grind everything to a halt tomorrow; we can keep extracting fuel from existing oil wells and gas fields and coal mines. But we can’t go explore for new ones. We can’t even develop the ones we already know about, the ones right next to our current projects." 

Action on climate does not mean living in caves.

Action on climate does not mean hunting around in the dark.

Action on climate does not mean living without power.

That's what happens if we DON'T act on climate.

An Open Letter to My Children

A wonderful project, called Dear Tomorrow, is collecting letters from people to their children, and others, who will be living in the future.  The letters will be held in a time capsule and released in 2030 and in 2050.  I had to write mine.  It's not an easy task.  My own children are alternately afraid of a Trump presidency and of creepy noises.  One foot in childhood and one foot in adulthood.  I share my fears and hopes with them, but I am wary of overwhelming them with the worst.  They have lives to lead, and hearts to break and jokes to tell.  They deserve to keep that.  Here is my letter.  I will share it with them today and submit it to the project.

Dear C and K,

I love you both.  

I want the world for you.  I have always wanted the world for you.  I want for you to love and laugh and live.  From the day each of you came into my life, I have tried to surround you with all that is good.  When you were infants, I played Mozart's music and decorated with vibrant colors, We explored the world with little special trips to the zoo and the woods and the library.  Even the grocery store was an adventure.  As you grew, I sent you to the Montessori school and then to dance because it was best for you.  I have made sure you had holidays and that I created traditions to make them special.

I want to continue to do that for you.   Your needs have changed over time, but the fact that you have needs has not.  You will need to build a means of making an income, you will need food on the table, you will need homes, you will need time and space to enjoy yourselves, to love, to laugh and to live.

So as you stepped out of the nursery, and I looked around at the wider world, I realized that Mozart's music and vibrant colors are no longer how to create the world I want for you. Something more dire is in its way.  Climate change is threatening everything I have to offer you and it is hurtling towards us.

Now, as you move forward, and I fear for what is coming as the planet warms, I read and try to make sense of how we will be impacted.  Anticipating the challenges.  Protecting resources to give you so that you can handle those challenges.  I look at our house, at 1300', with space for growing food and with water that is not subject to fracking and has never failed from drought, and I think I should keep it for you.  I consider the skills you might need, and how to generate resources for yourselves when I can no longer do that.  

I cry sometimes, for the things I know you will not have.  There will be terrible heat waves and sea level rise will drive people from the coasts to where we live.  Crops won't grow as well, so food costs will go up and means of making an income will likely go down.  Little things that aren't really so little will disappear, like coffee and chocolate, taking our traditions with them.  Refugees will come to our shores, and refugees will move within our own borders.  There will be mold growth everywhere.  Diseases like Lyme and Zika will have company.  Civil strife may drive other problems and disrupt your lives.  The world will be a terrifying place.  How terrifying?  I don't know.  But it won't be all Mozart and crib toys.

So what is a mom to do about it?  

Well, teach you the most important things.  The most most most important thing?  There is no such thing as "winning" or "losing" at life.  There are wins and losses.  But your life's journey is not a game to win or lose.  It is your journey.  Yours.  Every generation before you has faced struggles, pain and hardship.  And yours will too.  

But every generation before you has had a chance to love, to laugh and to live.  Take yours.  Take it.  Love.  Laugh.  Live.

But know this.  Loving, laughing and living does not mean saying "screw it" to life's challenges.  It means taking them on.  It means caring enough about your world and your life to try to make it better, even when it is terrifying.

I don't know if my efforts on climate can truly impact the trajectory of carbon emissions over the next century.  But I want you both to know this.  Every letter I have ever written, every meeting I attended, every article I read, every post I made to move others, every item I reused, every degree I turned the heat down, every load of laundry I hung dry, every luxury I didn't buy and when I am able, every arrest I will subject myself to, these all are the point.   I work on climate because I love you. 

And when you walk out the door on your own, I have one thing to insist on:  whatever you choose to do, do it out of love.  If you do, then whether you succeed or not, your actions have mattered.  Don't ever let anyone tell you your actions don't matter.  Every single thing you do matters.  You matter.

Whatever comes, please know that my actions are yours to keep, and carry with you.  Please let them hold you close when you need them.  It is the most important thing I have to give you, in the end.

With all my love, yours to carry,

Mom

World War II Scale Mobilization

Climate change is here and it is urgent.  Urgent as in really really really dire.  As I discussed in a previous post, IPCC projections show a 50% chance of staying under 1.5C warming if we get to zero emissions by 2035 and a 66% chance of staying under 2C warming if we get to zero emissions by 2050.

Bill McKibben wrote an excellent piece last month laying out what we need to do to get to zero emissions...a World War II Scale Mobilization to fight climate change.  He did a great job explaining that winning a war is about building weaponry and infrastructure as much as it is about fighting.  He discussed how much needs to be built to fight climate change.  (While I do not completely agree with his reliance on Jacobsen's work to such a degree, his point is well made and whether we rely 100% on renewables or to some lesser extent, we have a lot to get done in a short amount of time).

Then he turned to a discussion of what a World War II Scale Mobilization looks like.  This was excellent.  We must all take a long hard look at what that really means.  Easy to say the phrase and give an air of meaning business, but getting down to brass tacks means figuring out precisely what that entails.

"Turning out more solar panels and wind turbines may not sound like warfare, but it’s exactly what won World War II: not just massive invasions and pitched tank battles and ferocious aerial bombardments, but the wholesale industrial retooling that was needed to build weapons and supply troops on a previously unprecedented scale. Defeating the Nazis required more than brave soldiers. It required building big factories, and building them really, really fast...

According to the conventional view of World War II, American business made all this happen simply because it rolled up its sleeves and went to war. As is so often the case, however, the conventional view is mostly wrong. Yes, there are endless newsreels from the era of patriotic businessmen unrolling blueprints and switching on assembly lines—but that’s largely because those businessmen paid for the films. Their PR departments also put out their own radio serials with titles like “Victory Is Their Business,” and “War of Enterprise,” and published endless newspaper ads boasting of their own patriotism. In reality, many of America’s captains of industry didn’t want much to do with the war until they were dragooned into it."

McKibben goes on to explain that "dragooned into it" meant government agencies directing industry action:

 “'It was public capital that built most of the stuff, not Wall Street,' says Wilson. 'And at the top level of logistics and supply-chain management, the military was the boss. They placed the contracts, they moved the stuff around.' The feds acted aggressively—they would cancel contracts as war needs changed, tossing factories full of people abruptly out of work. If firms refused to take direction, FDR ordered many of them seized. Though companies made money, there was little in the way of profiteering—bad memories from World War I, Wilson says, led to 'robust profit controls,' which were mostly accepted by America’s industrial tycoons. In many cases, federal authorities purposely set up competition between public operations and private factories: The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard built submarines, but so did Electric Boat of Groton, Connecticut. 'They were both quite impressive and productive,' Wilson says."

Let's tease that apart.  "Public capital built most of the stuff... [C]ompanies made money."  Why exactly did "America's industrial tycoons...accept 'robust profit controls'"?  Well, the answer might be in what those industrial tycoons got in return.  Andre Tartare, with Bloomberg:

"To win WWII, the U.S. economy had to be re-tooled to churn out airplanes and tanks alongside (or, in lieu) of washing machines and cars, while at the same time developing new technologies, such as the atomic bomb. Government spending — often in the form of cost-plus contracts to the risk-averse private companies operating the factories and mines — peaked at nearly 43 percent of U.S. gross domestic product in 1943 and 1944." 

A simple definition of cost-plus contract:  "A cost-plus-fixed-fee contract is a cost-reimbursement contract that provides for payment to the contractor of a negotiated fee that is fixed at the inception of the contract... This contract type permits contracting for efforts that might otherwise present too great a risk to contractors.."  That's right.  The corporation takes none of the risk in research and development.  Guaranteed profit.  No risk.  Government takes the risk.

Military and defense contractors.  Gun manufacturers.  Airplane and auto manufacturers. Profiteering?  Maybe not in the sense of making exorbitant profit margins. But they weren't treated too shabbily.  No risk R&D and guaranteed profit is nice.

Don't get me wrong.  I don't think it was a bad move.  We needed to fight a war.  And win a war.  And if IBM and Boeing and others profited by it unfairly, well, such is life.  We had a war to fight and win.

And we need to fight a war now.  We have loads of solar panels and wind turbines to churn out.  We have nuclear R&D to accomplish.  We have a HVDC grid to build.  We have smart grid technology to develop.  We have gardens to grow.  We have replacement for concrete to discover.  We have planes, trains and automobiles to build that move without fossil fuels.  We have energy storage R&D to do. We have to figure out how to accomplish widespread negative emissions.  We have sea level rise to address.  We have extreme weather to defend against.  We have a war to fight.  And we will need to do whatever it takes to win that war.

And here is my point:  it WILL involve decisions that people on the left do not necessarily like.  I don't like the idea of cost-plus contracts to GM or Boeing or Microsoft or, worse, Exxon Mobil.  But what if they mean we can win the war?

If we are going to talk about WWII scale mobilization, we had better be ready to be exceedingly pragmatic. When we talk about WWII scale mobilization, we are talking about TOUGH choices.  Not just for someone like Mitch McConnell or Jim Inhofe.  Not just for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.  Tough choices for us all.

I propose that those choices be faced with the guiding principle that cutting emissions and preserving a livable world must take higher priority than retribution, ideology or righteousness.  Bill McKibben is absolutely right.  We CAN get to zero emissions by 2035 or 2050.  But no one should think it will come lightly or easily.