Smart Money On Clean Energy

#363: Why Climate Change Isn't Just Another Ozone Hole

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For those of you too young to remember, the '80s and '90's had what at first glance seems like something similar to Climate Change as an urgent issue: an ozone hole over Antarctica.  Looking back at what was a successful campaign to end the use of the chemical causing the problem, CFCs, some would say, "Hey, we'll solve Climate, too, just give us time."  Except that's not how it works with Climate.  That's because almost all economic activity uses fossil fuels or causes carbon to be released.  This is changing, slowly, with innovations in energy, agriculture, and materials allowing progress, but altering what fuels our economy uses is a much bigger challenge than banning a single chemical used as a refrigerant.

That's why governments must lead the way; for obvious reasons (spreading the word, raising the enormous funds necessary, and getting it done ASAP) as well as to signal to other nations that we're a team player.

Surprisingly, the first countries to change over to a clean energy economy won't be the ones taking the biggest hit, but those likely to be the big winners, globally.  Don't we want the Googles, Apples and Twitters of renewable energy technology to be in the US?  Besides, taxes on carbon (a national tax as well as international tariffs) are inevitable, so those who change now pay little in the long run.  And who wants to be the last one to buy a gas-powered car?  If it has no resale value, gasoline is taxed much more vigorously, and gas stations have all but disappeared, that's a losing proposition.

And where are we in getting ready to surf the coming wave?  A major first step in the right direction is currently awaiting passage in the Senate.  President Biden's Build Back Better policy agenda would mean walking down the beach towards that clean energy wave on the horizon.  Ironically, the senator least likely to go along with Biden's plans is from a state that would greatly benefit from the government spending involved.

Hopefully something will remain of our president's Climate agenda if and when BBB passes the Senate.  The obvious thing to do at that point, aside from talking up the economic gold mine that is being innovative and cutting-edge, rather than late to the party, is for Democrats to get to 52 seats in the Senate, and then get rid of the filibuster, making the governing process much easier, and enacting what are popular Democratic policies.

The chances of that happening aren't as long as some would think.  Here's my top-10 list of what might happen to cause the Dems to get lucky.

And here is Ed Kilgore with the suggestion that Dems reserve the highly popular Medicare Expansion provisions (vision, dental, hearing) for 2022, when voters would be reminded why they want to vote Democratic.