Here's to the Green New Deal! It is time.
6
The president who steps up with a green new deal would be eligible for a Noble Peace prize!
6
I look forward to a time when we have a real president again and ideas like this can move from conceptulization to actualization.
9
US emissions spiked up last year.
Many times, in lobbying Congress for a carbon tax, we were met with “emissions are dropping, we can continue on our current path.” I don’t think it was disingenuous. It was a combination of a failure to grasp the urgency and a way of justifying their own fear of how to move politically.
Well, those days are over.
We are not dropping emissions.
This is about as bad as news gets.
There can be no more vague sense that we are going in the right direction, too slowly or not. We are definitely going in the wrong direction.
We desperately need to put a price on carbon—NOW. The Green New Deal will be great, but it cannot be implemented fast enough to intervene right now. We must keep working on it, but we must implement the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act NOW.
#EICDA #HR7173
4
here's a cheap, possibly effective concept:
step 1 - get rid of the notion of green, which is like waving a red flag at a bull, and don't mention any color of New Deal because to too many Americans that is already too pink. focus group a stronger, macho, self-determined, ruggedly individualistic branding, USP, and create an identity, perhaps an adorable yet strong cartoon character like Mr Clean or the one on paper towels.
step 2 - draw up a list of the top 100 religious fundamentalists and on the QT pay these critical influencers handsomely to promote the notion that greening our energy is God's will, and that carrying on as we have been is sinful. sell it from the pulpits and broadcasts where power and belief is based on faith alone, and pesky facts and figures only get in the way of the One True Message. perhaps enlist the Devil himself to lobby against the program, if he's not too expensive, so there's a bad guy to fight against.
in short, sell it as Republicans sell a bill of goods, because they know how to push what works to manipulate public opinion.
6
Good luck getting this through with Republican knuckle draggers in our government. They'd rather go extinct than give up their power and money, and they age going to have ample opportunity.
2
Promise me you won't fly any more Tom? Cross your heart and all that...
Do write again when you have a workable, saleable plan.
I'll be waiting.
Yours,
Ralphie.
2
Even though I'm extremely skeptical that we are warming (the data supporting warming is full of holes) there is nothing wrong with going green -- if for no other reason than eventually we will run out of fossil fuels.
BUT --
If you're serious, you'd be for nukes. They're scalable, don't need batteries, and no need solar and wind farms dotting the countryside.
And you'd ask yourself questions like electric trucks? How's that going to work. And what about the rest of the world? We go as green as we can get and China and India keep increasing emissions. If you believe in GLOBAL warming, then you have to think GLOBALLY.
And how long do you think it would take to completely get off fossil fuels when 80% of our energy needs are provided by carbon fuels. The rest of the world more. How quickly do you think the energy infrastructure can be transformed? I suggest reading this in the WSJ:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/have-we-got-a-carbon-tax-dividend-for-you-11546992477
A lot of virtue signaling here. What you are talking about is restructuring our entire economy in a short period of time. All the greens are offering slogans and pie in the sky economics and engineering.
And before you can sell a green new deal -- you need to do a much better job convincing the rest of us that warming is happening & catastrophe awaits.
And Tom -- do you promise to quit flying all over the place starting now?
It’s obvious that this Green New Deal is nothing more than the imposition of a fascist police state where a socialist Big Government controls every aspect of every Americans’ life. How twisted does one have to be to believe that 325 million Americans are always doing the wrong thing and their every action must be dictated by one Big Government socialist bureaucrat who is always right?
1
Gotta love the optimism that envisions agreeing on Math with $1 trillion deficit creating GOP budget hawks...
Still, a useful place to start for the intellectually honest is Project Drawdown's science based ranking of 80 solutions by carbon reduction impact
https://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank
1 Refrigerant Management
2 Wind Turbines (Onshore)
3 Reduced Food Waste
Easy to envision doable improved standards in the top 3...
1
You forgot to mention 'plug-ins on every corner, and turnpike, and rest stop, and . . . well, you get the idea. Right now, here in the midwest, it's like looking for water on the Sahara.
2
The USA has already fallen behind China in the development of new technology. The Netherlands will see ever building office, industrial and residential structure energy neutral in a decade. America lost the future when it elected Ronald Wilson Reagan in 1980.
It is time for the USA to play nice and realize it is only a follower and now is the time to build college and universities and a sustainable economy. Bishops University in Sherbrooke Quebec 40 minutes north of the USA border gets all its heat from underground water while your president wants to bring back coal.
We know the 20th century economy will collapse if not tomorrow soon thereafter. Europe is reducing its cattle population understanding that beef will be scarcer because we have no option. Carbon trading is a beginning but only a beginning.
I am betting that the USA will sooner destroy the planet than give up its quarter pounder with ersatz cheese.
7
It’s too late? In 1988 the UN claimed that if global warming wasn’t stopped by 2000 entire nations would be swept away by rising sea levels. In 2006 James Hansen gave us just 10 years. The head of the UN climate panel Raj Pachauri said we must save the planet by 2012 or it would be too late. In 2012 Dr Wadhams of Cambridge gave us 4 years or else disaster would result. In 2009 British Prime Minister Brown said we had a mere 50 days to stop global warming! Not even one of these or many other hysterical predictions has come to pass, despite being assured that the science is settled. When the latest hysterical deadline passes without incident the warm-mongers will simply issue (make up) a new one, probably more alarmist, unhinged, and science-free than the earlier predictions
1
Tom, great to here that you are interested in what other people think. If you really truly believe that global warming is a threat (as I do) there is only one solution and that is nuclear. To be against nuclear because of its risks, is like being afraid of running away from a tsunami because you might pull your hamstring.
Had California and Germany invested in nuclear rather than renewables they would both be 100% carbon free. see article attached. and as an added bonus you'd create a ton of new high paying jobs.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/09/11/had-they-bet-on-nuclear-not-renewables-germany-california-would-already-have-100-clean-power/#326ed83e0d44
Somehow, watching "Supernatural" just won't be the same if the Winchesters are driving a Volt or Prius instead of their iconic 1967 Impala...
"God has implanted in mankind also all that is necessary to enable it to accomplish its destinies. There is a providential social physiology, as well as a providential
human physiology. The social organs are constituted so as
to enable them to develop harmoniously in the grand air
of liberty. Away, then, with quacks and organizers! [Like Friedman and OO-C] Away with their rings, and their chains, and their hooks, and their pincers! Away with their artificial methods! Away with their social laboratories, their governmental whims, [their GREEN NEW DEALS] their centralization, their tariffs, their universities, their State religions, their inflationary or monopolizing banks, their limitations, their restrictions, their moralizations, and their equalization by taxation! And now, after having vainly inflicted upon the social body so many systems, let them end where they ought to have begun—reject all systems, and try liberty—liberty, which is an act of faith in God and in His work."--Frédéric Bastiat, THE LAW (1850)
Rulers--those with so-called "authority" to impose their plans, their personal preferences, their wills on others by force, violence and coercion, have been trying forever to create a better world by means of the violent state, and have always come a cropper. Friedman's and OO-C's plan will also fail. The question is at what cost in lives and liberty?
1
Yes as you suggest - let's look at California - a state whose environment has been steadily degraded in the past several decades by overpopulation. It's cities are filled with homeless folks defecating and leaving syringes on the streets. It has the highest poverty rate in the nation. And the middle class has largely left as it's too expensive for them - they have been replaced by the super rich in their gated enclaves along the coast and their poor servants living in a polluted, crime ridden interior. If this is what your green future is offering I fear it will have few takers - unless of course it's forced on us by an out of control government that has taken the bulk of people's income in taxes - for their own good of course.
2
Capitalism is the first monster which created an environmental crisis.
Overpopulation is the second one.
Forget the first, and the crisis will NOT disappear.
Thanks to Mr Friedman, we read here a thoughtful article. Continuing the policies of the present day, we will encounter the worst effects of climate change and bring to fore adaptation strategies to mitigate a changing environment. This is, of course, an uncharted foray into an experiment of global scale and the unknown. Uncertainty will abound. Reactionarianism will be the order of the day.
Surely we can do better. We must do better for ourselves, our children, our grandchildren, our community, our country and our world. Try driving an electric car. They are quiet, vibration free, cheap to operate and to fuel, have great acceleration and fun to drive and easy to maintain. Oh and their emissions profile is world class low. Are they green or are they the next evolution of the automobile? In fact, they are both and they are here now and available.
Let us try moving ahead with building and producing green energy sources. Such an effort will yield construction jobs on scale, renew our infrastructure and lead to energy self sufficiency and enhanced security and freedom from the yoyoing of the world petroleum market and it’s political involvements. If we mix in enough renewable energy sources, demand for carbon rich energy sources will fall and we can use valuable carbon sources for uses other transportation.
Surely these ideas deserve attention, yield win win scenario’s for workers, conservatives and liberals, Americans and our global community. Let’s engage.
1
I like the general intent of Mr. Friedman's "Green New Deal", but have reservations about his details.
Invoking lightweights like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (I saw her talk – unimpressively – about the idea on a recent "60 Minutes" broadcast) will not give heft to Mr. Friedman's dream.
The "four zeros" Mr. Friedman lauds are good goals, but I think they fuzz up terminology and scientific concepts. For example, "zero-waste manufacturing", as Friedman describes it, will consume energy, perhaps lots of it, in disassembly and recycling (2nd Law of Thermodynamics). Such proposals need to be objectively and rigorously evaluated on a total-energy-consumption basis to help assessing the feasibility and desirability of proposed implementations.
Goals may be laudable and desirable, but devils are in the details.
If the Green New Deal is going to be "capitalistic," it is going to have to buy and sell human services instead tons and tons of junk. Why we cannot match up our needs--for more teachers, more child care workers, more elder care workers, more farmers to heal our ruined land, more construction workers to repair our roads and bridges, more family practitioners, more health coaches--and on and on----why we cannot match up these needs with the enormous wealth of this country is due to the fundamentals of capitalism--fundamentals that need to be deeply questioned. Our current economic system has resulted in our wasting our planet's precious resources both making and transporting all of the junk that ends up in landfills. There is certainly no wisdom behind our economy. Real green will mean using human resources to solve our problems rather than trying to solve them by plundering the earth in order to raise GDP.
4
Yes, credit where due and I surely credit you on this matter.
1
NASA and UN scientists have declared that we are approaching an irreversible chain reaction in global warming. Its consequences have already been witnessed with drought, hurricanes and wildfires. Why on earth would we depend on the same greed fueling capitalism which has driven us to the brink of plaentary destruction to motivate a Green New Deal! Since what lies in the balance is planetary survival as we know it, we cannot wait for the self-interest of market mechanisms to slow, or halt global warming. Proposals without enforced regulations are like laws without funding and teeth. Hollow. The second misconception of the column is the assumption that another billion plus people should be inhabiting the planet in 12 years. Surely part of the tragedy of global warming is the numbers of people on this planet. Economies not dependent on population growth should accompany the next step in climate intervention. Finally, the column contains one colossal ethical vacuum. It fails to recognize the moral command against the genocide we have perpetrated against other species on earth through habitat destruction, pollution and poisoning of our land and seas. We need an environmental White House, an environmental congress and an environmental supreme court to see the above philosophy put into reality. In 2018, we may have gotten one. Let us hope we get the next two soon.
1
A lot of the comments say nothing will fly without "convervative" buy-in and sponsorship. More accurately, we need Republican buy-in, because what passes itself off as conservative these days in the GOP are people who are, to use a political term, nuts.
John McCain was not a liberal, not a middle-of-the-road guy, either, before the Tea Party distorted the meaning of the term. He tried for years, with Joe Lieberman, to pass a national carbon emissions plan. Many of the GOP leaders who were in the Republican primary for the 2008 election voiced support for reining in carbon emissions, even as they might have been slow to say we were causing the warming.
Mike Huckabee said that evangelicals had a moral responsibility as stewards of creation. Then he went to Fox and dropped all that pious, helpful stuff in exchange for fame and cash. Governor Sarah Palin had created a group to plan how Alaska would deal with the threats of a rapidly changing climate, then Fox brainwashed her, too.
Now the sensible Republicans are under constant threat of primary assault by the looniest of the wealthy right.
So let's not try for "conservative" support for plans that provide jobs, add revenue to rural areas and are good for the air and water that we all need - for farming or breathing or whatever reason at all.
Let's just try to enable the sensible Republicans to take action in the best interests of their constituents.
Frankly, fracking or no, there is only a finite amount of oil. Unless basic physics is wrong, we are heading towards serious climate change. There is no reason not to speed the transition to low carbon and cleaner energy. Do it now, cause it isn’t going to get easier going forward. (Ok, start it now, but energy transitions take time.)
3
If and when nuclear fusion comes online, the world will be transformed. Nuclear fusion is about ten years away. And, it has been about ten years away, the whole of my adult life.
Clean energy is this generation's nuclear fusion.
I think of this time in history as similar to the early 20th century, when the nation transitioned to using automobiles. The new technology disrupted some ways people were used to living, but was ultimately adopted by most people. The transition now is to solar and wind energy, heat pumps, electric vehicles and well-designed buildings which use less energy for heating and cooling. We survived the last transition and we will survive this one. Even for those who don't believe in global warming, surely the possibility of reducing air pollution is appealing? A Green New Deal will provide many jobs, make our nation energy independent and help our environment. In my opinion, it may not be possible to get all our energy from green sources for decades but please, let's do what we can! We now have solar panels which supply enough electricity for our house and electric car. So far, we still have to use oil to heat our home because we live in a cold climate but someone in a milder climate could perhaps use electric heat powered by solar panels.
1
@Carolyn. Except for the teensy tiny detail that the American People voluntarily embraced cars. Nobody had to enforce an Automotive New Deal by which socialist Big Government forced Americans to drive cars that they didn’t want and took total control over the economy and every single action every American undertook.
1
@Larry Did not know America was a dictatorship. So you just get a government you don’t want, enacting policies nobody ever asked for?
Sarcasm aside: The choice a people make collectively is just as valid as the choice they make individually.
Even the car requires collective choices such as building roads and highways fit for cars. The government fought wars to preserve oil supplies for cars. Again not an individual choice.
@Larry
No one plans to force you to drive an electric car (though, you should try one out - they accelerate more quickly and are fun to drive), or get solar panels. Just as the government did with the WPA projects such as dams to provide electricity, jobs could be created which would help build the infrastructure we need, such as large solar farms and windmills to create electricity, or to train people for these jobs. There are many Americans who WANT to transition to clean energy because it will be good for the environment in which we all live. I'm sure you can continue to live as you do - it's going to take a while.
We have so much to lose if we don't do this but so much to gain if we do. I have been feeling so excited by the new wing of the Democrats, they speak their minds, and they know where the future is headed. What I cannot begin to understand is the fear mongering and hatred on the other side of the aisle, just so negative. Keep it up Democrats.
1
The "green new deal" is nothing more than a 1% magician waving of green virtue signaling hand in order to distract the general public from the fact that he is doing something else with the other hand ... like our 'leaders' continuing with their greed motivated unsustainable growth in the size of the human enterprise on earth for a few more decades. Doing a dramatic drama of throwing up a few windmills and putting solar panels on top of buildings would be a 'good idea' if our greedy for more GDP growth 'leaders' were not adding 30 million more energy consuming polluters to the US population every decade via mass immigration! It might make a difference if the global 1% were not also stalling on family planning, contraceptives availability, if they were actually working toward a stable sustainable global human population. But no, the world population grows by 80 million a year and no-science degree economists like Lawrence Summers say the earth can easily support 15 billion!? Oh, and green projects might save enough GW emissions to make a real difference if half the energy consuming population did not live in areas with little-sun cold winters or where the wind does not blow so wind generation can't contribute much either. So generally I, and most other science-degree environmentalists know this is all a deceive the gullible populace show so our 'leaders' can continue with unsustainable growth business as usual and get a few more decades of destructive growth profits.
Mr. Friedman,
Alas, the challenge to your plan is not technological, but rather social. Because it requires scale, there will be one tribe claiming such a national initiative imposes government limits or change on prior rights or choices. Another tribe will contest the role that the market and corporate entities can leverage to deploy capital, technology and human talent on a national or multinational level. Another tribe will not be satisfied with merely avoiding climate catastrophe and the ruin of our civilization and will insist that any climate plan also include a massive and detailed restructuring of the tax, healthcare or education system - solving all the world's problems like an afternoon's flawless round of golf.
We will need to focus as a society in a rather single minded way to move the Green New Deal ball down the field, knowing that every other item on the sociopolitical agenda rests on us reaching the climate change mitigation goal before the clock runs out.
Ultimately, cooperation and subjugation of the ego represent our underlying challenge.
In 2007 you said that we had to reach conservatives and even climate deniers. No luck so far, and I doubt it will happen before it's too late.
1
Solar and wind power have a place in our energy landscape. However, the column makes no mention of an existing zero carbon power source: nuclear power. The plants are expensive to build, and require strict oversight to operate. However, they provide a reliable continuous source of electricity, which solar and wind cannot do at the present time.
1
If language is important - an the name of the idea suggests it is - then PLEASE, Mr Friedman, get it right: they are Wind GENERATORS for producing electricity. Windmills are mostly quaint, historical devices seen mostly on Dutch postcards (though some are still used for grinding grain)
Important column. I hope it goes far and wide.
My thought long ago was to help make Iraq and Iran model green states. Though they rely on oil income, they are both in need of energy (see Iran's claim to need nuclear power plants). International cooperation could make those countries laboratories for what can save the planet, while bringing the world together.
17
Nuclear power.
10
"Nuclear power" gets a times pick? Of all the no-content statements I have ever seen on the NYT, this is the epitome.
Nuclear Power WHAT?
I do applied physics, I was an employee of the DOE Hanford laboratory for nearly a decade. Though my specialty had nothing to do directly with nuclear power or its waste management I know far more than the average citizen, and I will tell you a simple thing: anybody who knows what they are talking about on the topic will start off with "It's complicated...."
The nuclear-power enthusiasts who think that it's so easy-peasy, or that some acronym-soup gaga reactor they have read about would have saved us all by now except it was cancelled due to a conspiracy ... are all nuts.
The realities we see today are that reasonably-safe reactors are really not cheap, waste handling ditto.
You want nuclear reactors? How about you pay for them and their waste cleanup?
I'll place my money on renewables -- they are looking crazy cheap and guaranteed safe in comparison.
10
Friedman for President.
Does anyone remember "The Greening of America" by Charles Reich? Forty years ago, it was bell bottoms, psychedelic drugs and new consciousness that was going to change everything.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/the-greening-of-america-turns-40-1.913853
Thumbs up!
Green needs to be recast as not just something that's eco-conscious, but something that's economically indisputable.
I'm in NJ, and I am literally living green. I live in a house that produces over 80% of what it consumes -- and that consumption includes both housing and our cars, since we have two electric cars charged by our solar panels.
Solar energy in NJ not only is not only eligible for the 30% federal tax credit, but benefits from a robust SREC market that has generated over $200 for each MW the system produces. Between the significant energy savings, tax credit, the NJ SREC rebates, my solar system is on track to pay for itself in LESS THAN 4.5 YEARS.
My Tesla Model 3 was ~$50,000. Even without the now expired full $7500 tax credit, my car was sales tax-exempt in NJ. So, between fuel savings, maintenance savings (EV's require much less maintenance than traditional cars), sales tax savings, etc, my car will be much less than I would have spent on a comparable BMW 3-series or Audi A4.
The bottom line is that not only did I not have to sacrifice to live green, doing so has been hugely favorable economically for me. When I tell people about my experience, they are always surprised; most expect that going "green" means paying huge premiums to do so. If more understood the benefits, more would follow the path. Admittedly, government incentives help make the #'s work, but the reality is that to this day, the gov't routinely subsidizes fossil fuels.
3
At what cost? It's all pie-in-the-sky without a discussion of costs. The USA reduced CO2 emissions 11% since 2005. We lead the world. Renewables are not the answer. If we want to get real about green energy we need nuclear.
1
@Robert Moen. The costs of this lunacy are incalculable but at least run in the tens of trillions. That’s not counting the human cost of increased misery, starvation, and destruction of nearly all economic activity
1
You know what might actually pass if democrats got behind it? A carbon dividend. Tax the oil, natural gas and coal extracted by the evil energy corporations, evil Russia and the evil Middle East, and refund 100% of the money to U.S. taxpayers. This also have the advantage of being fairly simple; we know that complicated government programs are prone to fail (example: public housing and 'slum clearance' in 1960s and 1970s). And the point is to combat climate change--not to be fashionably progressive--right?
2
We might shame "conservatives" to get on board, by proposing an end to ALL government energy subsidies. And I mean ALL.
"Credible estimates of annual United States fossil fuel subsidies range from $10 billion to $52 billion annually – yet NONE of these include costs borne by taxpayers related to the climate, local environmental, and health impacts of the fossil fuel industry. Fossil fuel subsidies in the United States ALSO include massive military expenditures to acquire and defend fossil fuel interests around the globe, and infrastructure spending and related maintenance based on an antiquated energy system built on large, remote power plants and cheap electricity." (priceofoil.org)
Get rid of all this, then renewable energy without any government assistance will compete quite nicely.
Let the market work, my conservative friends.
1
There is nothing more important to me politically than this issue of our environmental impact. Despite our focus on ourselves and our endless human dramas, underlying and foundational to that are our relationships with our environment and fellow species. (By my observation, attending to and improving one's relationship with the natural world tends to go hand and hand with improving one's own health and relationships as well, just as people who pollute their bodies with soda or cigarettes also often pollute their surroundings with their cigarette butts and styrofoam cups.) Anyway, thank you for your leadership in this area and for your persistence! Gives me hope for my species... :)
1
Friedman is onto something when he promotes Green Capitalism. But not because people are motivated by greed. Many people are, of course. But those people will inevitably undermine the kind of cooperation that will be necessary to sufficiently meet our current overwhelming environmental challenges, no matter what laws you pass or incentives you offer.
I believe that most people are, instead, more motivated by a sense of enjoyment, agency, and the opportunity to use their own creativity to contribute to the community in some way. So a Green New Deal that includes incentives for individuals and small businesses to invent or innovate clean energy products or services could really catch on across the political spectrum. How could conservatives complain about supporting entrepreneurs and small businesses?
When we try to shame people into doing what we think they should do, they'll often want to do the opposite, or do nothing at all. Therefore, there's a limit to the efficacy of explaining the facts of environmental science to people who just hear the voice of a nagging, shaming parent or teacher as you talk.
But if you give these same people the opportunities and financial incentives to try to solve interesting, challenging clean energy problems with their own creativity and intelligence, in a way that respects their desire to maintain a certain amount of autonomy, some of them are going to bite.
1
Scaling back carbon emissions will come not from grandiose projects, but by small incremental steps. If every home and building were to install solar panels and geothermal heating and AC systems, the US could dramatically reduce it's fossil fuel consumption.
Also as a suggestion for the nearly 100,000 dams in the US, most small and built in the 19th century, each state should institute a program for every one of these dams be equipped to produce hydroelectric power. The carbon free power these could generate would eclipse all the solar and wind power now produced in the US.
we can't get there without nuclear energy in the mix with renewable green. Biofuels could replace fossil fuel in the airlines business. Biofuels are renewable.
We need a tax on e-commerce. Too many consumers are buying items like a single package of toilet paper and having it shipped to their homes when they can easily walk to the corner store or drive a low(er)-emission vehicle to the local grocery. We have lost our damn minds. Planes, trucks, packing materials -- e-commerce is the new smoking. Consumers should pay a tax to buy something online they can get locally. Not a cure-all but one of a thousand corrective measures we must take.
1
@Jenny M. - a tax on speed of delivery for non-medical items would be good. I avoid Amazon as much as I can but when I get things shipped from them I pick the slowest method.
When I buy used books, one site lets me see where the product ships from, so I've spent a bit more to have someone mail me a book in the suburbs rather than get the copy 1200 miles away.
@Jenny M. Now Big Government will decide where every American buys every last item on their shopping list?!?! You seriously think Americans will stand for this?
1
@Jenny M. I presume your computer is solar powered? You’re polluting every time you turn your computer on.
I did a quick date based search on Google and found several references to a "Green New Deal". Thus one is fron 2001:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2001/06/new-green-deal/
When one person---one who neither reads or thinks very much---has the ability to wipe away years of EPA and other such regulations......
1
The Green Revolution won't really start until every Federal Building in Washington DC including the Capitol and White House set an example for the nation and are outfitted with Solar and other Green energy technologies. Sadly, we will have to wait until politicians who really care about America's future are elected to carry that out.
@Woody - the good news about that is that politicians in states and cities around the country are already working on this, and building managers are saving money. Using less energy is good for the tenants, and efficiency is a very cost-effective green technology.
https://www.energymanagertoday.com/chicago-now-top-us-market-energy-efficient-office-buildings-0170966/
Of course, some of it depends on builders. Some are still sloppy and will slap up anything they can put their name on - we have one such structure in Chicago - Trump Tower. The EnergyStar ratings for buildings goes from 1 to 100 with a 100 rating the best.
Trump Tower? Last place, with a 9.
"One facility that has stood out among the rest for its lack of energy efficiency is Chicago’s Trump Tower, based on new energy use data from the city.
Of the 100 largest buildings listed in Chicago’s 2016 Energy Benchmarking database, the president’s 98-story riverfront tower ranks last in energy performance with a score of nine, according to a report from WTTW Chicago."
https://www.facilitiesnet.com/energyefficiency/tip/Trumps-Chicago-Tower-Last-in-Citys-Energy-Rankings--40772
Tenants stuck in there are spending more on utilities than they should. Oh, and the building didn't file necessary paperwork for all the water they pull from the river for cooling. And they use a lot since the building's so inefficiently built.
Have we ever put long term survival above short term profit?
The communists said "the last capitalist we hang will be the one who sell us the rope."
A reply to the comments under "Unconventional Liberal". Based on your argument; the former Warsaw Pact countries, the USSR, the Peoples Republic of China, the DPRK, and all other marxist-lenninist countries are "environmental heavens". So, lets recreate the failed socio-economic and political experiments, inspired by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, which actually existed but, began to dissapear from the summer of 1988 to December 25, 1991 - when the USSR was dissolved.
2
This is exactly where and what our government should be talking about and implementing ideas like The Green New Deal. We have to have some thoughts that are above and beyond those that currently obsess the Republican and parts of the Democratic party. This is something that is affecting us right now and will continue to affect us more so as the future rolls in.
Due to the replacement of natural gas for dirtier coal and oil along with grass roots carbon reduction by cities, states and individuals, the US has actually reduced it's carbon emissions over the last decade.
That small reduction has been vastly overwhelmed however by the skyrocketing increases in energy consumption by China, India and the rest of the developing world. Over 1,600 new coal fired power plants are planned or under construction that will increase consumption of coal powered energy by almost 50%.
The only way to stop climate change is for every country to undertake a drastic reduction in fossil fuel consumption immediately. Unfortunately, the results of that reduction are elusive and costly, while the benefits of increased use are tangible and immediate.
Without a global initiative to scale back carbon emissions, rising temperatures and sea levels along with catastrophic environmental damage will be inevitable. Humanity is at a crossroads and human nature being what it is, the likelihood of it's changing course is small to non-existent.
While it is essential that we continue to use every effort to reduce carbon emissions to reduce the degree of climate change, governments must begin to plan for the inevitability of rising seas and disrupted agriculture.
first, let's try to understand what's standing in the way. opposition by large, powerful industries that will no longer be able to make boatloads of money the same old way, of course, is easy to understand. but why do truckers "coal" electric cars on the roads, why do people park their oversized pickups to block electric car charging stations, why were President Carter's solar panels torn off the White House roof? stupidity comes immediately to mind,but doesn't really describe intentional malice. what gives? this could be harder than developing new technologies. but change requires motivation.
1
Sorry.Not going to happen in theUS.With Trump as president for2 more years and probably 4 more years after, Fracking and Coal burning are here to stay.
1
For all those worried about how we are going to pay for the Green New Deal; DJT is giving us the blueprint. If he can declare immigration a National Emergency...then the next Democrat to occupy the White House gets free rein to call Climate Change and the Environment a National Emergency and get the funds from other agencies. So Donald...I say, GO FOR IT!
"...“a job guarantee program to assure a living wage job to every person who wants one,” “basic income programs” and “universal health care,” financed, at least in part, by higher taxes on the wealthy."
I.e., a fast-track to Venezuela and a certain way to chase wealth out of America.
In a column filled with airy aspirations, there are only two concrete suggestions: adding two new community colleges to every state and high-speed broadband to rural areas. That kind of thing would make as much difference as adding two drops of water to a bucket. You wouldn't even notice.
The problem with climate change is that we are dealing with two complex systems: the natural climate system and the human social/economic system. Both are poorly understood.
Scientists cannot predict the future of our climate with any degree of certainly. This idea of 2.0 degrees or 1.5 implies precision that no science supports. And economist forecasts simply make astrologists look good. Government regulations based on economic policy fail routinely. Look at the 55 mph speed limit, for example. Well-intended, but a flop.
We don't need more plans. We need more action. And action comes from the bottom up rather than the top down. No social change of any import has come from making a plan and executing it. How can you make a plan and carry it out when you don't know what will happen?
We need to be more agile. To try things that may fail and see what succeeds. And that means less government not more. That means low taxes and fewer regulations and unleashing rather than leashing. Then we will see innovation. We always have.
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Too many people now. Even too many more to come. If this is not addressed by peaceful means, I fear the opposite will be used to reduce the population. I leave those means unmentioned but they are common themes in distopian literature, films...
The only way to get to renewable energy , enough of it in a hurry to satisfy the needs of the whole of humanity, is nuclear power. Solar is nice for one private house at a time. Wind can fill some needs, but, you know, it depends of the wind, it blocks the view of whatever it is that we want to see, & it kills a lot of birds in a very nasty way. So lets not be scared of nuclear power just because it can also be the energy source for very lethal bombs. It's clean energy.
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Buildings, manufacturing, power generation and transportation are of course essential, but the most important piece may well be our food system. From clearing forests and grasslands, to emptying the aquifers, to polluting the ocean, all the way to reaching our tables, our food system radically disrupts not only the carbon cycle, but the hydrological, nitrogen and phosphorous cycles as well. We waste the bulk of our crops feeding animals and, through ethanol, feeding our cars. The quickest, highest-impact way to cut carbon consumption is to rely more on plant foods. We also discard something like 30-40% of our food. Then there's organic agriculture, which can put a significant amount of carbon back into the soil. Local food systems are also a benefit. But altogether, food systems should be a top priority.
Your heart is is the in right place, Friedman but your brain hasn't been used in so long its a bit atrophied.
The reason a Capitalist Green New Deal doesn't work, is that money—Capital—while not against the idea, basically doesn't have time for it. And time, of course, is money.
So even though there's lot of money to be made building the green economy, Capital would like to concentrate on sure returns that can extrapolated out to the future now. It's not the Capitalist's fault, she's careful and greedy, that's the nature of the beast. This is why you have to use the other pol of Capitalist innovation against it, Fear.
The Capitalist has to fear that the State is going to build the Green Economy all by herself and cut the Capitalist out. Fear of losing out on the Green Future may concentrate the Capitalist's mind so that one or two enlightened Capitalists like Henry Kaiser will be ready to get into the game. But most won't. Too greedy.
This is why the State, or Publicly owned industries created by the State, has to begin the innovation.
It's no accident that the Internet was developed on the public dime, or that the public was not reserved a stake in its future.
That was a big mistake. The next Democratic Presidential candidate has to run on a detailed, realistic program for a WWII like mass industrial mobilization to build a Green New Deal or she ain't going nowhere. . . And Bernie Sanders will be the next President. That ought to concentrate their minds for sure.
If Mr. Friedman's ideas couldn't catch on in 2007, or even later when President Obama advanced them, what chance do they have now, when facts and science are ignored or denied and the influence of the fossil fuel industry on legislation is greater than ever?
I consider myself an optimist, preferring to think happy, hopeful thoughts rather than gloomy ones. Even if my hopes will eventually be dashed, I will at least enjoy the time until then. And, at 72, I probably won't be around when the earth dries up, oceanfront communities sink into the ocean and living things choke on their own waste.
But even without grandchildren to depend on my legacy for their survival, I am glad to bear some sacrifice to ensure the future of our fragile environment so that "the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Are there no consequences that will only be realized beyond the next election that can gain the attention and support of our elected representatives? Even experiments with lower forms of life than humans show that they can understand the concept of delayed gratification and husband resources for future enjoyment.
I remain an optimist, but I also hope that Mr. Friedman's column will be read, remembered, and acted upon by more people than the youngest member of the new Congress.
Amen, amen, amen.
And, we HAVE to put this in concrete, easy-to-understand terms that the average person with little experience in all things environmental can understand. Lose the jargon of RPS, EJ, etc. What makes the Green New Deal a 'win' for the small guy or gal? Marketing counts here. Forget 'carbon tax' which no one will like the sound of. Make it a 'carbon dividend' and focus on that.
But, I agree with you wholeheartedly.
I run a scientific start-up that is focused on the green synthesis of ammonia. This arena currently contributes 2% of Greenhouse Gases and is among the dirtiest chemical processes in terns of CO2 emissions. THis will lead to new-age energy storage and fuel cell technology of great value. The EU is talking to us about a subsidy grant/loan with great interest and yet the U.S. Government ARPA-E Program (highlighted as one of the Trump orphans in The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis) can't get out of its own way to help compaies like ours. Your (or AOC's) Green New Deal should remember to include scientific subsidies for new green technologies or else all this great new technology will move to supportive zones like the EU and the next Silicon Valley will be the Loire Valley.
Because the left wants it, the right will be against it. Even though getting off of fossil fuels might save our planet. Even though it might defund our enemies; the Iranian/Russian/Venezuelan governments. Even though it might reduce the cost of healthcare in this country. Even though we have no choice. The fanatical right which runs the Republican party will kill the Green New Deal.
Just look at how crazy the radical Republicans went when Michelle Obama proposed healthy foods for their children. If you can be against healthy food for children, you can be against anything.
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The crazy Green New Deal is a bad idea that will never be implemented in America. Massive, unprecedented tax increases will be fought here just as they are in Paris. Exploding taxes and Big Government control will cause a decades-long global depression that the human race will not survive
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@Larry I think climate change poses a larger risk to stability across the planet. Just look at the Arab Spring; a drought caused the price of bread to go up and not long after, there was mass unrest in places like Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria. Even the US military acknowledges that climate change is an imminent threat. If we don't do anything to ameliorate climate change, the change in climates will cost us more in the long run than it will to make rich people pay their fair share.
By the way, taxes on fossil fuels in France were only one part of the story: Protesters were upset that Macron gave tax breaks to rich Frenchmen and then turned around and asked them to sacrifice, which is less about increasing taxes, and more about the fact that they're the ones being asked to face the brunt of neoliberal economics. The French middle class has been ravaged, sure, but that's due to policies that benefit the richest sector of French society accumulating over decades.
French people, not unlike us, are working longer and longer hours for less money and fewer benefits. A Green New Deal will provide quality jobs and an infrastructure to maintain. You'll retort this isn't free--of course not--but the richest citizens need to start paying their fair share. We could do this by increasing the top marginal rate just like Ocasio-Cortez suggested, taxing income above a certain threshold like income *over* $10M, but also by increasing capital gains taxes above a certain amount as well.
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@Larry
You misunderstood the the French revolt, one of the major issues is the " tax justice", that is just distribution of the tax burden, and taxing more of the rich and return of the abolished ISF, the tax on fortune invested in stock portfolios.
So, it's less taxes on the lower middle class and more on the rich.
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@John Doe
How can we do better than France here? France already has healthcare for all and we do not - a better safety net than we do for those who need it. How can we do "everything" else so as to reduce our vast income inequaility as well as fund the Green New Deal? One place to look is our outsized military/"defense" budget: I'll bet with some thought and creativity it could be cut in half.
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I think mixing socialist goals of living wage, job guarantee and the like with replacing fossil fuel with renewable sources will reduce the support to be able to implement this. I will be happy to play my part and do, by having LED bulbs at home, keeping house winter temperature at 68, not using plastic bags and so forth. We all need to do more but we should not use this as an wealth transfer mechanism or to punish "wealthy" people for the green deal.
We will know that a Green New Deal can succeed when the proposition of taking or giving private property for the public good falls within the Overton Window.
Lovely, rational idea. But completely impracticable. If humans were going to behave rationally and in their best interests, we wouldn't have 'climate change deniers'. "Father Greed" runs everything. Humankind is destined to destroy everything. Sorry, Tom, but our future will be more like "Soylent Green" than "Star Trek".
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How does The Public advance a Green New Deal of scale given our government leaders, especially the GOP are beholden to interests who don't want their profitability lowered by new public innovations? Unless our government today has a willingness to takedown the corporate neanderthals like it did with the Robber Barons of old; arriving at GND of scale will take decades. Either a legislative/judicial takedown i.e. a government for public justice and welfare.
Or will it be by a disorganized public that is acquiring more info rapidly resulting in better discernment on public issues? The downside to this, is that discerning persons don't suffer fools lightly or pretenders patiently. Because the latter cannot understand. And thanks to The GOP's long going efforts to hamper government all public leaders are now under a public suspicion of rationale incompetence.
I heard Whoopi Goldberg publicly chastise Ocasio-Cortez basically saying; "You need to focus on learning your job first before advancing ideas." Implementing ideas to improve society is the most important gov. job an elected leader can offer. But that takes thinking outside the box or imagination followed by collective thoughts and skills. Public leaders when interviewed often follow a script. That's not normal behavior, its acting for a director or audience i.e. don't think it do this! Mistakes and misspoken words are normal but deceit is not and our discernment bares witness to such intent.
We're not running out of time, we are out of time. The 6th great extinction is in progress, and the best we can do is mitigate the damage.
If any historians survive into the future, they might record that many of us saw this coming, but we could not convince our leaders to deprive their corporate sponsors of their dirty rice bowls. They will record that with better leadership we could have avoided the worst, but alas, we couldn't control our leaders. They will admonish future human society (such as it is) to develop better leadership.
Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic. We actually might be able to mitigate much of the damage, but we need leaders who are all in, and we don't have them.
We have the technology and the information. We lack the leadership.
The "jobs guarantee" is a problem--some people should just receive a universal basic income.
I agree with almost everything here (although I think, from a marketing point of view, "green" is too tainted, and needs to be just left out of the name). I particularly like the four zeros.
The big problem is getting buy-in from conservatives and deniers.
There is, I believe, only one answer to that. Appeal to the same two factors that govern every conservative policy choice and every source of denial; money and jobs. Translate everything into economic terms, and they'll be on board.
And the economic realities are:
1) If we stick with fossil fuels, the profits will continue to flow to the few who hold those investments, with no return to society.
2) If we switch to renewables, it will create many, many jobs, and hopefully give America global leadership in the multitude of booming new industries.
3) If we switch to renewables, energy will become cheaper for everyone (making your dollar go farther).
4) If we don't switch to renewables, energy will become more expensive as the resource becomes more scarce, global population increases, and most importantly as other economies develop and compete for fuel (raising prices).
5) Fracking doesn't work. It has lead to a what will be short-lived "cheap energy boom", but no one is actually making money off of it. It's a dead end, and all it is doing is delaying our investment in better choices.
6) The Four Zeros require infrastructure changes that will generate untold numbers of jobs in all areas and regions.
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To have hope of getting a Green New Deal to become policy, we need to make sure that it is proposed by conservatives and that the young radicals need to realize that they can't win this on their own.
Having done a term paper on Friedman's book back then, you can see some of the elements Congresswoman Ocasio-Ortez would be wise to consider adding to her version of the Green New Deal: the emphasis on critical environmental problem-solving even beyond climate change; bringing in the whole national security argument, in part, to attract conservatives; keeping at least some uses of revenues from a Carbon Tax for complimentary investments; the comprehensive complementary policy approach to building green jobs. His "Mean Capitalism" theme is less attractive. We don't need to play the game by the same rules; instead we could seek a more humane capitalism. She, of course, adds political energy and, so far, savvy. What they both miss are two things. Acknowledge, take advantage of, and develop the sustainable business field, which now at its frontier--Purpose-driven companies and "B Corps," are redefining capitalism. More and more companies are taking bold, constructive moves that go over and beyond any obvious bottom line benefits. For instance, Patagonia is now in business "To Protect the Earth," a number of companies (not all solar) supported staying in the Paris Agreement, refused to locate in states that discriminate against gays. The list quietly continues. We can build on this if we open our perspectives to seeing it. Also, there are lots of untapped ideas out there to productively integrate the economy and the environment. Stop wasting them. Google me and The Green Economy.
Good news:
I agree with the message and spirit of this article. I support this, and vote for any politician that support this.
Bad news:
The single largest issue by orders of magnitude gets no mention: the population explosion.
At 7.7 billion, increasing annually by 80 million, swamps any and all attempts at 'damage control' or introductions of green technology. There are numerous looming disasters that are an exercise in futility to bother listing anymore.
Each year we add 80 million: population of Germany.
Every 4 years we add 320 million: population of the US.
The planet is fast approaching if now already past the carrying capacity of the planet.
@oldBassGuy - Friedman's column is about what the US could and should consider doing. So every four years, "we" are not doubling US population. Native-born America has been below replacement birthrate since the 1970s, and while we clean our energy systems, we need to figure how to make our economy work without depending on population growth, which would be another massive culture change.
We should be focusing here on reducing the carbon intensity of everything we use and do, here, and since we're such a big market, hope our expertise helps others do the same.
Our infrastructure needs updating anyway, so how do we incorporate smart enhancements? Our grid infrastructure is aging and subject to cyberattack and seriously in need of modernization, so how do we modernize to take advantage of today's technology instead of 1950s technology?
Regarding global population, our ability to affect that seems to hinge on a few things we can influence but not impose:
1 - promote family planning as part of aid (with major opposition from groups here expected)
2 - keep deploying and improving renewable/storage/efficient technologies so they become even more cost-effective for lower-income nations
3 - get back to leading on climate change rather than trying to bring back King Coal
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And a pie in the sky:
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Announce when we declare the Straits of Hormuz and other petroleum bottlenecks as no longer of strategic interest to the USA and our military.
@b Fagan
"...So every four years, "we" are not doubling US population. …"
I said the '''planet''' adds the equivalent of the population of the US every 4 years.
Other than this, I agree with every point in your comment. I would sign up for all of it. Every country should be doing most of these things. In particular, the US should launch a Manhattan-like project for storage technologies, as this is currently the weakest link in solar and wind.
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@oldBassGuy - then we agree. (I was being nitpicky about things we couldn't control ourselves)
The nice thing with storage is that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has pushed to open power markets to storage as a participant in all services - storing/releasing power as well as providing grid stabilization and other services.
https://scipol.duke.edu/track/83-fr-9580-electric-storage-participation-markets-operated-regional-transmission-0
The big battery Tesla installed in Australia (early and below budget, I think) has been extremely successful in power balancing - helping destroy the myth from a few years ago that spinning reserves were the gold standard for grid stability.
This FERC ruling might help, too, in situations like in Texas where the power generation entities argued that batteries they didn't own couldn't release power onto the grid, because that might be viewed as "generation". That situation threw a wrench in consumers getting the benefits that were detailed in a study the Brattle Group did for the Texas market. Their study found that by last year, the continuing drops in price for storage would make it a no-brainer to save consumers money.
I have no problem with the concept. Also, as Krugman points out, the technology continues to improve, along with cost per power unit produced.
Our oil prices are low, and will probably remain such for quite awhile. Now is the time to put a tax on fuel prices to subsidize the move away from fossil fuels. Make it an idea with a profit motivator, and money will flow in (we have no shortage of capital looking for good returns).
However, 2 problems:
First, as standard issue socialists, the "green" politicians can never focus on just one thing in their misguided and unrealistic pursuit of Utopia. Push reasonable standards and timelines for more renewable power, but leave aside the other items for the moment ("living wage", "universal health care", "tax the rich").
Also, to quote Milton Freidman, "if the government was put in charge of the Sahara Desert, we would run out of sand in 2 years". A guiding, yet light, touch is needed. There is nothing that the left loves more than increased regulation and control. DOA.
Second, China and India have other agendas regardless of the agendas easily digested by the mainstream media. They like "dirty" power and are waiting for a wealth redistribution. Keep waiting.
Some things that will hasten the revolution - the old wall of regulated power utilities as monopolies who owned generation and the transmission/distribution grid now more often separates the grid infrastructure-owners from the generator-owners.
So investors owning coal plants don't have an automatic in to sell the power if the utility can get good contracts from other providers. And the grid folks don't necessarily need to sell more electricity to make a profit - just sell enough without having to add expensive transmission capacity. It's hard to turn down bids from solar or wind providers with low cost to produce, and energy storage as well as demand management give the grid owners more flexibility to incorporate more of the low-cost renewable stuff.
Luckily, rules have recently changed to encourage storage in the wholesale power markets, and utilities are interested.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/2019-storage-outlook-utility-procurement-will-drive-deployments-analysts/545448/
Hawaii has very high electric rates since the ship in oil to run generators. So they're pushing for 100% renewables. Here's one way storage will move that goal along:
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/hawaiian-electric-submits-nations-second-largest-slate-of-battery-projects/545496/
All too often the fact that we have limited fossil fuel opportunities is absent from these critical discussions. We have an entire party that promotes climate change denial, however, I have yet to hear one geologist claim that we have in-expendable untapped oil reserves.
With China's carbon footprint exceeding the US and projections of one billion more humans on the planet in the next ten years, how long can afford to wait to take on this paradigm shift in energy production?
The Earth Race is on, to save and secure a healthy environment. Most Americans want clean energy, energy efficiency, and believe our climate is changing for the worse. The debate is over.
Apply astute and sustained political pressure on the GOP, its Big Oil funders, and coal-state Dems.
If Big Oil is smart, they come to table as Big Pharma did for Obamacare. Pressure their investors. They have a lot to gain from a Green New Deal if they invest in it.
A carbon tax and carbon trading are needed as well. It's time to face facts and have a call for an Earth Race like JFK challenged us to go to the Moon.
A presidential candidate with the guts to do this may be the next president. It is time. We can dither no longer.
You alluded to Dana Meadows having once said that we have exactly the right amount of time we need to address climate change, starting right now.
Dana Meadows died in 2001. Two decades ago perhaps we were in time. At this point we are going to suffer catastrophe, it's unavoidable. I know it's hard to grasp that as we were going about our daily, quotidian lives over the last couple of decades, we were pretty much dooming human life on Earth, yet that's what the numbers are telling us. I can't really wrap my own mind around that. I just want to live my ordinary life, and die in a generation or so, knowing my son and his children are inheriting a green, liveable Earth from me. But, rapid climate change is going to happen instead. When war and the Holocaust engulfed Europe, people didn't want to believe it. But it happened anyway. Climate change is Nazi's invading but not for a few years, or even for a thousand year Reich, but for eons, maybe even millions of years. We are looking at temperature increases of mass extinction proportions and a completely altered planet more suited for dinosaurs than for humans, if there were dinosaur species that could handle a poisoned, biologically stripped planet. The oceans are going to rise not a few meters, but a hundred meters . Not a place on the planet will look the way it does now. People who believe terra-forming Mars is an answer are like folks today who believed they could preserve species in zoos. Doesn't end well.
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There are no sea level rise predictions indicating a rise of “ a hundred meters”. Most models show an upper end of 1 meter. Some might edge over 2 or even 2.5, but no models predict double digit meters let alone triple.
@Tom I think you are looking at the 2100 timeline, he is thinking about runaway climate change over the long term.
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Comparisons to WWII where there were Allies & the Axis are apt. The US Treasury issued checks to everybody building planes, tanks, Trains & Trucks. Not to mention guns, or paychecks & insurance for manpower.
It isn't really war, or is it? Food is the number one ingredient of peace, so get a world wide food plan in place that is green first. The order of things is important.
Create a bank that pays the willing and the unwilling to do the right things.
Collect your allies at the least and do as much as possible with them. It is a world wide problem.
To win the Second World War the government took over and paid for what was necessary. That is the lesson.
WWII was not won by mercenaries.
Unfortunately the connotation of "New Deal" is Presidential and our current occupant has neither the desire nor the faculty to advance any such grand plan. I suggest renaming it or expect the plan to start at noon on Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021 at the earliest.
A call for an emission free US may be the moon landing speech of the next President.
It sure is a tall order with a climate change denier in the White House. The main challenge is how to deal with the rising influence of the US fossil energy industry which has as much to loose as foreign energy producers from the greening of our planet.
If the climate change is due to carbon emission, let us try to invent new technologies to remove or destroy carbon from the atmosphere. There may be global warming, but everything is not man made. Increasing tax on fossil fuels or creating wind power or solar energy will not control global warming. This world will end one day when the Sun become a dark hole. That process cannot be stopped by Tom's proposals. The process probably already started. The world will evolve to something new. You cannot stop evolution by carbon tax. Let's think about new technologies and innovation that will help us to adjust to new realties.
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Limiting our impact to the environment, decreasing our footprint - all good stuff regardless of climate change.
But look at the 2007 column and you can already see problems. The statistics behind "California held its per-capita electricity use constant for 30 years..." is based on keeping per-capita electricity generation constant - which was achieved by increasing electricity imports, not limiting electricity usage. That entire narrative is false.
Another problem "...zero-carbon grid...local generation...". First you need to recognize that local generation died because urban liberals didn't want power plants near them and through the magic of Clinton energy grid reforms in the 90s forced rural users to subsidize transport of electricity from rural energy generation to urban users. It's nice to talk about how regulations can help, but address how the current regulations are actively hurting first and you will build more trust in regulatory solutions.
Time for Mother Nature to get a divorce from Father Greed. It's been an abusive relationship, and like a lot of such relationships, the victim has been in denial about the perp's brutality, and holds out false hope that the perp will change himself this time around. Time to admit that Capitalism is the cause, not the solution.There's no way in the current Capitalist system to hold companies responsible for the ecological damage they cause, and Friedman doesn't have any proposal for doing so. Let's design the economic system that will be the successor to Capitalism, with ecology in mind.
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I think these are all very important initiatives but we also need a grassroots movement to educate humanity and change behavior. What greater opportunity than to emphasize the moral imperative of caring for creation by people of all faiths. This movement has begun through Interfaith Power and Light and in Georgia we are poised to hire a sustainability coordinator for the Catholic Archdiocese of North Georgia to implement the Action Plan created by an interdisciplinary, interfaith group of University of Georgia scientists. This Action Plan is modeled after Pope Francis environmental encyclical Laudato Si. The Plan is for every faith leader and their faithful to do something - big or small to care for our common home - the earth. Stay tuned! We will make history.
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The problem I see is the lack of understanding on the part of a large segment of the population.
So the question is how to convince the voters that this is the way to go.
I think we should target the red (republican) states with small populations and large uninhabited areas. States like Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, North/South Dakota, Utah, Kansas, Nebraska and spend money there to convince these citizens.
With the right methods these people should respond to incentives to protect and preserve their environment.
This methodology would be very cost effective and it does not have to be done all at once. We could start with just one of these states.
So, let us get the money together and get going. NOW.
I have solar panels and an electric car -- plug the car in at home, no special equipment, ready to go when I need it, virtually no carbon footprint and my local transportation costs are near zero. Cost of E car offset by little maintenance expense (tires and brakes are pretty much it) and there is far more that can go wrong with an internal combustion engine than electric. Then there is the tax rebate and the fact you never have to go to a gas station. I am far from rich -- anyone who owns a home can do this easily, though I guess it does help to live in an environmentally friendly state like California.
Recurrent problem with nomenclature concerning wind energy:
windmills only grind grain
windpumps raise liquids, typically water
wind turbines [or turbine-generators] produce electricity
Other than this minor criticism, excellent opinion piece. Hope this gets to Mr. Frioedman. Thanks.
I was standing in line in a trendy supermarket listening to the cashier and customers patting themselves on the back about their recycling efforts, bringing in their own bags, not using straws, etc. Their shopping carts full of packaged goods, produce grown in another country and a child (or several) in tow. I thought to my self about my (and my partner's) choice not to have children and wondering how big a carbon footprint one human being in the developed world leaves on the planet in a lifetime.
Oh how I would love to see a Green New Deal! For humankid to reverse our very bad downward slide we'll need change at both large (industry and government) and small (personal) scales. Last night I spoke with a man I know who is some sort of exec/coalition builder in the renewable energy sector. I asked him how optimistic he's feeling about clean energy becoming mainstream. He said "Very!" - because so many nations, states, and cities are setting goals for renewables and carbon reduction. He told me there is speculation that "Texas could be the new California" because the cost of renewables is coming down and that's convincing to those who need to see the business case for it.
I am less optimistic than he (or Friedman) but still believe we need to address climate change at full bore on all fronts. Even if all we do is lessen the harm to humans, other-than-human communities, and natural systems, it's worth pursuing.
If one reads the climate change literature, one thing that comes out is that if humanity were to stop generating greenhouse gases completely, it would take a long time for the effect to show as the remaining trees, grasslands and oceans removed it. So, IMHO, this panic about 'green' is illusory and takes attention and resources available from the immediate problem -- climate is changing, how do we survive it?
Undoing centuries of technology and infrastructure buildout to do less harm to ourselves and the planet will take time and not be cheap. In North America, cities have been built around certain assumptions about how people get around -- changing this to be 'greener' is a tad more complex than simply forcing everyone to use electric cars and sit in the same traffic jams. Or covering every roof with solar panels -- great if the sky is normally clear. Not so much everywhere else.
So the whole idea of a massive buildout of 'renewable' energy is well-intended but wrong. Looking at the wind plant across the street and seeing how these have led to increased GHG. one wonders what the impact would have been if the same expense went into restoring interurban train service so we didn't have to drive everywhere. Or making power affordable again so we could use clean electric heat instead of propane or wood?
What is needed are solutions and roadmaps on how to get there. Buying the sales folks latest stuff is not going to get us there.
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Actually, the time to start was around 1980-something. Instead of ripping solar panels off the White House and investing in "Star Wars" military projects, Americans should have been addressing climate change. The "adults" decided they didn't want to do that. Tax cuts and wars were more important.
Now faced with one decade to make a decisive reversal, not just an impact but a reversal on climate change, the cost is going to unbelievable and potentially impossible.
I would say at least three of the four goals mentioned here are not possible within one decade. As one example, you're not going to achieve zero-net energy buildings in 10 years. Maybe on new construction but zero-net buildings are going to take a generation at least and probably something more like a century. We can't even get New York landlords to remove lead paint from the 1970s. How do you expect to get zero-net buildings in 10 years?
Again, the cost is going to be unimaginable. I simply don't see the political will materializing across generations. Young voters, yes. They have the most to lose. However, the mobilization will require an effort beyond "Deep Impact" or any other vaguely fascist sci-fi film. Climate change is not going to convince the average voter their doom is imminent. Hence, we are all doomed to die slowly.
We are our own destruction.
Me. Friedman’s vision supposes a level of commitment and unity of purpose that does not exist. Hello - this is the country that elected Donald Trump.
Now it may be possible to create networks o Green New Deal communities, which approach the ideals of net zero buildings, zero waste, complete conversion to renewables. If these communities do exist thirty or fifty years from now, they’ll be surrounded by walls/slats to keep the scientifically challenged out.
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My local group is attempting to take it to the churches among other things. Talk man-made global climate change. Keep it before the public.
Great article, but as the planet switches to cleaner energy, the problem remains – what to do with the greenhouse gases currently in the atmosphere?
Fortunately, the solution for this problem is lying right under our feet. According to Nobel prize-winning soil scientist Rattan Lal, if only 2% of the world’s arable land were returned to organic, we could offset 100% of greenhouse gas emissions entering the atmosphere. Beyond 2%, we start to REVERSE global warming.
How? Through photosynthesis, plants pull carbon dioxide from the air, split off the oxygen, convert the carbon into sugar, and leach up to 40% of it into the soil through the roots. In exchange for the sugar, microbes in the root zone supply minerals to the plant. Plants scrub the air of carbon and microbes sequester it in the living soil. And plants get the minerals they need to be healthy and and make our animals and us healthy.
Unfortunately, industrial agriculture today relies on chemical fertilizers in the form of nitrogen salts. Salty soil destroys microorganisms, sterilizing our soil. Although industrial agriculture depletes nutrients and sterilizes the soil, organic agriculture enriches the soil, sponges up moisture, and sequesters carbon.
In short, we need to stop subsidizing industrial agriculture and start supporting organic farmers. Make America healthy again!
The world population has tripled in my lifetime and doubled since our 1st earth day (1970). So while I certainly agree that our best efforts are required to meet the environmental challenges, I think we should give equal focus to the root cause... Over Population.
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@rob But over population isn't the root cause-- 100 companies are responsible for 70% of global emissions. It's not the number of people, it's the behavior of certain industries (and a lack of regulation/oversight).
@Roger - that "let's blame 100 companies" approach isn't helpful or productive or even correct. ExxonMobil pumps oil. Hundreds of millions of customers making daily purchasing decisions buy the resulting fuel and burn it to produce CO2.
So you have to say "it's the behavior of industries AND of consumers", especially as replacements become available.
The science and the warnings about climate change from fossil fuel use have been available for fifty years now, and anyone who says their oil company said it was OK is guilty of at least a little bit of self-interested willingness to believe that.
People using more energy and resources are the problem if they aren't using them efficiently and using the cleanest sources. The number of people using them inefficiently increases the problem. So a globe full of consumers living a German lifestyle would be stressful for the planet, but less stressful than the same population living la vida USA.
We need regulations, but why don't you suggest regulating some of the unwise consumer choices, rather than suggesting we could regulate an oil company's legal right to sell their product?
@Roger Companies do not exist in a vacuum, they respond to peoples' demands for their products. Thus more people, more demand more pollution. It is all connected.
Friedman is right on, as usual, with a couple exceptions. "Renewable energy" is being misused as meaning "renewable electricity". While we might make significant progress towards a 100% renewable electricity system (but 12 years is way too little time - come on - get real! - though Costa Rica might get there in 2019), there's nothing likely to be developed that will substitute electricity for jet fuel and a number of other direct fuel applications. RMI offered a more realistic scenario (Reinventing Fire): end use of coal and petroleum for energy by 2050.
Second, the list of what we need..."clean cars...energy efficiency" is missing water efficiency, which is equally crucial for living sustainably and economically thriving.
And yes, we need to set-up the private sector to maximize profits by providing sustainable solutions - i.e. maximizing their social and environmental performance.
To say we should abandon capitalism to become sustainable is both unrealistic (and therefore diminishes the credibility of the speaker) and ignores the history of socialist governments not really doing any better towards sustainability overall - just like the corporate sector, there are good and bad stories so far. Whoever owns the means of production, private or public, needs to have the ethics and incentives for long-term thinking. For public ownership - that means politics must be truth-based, recognize earth's limits, and be long-term oriented.
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We absolutely need a massive program, on par with the Interstate Highway System and the Manhattan Project, combined to quickly transition away from fossil fuels. Fourth generation advanced nuclear reactors, like the GE-Hitachi PRISM reactor need to be part of that program.
Think it can't be done? Well France, when threatened with a cutoff of fossil fuel supplies from the USSR, undertook a massive program to 'go nuclear.' The result? Within 20 years, France was producing 80% of it's electricity with nuclear, and now has the cleanest air and cheapest electricity in all of Europe!
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I have no issue with Mr. Friedman's idea. By now, the vast majority of Americans do not either. It is pretty well accepted by most people that the planet is in trouble.
But, the question is how to get conservative power brokers who make their living on old energy, such as the Koch brothers, onboard with the program. How can green energy make them money? How can green energy be turned into a point for the libertarian wing of the GOP to champion? It is tough. At the very least, Mr. Friedman should probably not write phrases that invoke Maoist doctrine such as "So for now I say: Let a hundred Green New Deal ideas bloom!"
@Anthony - I think the answer instead is "How do we make progress on such important issues despite the money spent by super-wealthy families intent on preserving their profits".
We don't need to care if Koch Industries goes down the tubes if, at the same time, people are still gainfully employed working on replacing the tar sand with cleaner energy. Big transformations in established industries typically means incumbents collapse or dwindle and are replaced by new ones that focus on the future technology.
Some of the old might transition (Norway's Statoil renamed itself and is now bidding and building offshore wind farms, for example) but most just go away. Other oil nations see their source of wealth going away. Some leaders will change, others seem to figure they'll die rich before it gets too bad for their national economy.
So as costs for renewables and storage drop, and as utilities start planning how to use older car batteries for fast, efficient grid services, the fossil fuel model will take a huge hit despite their worst efforts.
"During 2017, Kansas was the 4th largest wind power producer, and 36% of the state's electricity was generated by wind energy."
https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=KS
The fossil energy business is going away this century. The economics can be slowed by fossil industry efforts, but they are in a rear-guard battle now. Don't waste effort trying to change the Koch Brothers' minds. Just help keep using the new things instead of the old.
How Friedman can approach this combination of socialist ideas and jargon as a way forward to seriously impact climate change is beyond my comprehension. We do not need an integrated approach that sledgehammers our society and our economy. We need targeted policies that have measurable outcomes.
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Finally an influential columnist has noted that the problem of global warming based on GhG emissions has its foundations in population growth and rising per capita incomes. Since 1945, world population has risen by 200% from 2.5 billion people to 7.5 billion. With an equal proportionate increase in per capita consumption the burden on the atmosphere from "economical" production based on carbon is not sustainable.
As limits to population growth and personal consumption are non-starters, the issue boils down to how to get, what Lewis Mumford had called "carboniferous capitalism," to switch to other forms of energy. As much as one can hope for a "New Deal," none will arise unless the owners of capital will find it in their interest to develop alternative energy sources.
The full costs of carbon based production are not captured, allowing an effective subsidy to be realized by capital using current technologies. A "Carbon Tax" is one way of internalizing the full costs of using carbon in economic activity. However, it will be strongly resisted by consumers faced with higher prices as well as producers facing higher production costs - and if other countries don't follow with similar taxation, these will derive competitive advantages over Carbon Taxing economies. The idea of a global Carbon Tax applied at a fixed rate to all countries and industries, without exception, is a fantasy.
A Green New Deal means national planning that includes government, industry and labour. !!!
The New Deal was an economic program for the US.
The Green New Deal is the US attempt to limit worldwide climate change.
Limiting climate change = achieving peace on earth.
Easily accomplished if only everybody cooperated!
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Mr Friedman,
Would you please do a little research on the role nuclear power could - I would say should - play in the Green New Deal. Nuclear energy has safely supplied nearly 20% of clean electric power in the US. However, many reactors are approaching the end of their operating lifetimes: the question is what will replace that 20%. Natural gas is cheap and abundant, but exasperates the effects of climate change. Renewable technologies will take on a portion, but sun and wind are not always available to provide continuous power. Furthermore, renewable sources cannot effectively provide concentrated power needed to supply high population density cities and concentrated industrial requirements. The nuclear industry has developed advanced reactor designs that are safer, smaller, and more economical. Nuclear fuel is virtually unlimited; used reactor fuel can be recycled in existing reactors, and the fast reactor can produce more fuel than it consumes, thereby making nuclear a renewable energy source.
I would be interested in hearing your thoughts.
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@Bruce Matthews Bruce, we are both on the same page. See my comment that was posted just 5 minutes before yours.
PRISM, fourth-generation advanced reactor, can replace boilers at coal-fired power plants and utilize all the other existing infrastructure to produce and deliver safe, clean, and affordable electricity, while rejuvenating coal communities that are otherwise destined to disappear.
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Unless or until the Chinese and the Indians stop using coal-fired electrical plants, something neither has shown motivation for, any "green deal" that is limited to America will be just that. Limited.
@DeVaughn
"If the leaders and voters of the richest country on Earth consistently cannot be bothered to make sacrifices for this cause, why should we?"
- Any world leader
Trump thinks the worst case scenario is that we make sacrifices in the name of climate change and lose out economically when other countries do not (or do so only cosmetically). This is childish and ignorant of our role in the world.
The worst case scenario is that the climate gets more extreme and we have all the consequences we expect to have. The best course is to clean up our own lifestyles and systems in the hope that this is either directly or indirectly exportable around the globe...or at least blocks others from using the USA as an excuse for inaction.
@Alan
Realpolitik:
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/
I was ready when Friedman popularized the usage in 2007. I recommend to all a larger and deeper analysis that shows that what we need to do as a global community can be done, and we can afford to do it. A book by William F. Felice, THE GLOBAL NEW DEAL, now in its 2nd edition (first edition, 2003; second edition 2010) details how global poverty and unsustainable environmental and economic policies and practices can be addressed--and better yet, the costs can be managed while our global economy makes the transition. The problem is--we needed to start yesterday. FDR was right--the desires of peoples living democracies are easy to comprehend, and they begin in fairness and justice, but must important, we accomplish our goals while defeating fear--rather than wallowing in fear. A future with democratic and global justice is possible.
I like your article, but with the politics of today I am not sure that math with be taken as fact. In Trump world facts are few and math is just matter of opinion. Even math has fallen victim to Trump's war on the truth and factual information. Unless it is convenient for him and the republican party 2+2 will equal 8. or 10, or 1. or 5.... whatever they want it to be.
Tom writes that we need to: "transition the country away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy, such as a solar, wind, and electric cars.” Electric cars will do no good, if not powered by electricity produced without fossil fuels.
In that statement, he forgot, or intentionally overlooked, fourth generation advanced nuclear reactors that can be powered with (and destroy) nuclear waste (i.e. "spent" nuclear fuel) and generate massive amounts of safe, clean, and affordable electricity. Not only that, but they can also be used to replace boilers at existing coal-fired power plants. Also, consider the fact that by destroying long-lived nuclear waste, we avoid the cost of disposal by other (expensive) means.
Tom also writes: "Who believes that America can remain a great country and not lead in the next global industry?" We have a domestic/international company, GE-Hitachi, whose PRISM reactor will accomplish all the things mentioned above. It truly needs to be part of our clean energy revolution. Check it out- Google 'PRISM reactor.'
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I note that Freidman assumes a carbon tax must be part of a "Green New Deal" and even proposes how to spend the money. I think Macron's experience in France suggests this might be a poison pill for the whole thing. Better to come up with a supply side answer to carbon problems rather than a demand side answer. Better yet come up with some concrete proposals so that "Green New Deal" becomes something more than a slogan.
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The idea that only greed and the lust for money can be a powerful enough human motivation for success is questionable, although it is the heart of Unfettered Capitalism's dogma. The thrust of any Green New Deal variation is not only prosperity (which it is) but also raw survival. The drive to survive is also a mighty motivator. What we need is enlightened and effective leadership that can sell that simple idea to our simple minds.
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One can be an enthusiastic capitalist without thinking that greed is the most important of all human motivations. Let's acknowledge the importance of incentive structures without lionizing 1980s Greed-Is-Good-ism.
If we're going to accommodate 9bn people on the planet, American consumption levels can not keep increasing exponentially, even with zero-carbon energy. There's also all the plastic we throw out, the mountains we level and streams we pollute in order to obtain more raw materials. Recycling is going to take some reworking now that poverty-stricken Chinese people won't be smashing and sorting our waste with their bare hands (good call China!).
"Critics argue that this is technically unfeasible and that combining it with democratic socialist proposals will drive off conservatives needed to pass it."
Yes. Well, why let facts get in the way of Marxist theory ?
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Look this is more about Wall Street than any other corner of the economy. If greed is the question, they have all the answers. So make it about greed, let them prosper because they always do. The Street cares about profit and/or the lack of it. On the upside enormous wealth can be created by green industry: building the turbines and green cars, or working the systems management and software to make more effective and secure. If, on the other glove, they stay with to their fossils, it mean declining profits in dying businesses. If we make it about greed, and its science, we will finance our future the same way we did in the past, with Wall Street taking their piece.
Well, how about this?
In order to prosper, the country and the world needs a 21st century power plant, not one from the 17th. To get there, we should not entrust this task to those who are the custodians of the 17th century who want to preserve it, but look to the present and future. Get rid of the oxcart and let's move forward and not look backward.
By the way Friedman, does the green revolution include quitting your beloved continuing war in Iraq which is continually sapping the country of valuable resources and people power which could be used to get on with the above?
What are we talking about with green energy? Wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, maybe nuclear? China needs no proof of concept from the United States that these are all feasible vehicles. Economic leverage will be the key, and China is working on all of these, while Americans are leaving themselves in the dust. It's a service that the NYT is doing translating this column into Chinese, because the Chinese are the ones who should be reading it.
It is telling that the quotation about the green new deal features the phrase "solar, wind and electric cars". Electric cars only help a modest amount when the marginal energy source is based on coal or gas. Even if renewable sources covered 80% of present-day demand (many times more than they do now), every electric car would either be running on curtailed renewable energy (energy which is "discarded" to manage variability) or the fossil fuels that cover the last 20%. Buildings heated by natural gas would also need to be converted to electricity, with similar consequences.
What this means is that the only medium-term tech that seems likely to scale at the necessary rate is nuclear energy. Even after the latest grim climate report, many people who know better assert that we can "skip over" a nuclear phase yet quickly convert our energy system. That is a terrible gamble to make in a time of crisis - and suggesting we make it just might make a lot of voters question how much of a crisis there is at all.
It is also telling the "green new deal" proponents rarely, if ever, talk about vegetarianism. Raising cows (and many other animals) at scale produces a huge amount of greenhouse gasses, and addressing this requires no new technology or up-front investment.
The "green new deal" is a step in the right direction, but it is still far too timid. If one is going to call for the public to sacrifice for the common good, one has to have an "ask" big enough to fix the crisis.
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The thought that we should "Let a hundred Green New Deal ideas bloom!" is both hopeful and true. That being said, it is also critical to assure that "Let’s see what sticks and what falls by the wayside" is not allowed to create a "Solyndra syndrome." For example, should any one of the promising ideas falter, whether from flawed technology or from anti-competitive dumping of products from overseas, its failure becomes a whipping boy to deter all other initiatives.
That is the type of crippling counter-narrative that the fossil-fuel industry and right wing (regressive) politicians rely upon to keep people addicted to and consuming their toxic products. We can and we must do better.
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The problem with Mr. Friedman's "Green New Deal" is that it doesn't effectively deal with the technological problem of climate change and greenhouse gasses. It merely proposes things that the Green movement would like anyway, some of which are economically hard to justify, while avoiding measures that the Green movement would prefer to avoid but are necessary to fully address climate change.
.
There is no sign that battery technology will be sufficient to allow anything close to 100% renewable power. To effectively rely on intermittent power, we need to embark on an ambitious plan to build dams and 2-level reservoirs to allow water to be pumped for daily energy storage. Will your green friends support new dams and reservoirs? No they won't. Second, even with dams and reservoirs, we need more base load power, which means investing aggressively (i.e. with government support) in the next generation of small, safer nuclear reactors that can be transported on highways and barges to where they are needed. Will your green friends support nuclear power? No they won't. Third, the nation's highway system needs to be re-engineered so that trucks (not just cars) can receive electric power while they move from the road. That investment won't happen without major privatization of the system. Support from the left? No. The left isn't willing to do anything politically uncomfortable to address climate change, any more than the right. We have yet to move beyond gesture politics.
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Nothing kills a good idea quicker than to say: “We tried that once, and it didn’t work.” Friedman presents some workable ideas here. Many comments aside, we should get to work on what will work. The debate should be about HOW to solve the problem.
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"...posed by accelerating disruptive climate."
The only "accelerating disruptive climate" is the one inside computer models. It doesn't exist in the real world.
The phrase "climate denier" is a childish insult, like the bully in 3rd grade. Good demonstration of your ilk, Friedman.
No one with the intelligence above a blade of grass believes the climate never changes. But the True Deniers - who deny that climate change is 99.99999% natural - cannot proclaim any particular "climate" is The Perfect Climate. Because in the entirety of Earth's history - as revealed geologically using physical samples, instead of computationally, using broken computer models that never get the future correct - there has never been One Perfect Climate.
You say you're against "climate change"? Tell that to the farmers in the US, Canada, Australia, and Ukraine who depend on the climate changing every season to feed 90% of the world. If you want to starve, preventing "climate change" is the right way to do it.
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Friedman for President! Honestly, there is so much bipartisan/non-partisan common sense and sound strategy here. I hope this piece is read by everyone in power in Washington!
We can start by putting the brakes on population growth. It requires little capital investment just world wide regulations in place. If we do not stem this out of control growth in human population there isn't a Green New Deal that can save us or our planet. Mother Nature will resolve the problem all on her own.
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Here’s what will happen: these good ideas will mostly not happen as people and governments deny catastrophe without facing that consumerism and a frenetic unregulated capitalism explode our carbon footprint. Greed and ignorance will prevail. Environmental crises will grow. Climate refugees will push at borders. Governments will resort to martial law. Wars will break out. Desperate Geoengineering attempts will make things worse. And so on.
Or maybe not. See Naomi Klein on climate change.
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@Bob Dass There is no such thing as unregulated capitalism. Additionally, the market is showing great potential in the transportation industry to produce all electric vehicles that not only substantially reduce carbon footprint but also have better performance than gas vehicles. Once these vehicles become widely available and the costs normalize I expect to see mass adoption. That would be capitalism at work.
“Here are the goals, here is the level of clean power or efficiency that you have to hit every year — and may the best company win.”
This would imply that only new companies with new CEO’s will come up to the challenge. The CEO’s of many of the established companies have inherited their positions not thorough innovation and growth but thought caretaking. As someone who has worked at both types of companies, I can tell fairly quickly who’s who.
I agree with Mr. Friedman that there needs to be incentives to force people to be innovative. However, I don’t think that this will happen blindly. The discussion about climate change is a technical one that scientists see as a threat to the planet but the common folk do not see the connection to the underlying cause: pollution. A climate change denier is usually not pro-pollution but at the same time does not see the connection to climate change. A large part of the country lives in non-airpolluted areas so it is not surprising that they are deniers.
I would like to see more emphasis on evidence of causes of climate change rather than climate change, the topic. I urge journalists like Mr. Friedman to make it real, make it relevant and reveal the threat of pollution. It is only going to get worse if we don’t pay attention.
Who knew you were a socialist. About time!!!
Since you mention more efficient transportation, here's something we can do right now. Time the lights on all thoroughfares. Accelerating to 50 mph then hitting a yellow light is beyond ridiculous. 19th avenue in San Francisco has been timed for 50 years; what's stopping the rest of the nation?
Here are a few items to add to your scalable macro initiative list:
1) Shrink the morning/afternoon commute. It uses ridiculous amounts of energy. We need a combination of work from home, public transportation, cleaner vehicles, and housing that is near the jobs.
2) Clean up manufacturing without sending it offshore and without large price increases. We passed laws to clean it up, and it moved to China and Bangladesh instead. That's a tough nut to crack because it is more expensive to do it right.
3) Sure, we need stronger building codes, but we also need less expensive housing. The people who have to commute 50 miles each way because they can't afford to buy or rent near their jobs need a reasonable alternative.
4) Finally, we need an economy that allows the population to shrink without collapsing. Importing more workers from elsewhere delays that problem, it does not solve it.
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It was refreshing to read Mr. Friedman's article calling for a new Green Deal. I had written as much over 30 years ago, but not nearly as eloquently as expressed by Mr. Friedman. I received acknowledgement from the IPCC for my comments at that time.
The interesting thing about this "green" debate is that although the science and public acknowledgement is being increasingly accepted, it takes only one politician in high office to continue to put the whole idea on ice.
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Healing our culture wars would be a positive step. Teaching Civics, consensus and community building in primary schools nation wide would be a start.
Harnessing the Greed Impulse that Mr. Friedman mentions to drive innovation and R&D is the carrot. But once the 'winners' are recognized, using Federal and State regulation to make sure those solutions are adopted will be the stick.
Klein's "This Changes Everything" is aptly named. A Green New Deal worth its name goes deep.
Overpopulation is a huge problem; so why are people yammering for population increases?
Trees toppled by storms hit overhead grid-style power lines that block roads and can start forest fires; so why aren't we putting power lines underground? Or getting those solar panels up on our roofs?
Wetlands and peat bogs damaged by human drainage and digging are madly pumping out CO2; so why don't we get some restorative water back on these drying areas?
The list could go on for miles, but the big Q is: how do we conquer our inertia? We can do a lot--but we don't.
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The current approach to recycling is not working and it is becoming more difficult to find a home for the stuff being recycled.
My thinking is that we should add the cost of disposing of a product to the price of the item. This way, making recycling profitable is taken care of. Disposable items would be less attractive to consumers because the price would cause consumers to think twice about buying them.
If there were money to be made in the recycling business then, potentially, there would be nothing left to dispose of in a landfill.
"Barack Obama picked up the theme and made a Green New Deal part of his 2008 platform, but the idea just never took off."
Whoa, whoa , whoa. That makes it sound like Obama's policy was carefully weighed and judged on it's merits. In reality it was actively opposed at every turn by the GOP.
One huge change since 2007 is the growing success of electric vehicles. The Tesla Model 3 is one of the best selling sedans in America - in any segment. There are at least four models that will be available this year that get 200-250 miles of range with MSRP's as low as $20k, before tax credits!
The interesting thing is that, lets say there was an overseas crisis that bumped gas prices a dollar or so. In the past, people would have groused about it, but paid up. Now, all the pieces are in place so that folks will have an alternative, and will be able to genuinely 'cut the nozzle'. And once gone, they'll be gone for good. Everyone I know who drives an EV tells me they'll never go back to gasoline, myself included.
The days of "Record Oil Company Profits" headlines are gone for good.
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Green capitalism is a hopeless oxymoron. The original New Deal was not a capitalist project, it was a democratic government one. Friedman's self regard for his previous bloviating, and this current pep talk, are really tiresome. Would that some of the younger less conservative columnists out there take this issue on in the Times.
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Substantial progress can be made without government action. Concerned individuals can create a BLACK SWAN Strategy.
Nissam Taleb in his book The BLACK SWAN mentions positive highly improbable events with enormous consequences.
Car, truck & bus engines can soon cheaply and easily be modified to replace gas, and diesel with water. See MOVING BEYOND OIL at aesopinstitute.org
Fuel-free turbines were prototyped in Russia where the government stopped work which threatened their economy..
Fuel-free micro-turbines will give electric vehicles unlimited range and turn them into power plants when suitably parked, selling electricity or providing it to buildings. Future electric cars may pay for themselves.
Micro-turbines are under development as range extenders for electric cars by Pininfarina & Delta motorsport. They could be converted to run on water extracted from the air. Imagine the impact on the electric car market. And they can be replaced in the future by fuel-free micro turbines (which also will help make electric aircraft practical).
These and parallel positive BLACK SWANS - can sharply speed replacement of fossil fuels. This is unrecognized revolutionary new science - beyond textbook dogma.
The work is attacked by Trolls - who lie and twist facts to deter support.
Positive BLACK SWANS open a much faster way to substitute renewable energy for coal, oil & gas. While government can assist, this strategy can open rapid progress while the endless debate continues.
We first need effective leadership. Good luck with that.
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@JA in RI
We have to do an end run around the "leaders" we've got. It is up to you and me and our neighbors and our friends. Current government is not going to help on this one.
The main obstacle is the American greedy attitude. Most Americans envy those who get rich whatever the means, like making money while destroying the planet.
The top priority is to look for the best renewable energy, instead of rushing on imperfect solutions which will cause a disaster in less than a decade.
For instance each wind turbine is built on top of a pedestal using tons and tons of steel and concrete, and so far there is no solution to remove and reuse it when the turbine will reach its end of life. The current solution is to leave all this concrete and steel where they are, and build a new turbine next to it with its own pedestal.
Doesn't mean that wind energy isn't better than fossil energy, but those who are enthusiatic with the current proposal are not looking more than 5 or 10 years forward, when we need to look at 2050 and beyond.
A Green New Deal would be a positive, exciting challenge for our nation -- something I think we desperately need. I'm not sure what would get conservative climate-change deniers on board. Maybe they could get excited about simple sustainability or stopping ocean acidification or the fact that there's lots of jobs to be created and money to be made. Whatever -- we just need to all look around at our beautiful, verdant, abundant planet and realize that it can't sustain us if we don't protect it. If we can't agree politically, maybe we can agree practically. It's not about saving the planet, it's about saving ourselves.
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In order to appeal to climate change deniers Liberal politicians have to stop clumping the issue together with what many consider as Socialism, a guaranteed job, free college tuition and even healthcare for all which is popular with more people I am a middle class centrist who believes that something must be done with the effects of climate change but when I hear the other issues I hear the tax man coming to the middle class to pay for those other programs. So, you can imagine how people to the right of ecnter feel.
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The robust and practical environmentalism that Friedman's Green New Deal conceptualizing promotes has been well developed already in some corners of the movement. Pre-eminently, I think, by EDF the Environmental Defense Fund, which provides ideas and strategies to corporations and governments in addition to appeals to the courts.
1
Stop blaming oil executives. Exxon, Shell and many others favor a carbon tax. Blame the man on the street (or rue as is currently the case).
Noe the reality. The IPCC experts have given us 12 years to radically change our energy mix. I can absolutely guarantee you there will be no significant shirt away from fossil fuels over the next 12 years. If anything we may see a decline in renewables already tiny % contribution as more countries find them expensive and to have their own environmental problems.
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There is one major error in Mr Friedman's column:
"My way of doing that was to focus on something we can all agree on: math. "
With the current administration and Senate in Washington, the math is not something we can all agree on. While most serious, thinking citizens, and for the most part, Democrats in Congress, agree on the math, it is not enough. Until the current administration and the Senate accept facts as facts, it will get nowhere. Either they must accept the facts or they must go. Absent one of those two circumstances, the Green New Deal, even if proposals are fleshed out by the House of Representatives, goes nowhere. We may have to wait until 2020, even if the current president leaves before that. The current Vice-President is not going to lead his party toward a Green New Deal. It will be 2 more years until we have the chance to have a government that will implement Green. That means that, for now, we must do what we can as citizens and in the states.
The plan might get more traction if it just focused on climate change and not use climate change as a cover for forcing socialism on the US.
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I consider myself an avid environmentalist but the idea that the country can be entirely weaned from fossils fuels in twelve years is laughable. Yes, we should invest urgently and heavily in green technology and innovation but at the same time why don't we also tackle an equally urgent problem that we already have the means to solve - and that is our planet's exploding population. Reduced carbon footprint? Great. Reduced human footprints on planet earth? Even better.
3
Mr. Friedman:
I agree. But until money is removed from politics, little will change. Unfortunately, many of our politicians -- despite their oath to the citizens they represent --are simply on a much shorter time frame (each election cycle) than is necessary for the transformation of our energy economy. It will take government intervention which will not occur as long as the extractive industries have such influence. My two cents, but thank you for the article.
Friedman correctly points out that the AOC / Sunrise "Green New Deal" is chock full of Democratic Socialist proposals that have NOTHING to do with climate change and which absolutely preclude bipartisan support.
I really don't think that he, or ANYONE on any of the 300 comments I just read, has heard of bipartisan legislation that is currently in both chambers of federal congress, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act.
https://energyinnovationact.org/
It was sponsored last month by legislators from BOTH parties, 1 Democrat and 1 Republican in the senate, and 3 Republicans and 7 Democrats in the House.
It is backed by the Citizens Climate Lobby, a nationwide environmental organization with over 100,000 members, founded by the famed climate scientist James Hansen.
Unlike AOC's "Green New Deal" which demands basically everything she would do if she were queen, this legislation is narrowly focused on harnessing market forces to fight climate change.
Solving climate change will take action sustained over DECADES. It is totally unrealistic to expect one party to control the white house and congress for that long. We'll never get anywhere with the Democrats moving slowly forward when they're in power, and the Republicans undoing everything overnight when they take office.
It's a long road to building a bipartisan solution, but it's our only hope, and PROGRESS IS BEING MADE -- it's in BOTH chambers of congress RIGHT NOW.
15
@Bill Chapman
It seems to me the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act would be perfectly compatible with GND initiatives. It will effectively mitigate emissions without consuming tax dollars sorely needed for adaptation and other infrastructure projects mentioned in GND.
With 60% of Republicans supporting a tax on carbon, it looks like a perfect bridge issue that can attract Progressives and Conservatives alike.
2
A green new deal, ok, but let us consider using public policy must still face the market’s demand for return on investment. Suggesting government subsidation is ludicrous in view of our ballooning debt and unwillingness to tax. More fundamental is the energy itself. Our energy infrastructure is predominanty fossil fuels, and for good reason: it has high output per volume and stores indefinitely. We missed our chance for nuclear some decades ago. Our use of stochastic power (wind, solar) has not been met with cheap storage (for example batteries). As important, the greater distribution infrastructure for vehicles or facilities off the power grid. Not insurmountable, but a green new deal setting abitrary dates like 2030, idealistic, does not acknowledge the valley of death before becoming a fully mature technology.
@David Olson
We didn't miss out on nuclear energy, it was killed by the left that fantasies that water, wind, and solar can power our country. France does quite well with nuclear power.
1
I would take deep, deep issue with Mr. Friedman's unfounded, self-serving faith in the "free market" to fix the problem it has so gleefully created, but it's immaterial.
We are out of time. It's depressing, it's unfair, it doesn't make intuitive sense, it's defeating, and it's nothing we've ever had to deal with before, but we are out of time to fix this. Back in the 70's and 80's and 90's we had time. In 2019, it's too late.
The best we can do is address the symptoms now, but we cannot cure the disease. Perhaps if we take drastic action immediately, the world by 2200 won't be so bad, but for the next century or longer, we need to prepare ourselves for a cascade of catastrophes that will put our "advanced" species at serious risk of extinction.
It's sad that the height of human accomplishment was made half a century ago, when we put humans on the Moon. Since then, we've what, made thinner cell phones? Cured some diseases? What impact will humanity have after it's gone? A legacy of destruction.
When you think of solutions to Climate Change, ask yourself if you believe in them because they're going to work or because you can't face defeat.
@Andrew First off, human extinction as a result of climate change isn’t supported by science. There are many ways that humans can adapt and continue to live. We do need to make changes and that is happening in most of the world. China and India are a couple of the exceptions. The reality is a mixed bag. Humans will continue to thrive in some ways and in others we must adapt.
2
Just a couple of thoughts about green energy. Wherever there is resource, solar or wind, green trumps carbon on price and it is a lot easier to permit. One of the major obstacles to industrial scale green energy is the ability to wheel that power where it is most needed. That will require federal intervention to create an "interstate highway" of new high voltage DC transmission lines that can move power from one regional grid to another without phase distortion. That makes renewable energy more valuable. We can do this but we need a Roosevelt to get us all moving in the same direction to implement the new Green Deal.
Friedman forgot the fifth zero and likely the most important one to combat global warming---zero population growth. Without control of population growth, the planet is doomed. The US direct contribution must be in the first 4 zeros; however, the US can reverse its position on supporting population control of the planet through education and services.
2
It is said that genius is the talent for observing the obvious. By that measure, Thomas Friedman is not a genius. He calls for "a hundred Green New Deal ideas" to bloom. But, they already have, many times over. To see this, however, you have to understand there is a big world out there, beyond America's borders.
On his call for jobs guarantees, basic income programs, higher taxes on the rich, etc., what does Mr Friedman think socialists have been doing, Lo, these past 100 yrs, all over Eastern Europe, East Asia, Central and South America, and sub-Saharan Africa? We've run the experiment, the results are in, we know the answer: socialism is a disaster.
Clean energy is a fantasy. The Europeans, East Asians, Israel have vastly greater incentives for clean energy than we have, and they have plenty of clever scientists and engineers. That no economy today runs on clean energy tells you all you need to know about that subject.
2
@Haim Socialism is definitely a disaster however, clean energy has promise. The technology is finally coming of age. Once we can solve for energy storage the sky is the limit.
1
Like much of the old New Deal, a "Green New Deal" would be fascist direction of the economy, not capitalism. Yes, fascism.
1930s New Dealers considered Mussolini and Hitler to be political rock stars and copied their fascist policies to enact the heart of the New Deal - the National Recovery Act and the Civilian Conservation Corps.
Hitler and his Nazi bureaucracy also directed by decree the energy sector and much of the rest of the German/European economy.
The proponents of a "Green New Deal" are advocating precisely the same fascist approach. An array of new unaccountable bureaucracies will decree what and how much energy we are permitted to use as well as what energy consuming vehicles and machines we are permitted to use. Essentially, the government will be directing the entire economy - fascist diktat will replace what is left of our free market.
2
Tom, You have put too much of yourself in this article, Your environmental advocacy was not so early and President Obama did not need your words .
2
If you get away from the crazies you find that in the real world green is slowly taking over. From insurance to construction everybody is going green. Why ? One of the main reasons is $$$$. And as soon as the breakthrough in photo voltaic surfaces happens oils stocks will drop 50% in one day.
3
@Scott D From your fingertips to God's ear.
Many reader comments voice concern about conservative resistance to climate change.
Conservatives are not the stumbling block, but rather the lack of sufficient will of liberals who in fact are larger in numbers than conservatives with only more significant growth in sight for them in the immediate future and long term.
Democrats have to mobilise like they did for the mid terms to get clear results for climate change and just about any issue needed for the greater good.
We showed what can happen in 2016 when Complacency about Hillary kept too many registered voters home and hence Trump.
In 2018 the Will was there and so were the results, hence the Democrat house. A great win.
Lesson learned?
I am thrilled to hear someone as thoughtful and far-thinking as T. Friedman pick up the Green New Deal idea - which, it sounds like - isn't a new one! It's of the right scale and makes sense for left and right. Republicans can get onboard with climate policy - the recent, bi-partisan 'Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act" has shown that. Can we all let our representatives know to support it? www.cclusa.org/bill.
Take a close look at what the free market has given us. The fastest selling vehicles today are shiny, new, giant, pickup trucks. If this is the best the free market can do, we need to definitely look for another solution. Free market capitalism and "the customer is always right" will never produce a Green New Deal.
8
@FT Posey Actually, if you look at the direction of development, the market is moving in the green direction. There will be trucks and suvs but they will be all electric and much cleaner.
Here's the slogan to convey how strong environmental policies make economic and business sense:
"Green makes Green."
4
" I believe there is only one thing as big as Mother Nature, and that is Father Greed — a.k.a., the market. "
Not sure about that. If you take a good look at Mother Nature you observe that natural systems that thrive do so because they balance competitiveness with collaborativeness and these days we know we need much more of the latter. (And we should not confuse competitiveness with freedom to innovate.) An economy driven by greed is the old economic order that we now need to turn away from. We need to define scarcity and abundance differently. The economy we now need to transition to will have to be much than driven in the narrow sense by green energy. If we invite the planet to consume material goods at the rate western economies are now doing, whether that consumption is wind-powered or solar powered, we will continue to degrade the earth's resources and our human communities. To reverse that trend we need a new consciousness that redefines abundance and well-being. and Dana Meadow says to do that we need a new narrative, a new story. A Green New Deal is a good start but only a small part of the undertaking. We need a larger and more compelling vision. Fortunately many people are working on it as we speak.
1
Im glad you are leading the charge on this Green New Deal with AOC. Personally, I think she should run for president. It is clear that the people need a new deal. We cannot just displace coal miners in West Virginia and offer them nothing in exchange for their destitution. We should give them the opportunity to have a similar wage job in a field that is productive for the constituent whole. I also think that the Federal Job Guarantee is a great idea. Without these caveats for the lower/middle class--white, rural America will continue to go with Trump, and why wouldn't they. If the Democrats claim to be environmentalists and all we do is take jobs away from the middle class--how is that going to enhance the scope and support of the agenda? The Green New Deal needs to combine environmentalist concerns with buttressing the lower and middle classes; otherwise, Donald Trump has a strong argument for guaranteeing the support of his base. If we can alleviate environmental concerns and alleviate these people's economic concerns, then Democrats should win in a blow out. That is why we cannot back someone like Beto O'Rourke with ties to the oil business and indifference towards the lower classes. We need to nominate someone who is fully committed to these legislative principles, and IF WE DO, then we will only have 2 more years of Donald Trump, and the future will be bright. Otherwise, we will get 6 more years of him--and our future will only get that much worse
To make a green evolution palatable to the average citizen, we must find a way to co-opt some of the powerful messaging and marketing that got us into this situation in the first place. For example, we Americans like to think of ourselves as independent and put a high value on freedom and yet we find ourselves wholly dependent on gas prices and the whims of the market for heating oil in the winter. Those across the political spectrum want to disengage from messy and violent involvement in the Middle East and yet we enable this to continue by continuing to buy oil. If we really value freedom like we say we do, then why do we continue to put shackles on ourselves?
If looking strictly at the numbers, one could surmise we have already doomed future generations to a very different and less sustainable world. However, that does not negate working to make things better than they could be.
2
This is a crisis but will market forces really prevail? Don't we know enough now about loss aversion, the tragedy of the commons, and good old short-term-thinking to see that a more aggressive approach is needed? Maybe a decade ago we could strategize by preaching about "efficiency" and "market push" and "policy pull" towards renewables.
I'm afraid we now need to use a less flashy term: "conservation."
1
I just made the decision to go solar on my home. Even with the Federal tax subsidy the payback is very hard to quantify.
I'm against utility solar power scale because the reality is we have enough standing structures and parking lots to get utility solar power scale without building new structures on currently undeveloped lands.
There are enough roof tops and parking lots to get utility scale. What we don't have is clean battery storage.
2
I really wish Mr. Friedman would not use gender as an indicator of weakness! "For too long “green” was viewed as a synonym for a project that was boutique, uneconomical, liberal, sissy and vaguely French. " So, the French are again the "girls" here because they've taken a leadership role on a "boutique-y" idea like addressing climate change? Please stop using femininity as weakness and masculinity as strength. It's toxic.
1
While I appreciate Mr. Friedman's optimism, he offers little in the way of concrete political tools for actualizing his vision of a "Green New Deal". As others have commented, the best of ideas wither on the vine unless fed with sufficient political or economic support. Our national government has proven incompetent at best, recalcitrant at worst in effecting positive social and economic change, so I would be more inclined to look for change on the state or local level. In addition, change begins with each one of us. The less meat we eat, the more high mileage cars we purchase, the more we recycle, the more we install solar or wind power on our own homes, the more we can truly begin to effect positive change today. Waiting for the government to act probably means waiting for doomsday.
3
The goals of "the four zeros" is not enough. We need to restore nature. Conserve lands. Plant trees. Promote grasslands and better farming practices. You're going to zero this usage and that usage and be left with what?
1
My I suggest a fifth zero goal. Zero population growth by year 2030.
4
So, Al Gore was right? Don't tell the Republicans and other trump-eteers.
2
The box we are in: having to scale up green to fit big, ugly, dumb and wasteful packages built on the one-time, big shot of fossil. Is there anything green about attempting to sustain the unsustainable?
2
All praise Freidman. He's such a visionary. What would we ever do without him.
1
The Green New Deal in all its varieties has the scale that is needed to deal with the looming climate catastrophe that is aggravated by the increasing human population. However, we have to think bigger, think on a larger global scale given the increasing globalizing trends.
Thus, I have been suggesting using the unjust, unsustainable and, therefore, unstable international monetary system to reach that global scale of a green new deal by basing it on a carbon monetary standard of a specific tonnage of CO2e per person. I have spelled out the conceptual, institutional, ethical and strategic dimensions of such carbon-based international monetary system in Verhagen 2012 "The Tierra Solution: Resolving the climate crisis through monetary transformation" with background at www.timun.net. Like the green new deal’s massive resources that are to be used immediately, this Tierra global governance system needs even more such resources.
An outstanding economist and climate specialist declared about this very large scale and systemic Tierra proposal: “The further into the global warming area we go, the more physics and politics narrows our possible paths of action. Here’s a very cogent and well-argued account of one of the remaining possibilities.” Bill McKibben, May 17, 2011
1
Simple logic dictates you listen to the idea of a Millenial than a Baby Boomer as Baby Boomers are dropping like flies (dying, ironically to be eaten by maggots to create even more flies) so who cares what someone says when they are so close to death. Duh.
Oy, the sheer boredom of it. "Green New Deal": did y'all pay someone for that?
2
How about we hire a bunch of people to build walls of solar panels and wind turbines? National security crisis solved on all levels - especially if we get the illegal aliens to help build them!!
If Trump wants to declare a national emergency, he should, and should and it should declare "climate change" to be the national emergency. But he won't do this; I bet you even if the water flooded his Florida resort, he would say that it was a Democrat conspiracy or that Pelosi must be pumping water in.
2
“ … a free-market competition to ensure that mankind can continue to thrive on Earth …”
Thomas Friedman is still stuck in the past.
His book “Understanding Globalisation” said everything and understood nothing. Perhaps one of its most enduring misconceptions was the notion of an “electronic herd” of finance circumnavigating the world without bad side effects and using the metaphor of "sand in the wheels", of electronic machinery!!, to describe the effect of a tax on financial transactions.
The (Free-market) Globalisation so admired by Friedman has created massive destabilisation of peoples and nations, massive maldistribution of wealth and massive destruction of Government. It gave us Donald Trump in the USA and Vladimir Putin in Russia, not together but separately.
‘Free-market’ competition is a myth and recipe for disaster – how long can Mr. Friedman deny the obvious?
1
@Robert Jennings thank you for posting on a device that would not exist without fossil fuels and evil capitalism.
3
This is not a conservative vs liberal concept nor a democrat vs republican. It's not a good idea vs a bad idea. It's a race against mother nature.
To succeed, the entire world needs to participate not just the US. And I'm not talking about agreements, I'm talking about reducing carbon footprints throughout the world. That includes China and India as well as jet fuel (yes all jets fuel). Until those nations begin to reduce their footprint it's a fools task to attempt to address.
1
No mention of birth control.
2
Thank you Mr. Friedman.
1
I've been hearing all of these horrible gloom and doom "we're all gonna die" stories about climate change/ global warming for around 20 years. Al Gore predicted that if we didn't act with all possible speed to control climate change Manhattan would be under water by 2015. Guess what?? It didn't happen!!! I remember the panicky editorials after George W Bush pulled America out of the Kyoto accords. Well, nothing catastrophic happened after that either.
Personally I'm burned out with all these scare stories. Quite frankly Tom Friedman and his colleagues sound like the little boy who cried "Wolf" whenever the topic turns to climate change. Maybe Tom Friedman should set a good example by giving up his car and not flying in those gas guzzling airplanes.
1
It’s is happening now all around us. Slow down open your eyes. It’s already scary.
1
@sharon5101 Sharon, no one was predicting Manhattan was going to be underwater by 2015. They weren't predicting a near term catastrophe after Kyoto. You set up false predictions and then use it to 'prove' the prediction was wrong. What was predicted were incremental low level flooding especially along the east cost, more fires in the west, more extreme weather events all of which are happening. Sea levels are rising and it is quite possible Manhattan would be in serious trouble by the end of this century. It only gets worse from here on. We've waited too long and much of this is now inevitable, and our grandkids will be living with the consequences no matter whether we move quickly on a green new deal or not. Only it will be worse if we don't. This is a slow motion catastrophe, and many people, including you, have a hard time understanding the timing and scale of how it will come on and why the early warnings we will pay for inaction 20 years ago were correct, but the effects will be delayed. No it doesn't help to cry wolf (or wall), and some have. It is worth looking at what IPCC and US scientists are forecasting for real today. Learn what is actually being predicted and when before suggesting serious climate predictions have been proven to be overblown.
Wind power does not work when there is no wind.
Solar power does not work when there is no sun.
And now, Friedman wants to add hundreds of millions of electric cars that need to be charged by wind and solar.
Sorry, but this is a fantasy.
4
Reality Check! First off Tom, I love the way you laid out your proposal Dragnet Style! “Just the Facts Ma’ma!”was the Clarion Call from Detective Joe Friday in the TV series Dragnet in 1951.
I think your approach of “Facts” versus “Fake News” is the right approach. Get people on both sides of the aisle to agree that one plus one equals two and you have a great start.
You gave your plan but also welcomed and in fact encouraged other plans. The biggest problem we have right now is TIME! We just don’t have any TIME to argue or continue to put it off. Think of our planet as The Titanic and it’s already “hit the Iceberg!” You and I are passengers on this ship. That’s the way all of us have to react. This isn’t the movie folks. This is reality! If you were in charge, what would you do? Well, you are in charge. You’re the Captain, NOT DONALD TRUMP or the Politicans. Oh, BTW, that cold feeling your getting on your feet is the water rising. You might want to get to higher ground!
2
This is a great notion right up to the point where you mention “something on which we can all agree: math.” Those are facts and if you’ve learned nothing else you should know by now that the sine qua non of conservativism is that facts don’t matter to conservatives. If they did, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
1
A Tesla in every pot. #MadeandPoweredinUSA
Half of all Americans will gladly burn coal in their giant trucks and park in front of your electric charger. The Donald Trump's of America...a wholly 50% of all Americans.
So your good ideas mean nothing when half the country is a bunch of idiots who want to pollute in your faces, AND proud of polluting.
A capitalist gone wild, billionaire gambling casino, mediocre country will not do the right thing.
2
Good stuff. Add national security to the list of appeals of the Green New Deal. Decentralized solar grids and wind farms are much less vulnerable than the current setup. If that leads to a rise of Green Hawks and Green Conservatives, so be it.
2
I would suggest one idea that doesn’t need any new technology to succeed, and can be implemented with public - private partnerships.
Electrify our major rail corridors, and use wind to power them. The scale of this effort would ensure there is always enough wind somewhere to keep trains moving.
More - use those same rail corridors as transmission corridors to get all that wind power to where it can be put to use, and make them part of the power grid. Revenue from electricity sales help pay for it.
Along with electrification, upgrade the rail corridors to offer improved freight and passenger service, revitalizing the communities along the lines and taking trucks off the highways.
Zero carbon transportation, zero carbon electricity, jobs, reduced fossil fuel dependence - what’s not to like? We can start now and get it done in years, not decades. You can find more at
www.solutionaryrail.org
1
Pie in the sky ideas. Unreasonable. It would be better if TF stuck to foreign affairs.
1
Where's Charles Reich when you need him?
End US fossil fuel use in 12 years? Huh?
Forget activism & protest...Pay off the executives & pay off the stockholders...then close shop
I say gather the top 30 fossil fuel CEOs in one room and ask them what is the price? How much money do they want to begin shutting down their companies within ten years...Throw in some incentives...No time for grassroots anything...Straight to the top & pay the piper...
...
1
AOC is photogenic and media savvy, but a policy wonk she ain't.
Even if you taxed the rich at 200%, you couldn't come up with a fraction of the revenue you would need to fund her plan. And attaching far left proposals to a program that addresses climate change is a great way to assure nothing will ever come of it.
Since the media has deemed her worthy of endless attention, I hope she will spend less time filming dance videos and more time studying policy.
The occupant of the White House is ignorant about everything but manipulating the media. We don't need that disease to spread to the Congress.
1
Jimmy Carter asked us to put a sweater on and make cars with better mileage. Oil and Auto interests convinced us to make the Saudis rich enough to pay for the spread of Jihad. We went to the moon in less than a decade and now we can clean the ocean and sky and have to do it in a decade, or else.
2
People laughed at Jimmie. Reagan removed his solar collectors. Wish we’d have listened. Do our Afghan and Iraq vets know it didn’t have to be? Very foolish men rise to high office.
3
With the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution that followed the economic theory of Adam Smith relating to open and free capital market distribution of goods and services was universally accepted. Even today, tor most people in the world this understanding continues to be accepted. In America it was promoted by the economist Milton Friedman and is known as “The Chicago School.”
Some refer to it as “the hand of god” allocating goods and services in the most cost effective and socially advantageous way.
The theory is now being exposed for its underlying planetary and human destructiveness. Adam Smith’s capital markets theory is playing planetary and social “Russian Roulette” with horrific outcomes.
It should be noted that these individuals critical of free and open markets are fully aware of the fact that Marxist theory as a solution to the problem was a failure. What then is the solution?
This reevaluation of Smith’s theory has activated an entirely new theory, one with a revised concept of pricing wherein social and/or ecological externalities with negative value are financially recognized. All externalities so defined as dangerous to the continuation of life on the planet are priced in so as to be reflected in the trade and at the extreme eliminate the trade.
We desperately need a discussion of this that can lead to a market solution based on a multinational mechanism.
2
We should not fear losing the vote of the party of Trump--it is lost and we will never get it back. Instead, we need to show up to the polls to vote and then revise voting laws to make them fair and equal instead of titled so heavily towards the white, rural portion of the population.
Unfortunately, we have a large group of politicians--and general public- who don't care about what occurs after their lifetime. Their interests are only concerned with 'now'.
The selfishness and greed of humans knows no boundaries.
1
First, begin with drawdown.org. They list the various ways of addressing climate change and compare them among themselves using peer-reviewed methods.
Second, among the successes of the Obama years was the boost given to solar and wind via tax credits and investment incentives. Those actions play a big part in the cost advantage they now have over coal and soon to be gas for electricity generation.
Third, Tom, the way you begin the column you sound a bit full of yourself. I'm not certain you were the first to use the phrase "green new deal." I am certain you were not the first to call for a broad based and complete effort to retool the use of energy with an eye on climate change.
So, Mr. Friedman, does this mean that starting now, and especially in 2020, you'll only support candidates who champion a Green New Deal?
So you won't support a candidate who has an "All of The Above" energy plan (Obama)? Or a candidate who wants to export fracking (Hillary)?
This article pretends that Republicans and conservatives are the only ones doing the bidding of Big Oil & Gas. In reality, the Democratic Party is the first major hurdle to addressing Climate Change.
Case in point: Obama opened the Arctic to drilling twice, and here he is Obama bragging about his record oil production:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4763205/obama-oil-production
Yes, as "the lesser of two evils", Democrats are good at signing regulations and climate treaties that the next Republican President can easily reverse.
We are in stuck in Dr. Lisle's "Pleasure Trap" which explains how a frog can boil to death in a pan of water even when safety is a hop away. Since the temperature rise is so gradual, a frog will, just often as not, remain in the pan, unaware that they’re scalding to death.
Likewise, we need to see the impending pain coming from slowly rising temperatures and the power of the purse is the fastest way to get out of that pan. Hike gas prices and, just as in the past, people will flock to higher mpg cars, ideally one of the new Electric-hybrids that run on pure electricity but with gas as back-up are just one solution.
Unlike a pure electric car, this combo can drive 300 miles or more, depending on the gas tank size, at roughly 115 mpg on pure electric and 52 mpg on electric combined with gas.
These ingenious cars come in a wide variety of sizes and prices, although sadly few are yet sold in the U.S. Ironic, since in Iceland, land of virtually free geothermal energy, and Norway, land of oil, you can buy these “EV hybrids”, subsidized no less, in all sizes and prices your heart desires, from the more budget friendly Nissan Leaf to the more deluxe and spacious Mercedes or Volvo SUV.
The only missing link is for Congress to subsidize their price (if need be, by redirecting the billions we give to other countries for questionable benefit to us) and the building of electric refueling stations across America, faster than you can say 'Border Wall."
3
The population bomb is the elephant in the room that is driving the climate change monster. If we are serious about saving the planet we will have to keep people from reproducing willynilly and impose something like the one child policy that China had. Children and babies may be fun and cute and all that, but we have entered a time when the carrying capacity of the world needs to be seriously considered. For starters the government should stop encouraging people from having kids, by ending favorable tax treatment for those who have children, and stop making everyone subsidize schools and other amenities for parents and their kids. If people decide to have children then they should pay for them.
1
Time is running out to save the planet. Hopefully AOC and her generation will start trying to avert the demise before it is too late. But don't count on the mossybacks now in control of our government to do anything about it. And don't count on the ignorance of the average American voter to help in this regard.
2
It continues to baffle me why so many conservative "capitalists" fail to see the opportunity for the United States to seize the initiative and use its capital, entrepreneurial spirit, and cultural cohesiveness (before it is gone) to help reposition the earth from carbon-withdrawal energy to sustainable sun-based energy. The survivors of the great climate change die-off (if there are any) will wonder how so many people could be so stupid. This should be the time of the Second Great Industrial Revolution rather than a slow funeral march.
1
What, no mention of how much the military contributes to Global Climate Change ? Why Not ?
1
Great. But nothing will happen as long as Mr. Trump and the Republicans refuse these ideas and instead heavily support the dangerous coal industry.
1
Reduce, Recycle, Reuse. The solar/wind/Tesla are killing people and animals in the Congo, and causing birth defects in China. With the touted scale of the Green New Deal, may we get mines opened in the U.S. and other countries that have environmental laws so that green energy stops its poisonings? Also, there is a unsupported reference that some people think green ideas are too French. Ridiculous. The French have nuclear power, which is better than renewables because it runs when you need it the, which solar and wind do not do. California and New York need to follow France and New Jersey and keep the reactors running.
1
Just curious if the author of this article has solar power installed on their house? Or drives an electric car. Every little bit helps, supporting the renewable energy industry personally will help it thrive. I have solar power and it cost me nothing out-of-pocket. I use my past electric bill payments to pay off my solar panels that I took a note out for. Anyone currently paying electric bills on their home have no excuse to not invest in alternative energy. It's easy to tell other people what to do, what are you doing to help
1
Ah, an egomaniac's attempt to co-opt the Green New Deal concept and claim to be its originator. Regardless of the merits of the Green New Deal, it is fascinating to watch Tom Friedman try to own the concept. I am sure we will see him on cable news this week taking credit, while he gets started on a book out in time for next Christmas. Bizarre. Well, at least we get to see how AOC reacts when told Tom Friedman is the driving force behind the Green New Deal.
Tom: you, of all people, appreciate the immense force of money. How can your virtuous goals be accomplished as long as fossil fuels remain artificially "cheap?" Without an effective carbon tax, we'll stay hooked on a "cheap" energy high that feels good for a while, then crashes in climate disasters. Please advocate a predictably rising, revenue neutral, fully refunded (no riots) carbon fee, dividend and border carbon duty that forcefully steers the global economy towards low carbon products and processes, our best and only hope. It's the essential enzyme at the top of the reaction.
https://energyinnovationact.org
2
Roll on, solar roofing tiles over here in Hove, England.
1
Too many human beings is the single most significant factor destroying the thin atmosphere wrapping the earth with air and water to sustain life. Weaning human beings from burning fossil fuels is an urgent issue to tackle by all nations collectively. Reducing population growth is another problem to solve. Too bad humans are by the large a selfish lot.
China's government is unique in the world which got serious about reversing population growth trend. Unfortunately there is no shortage of Western pundits harping on China's declining and aging population and almost demand Chinese women to have more babies.
Fortunately most Chinese women are wiser and much better educated these days in a so-called authoritarian regime that give women more career opportunities than the so-called democratic countries. As part of China's 2025 plan, more robotics and AI advance could solve some labor shortage and energy consumption problems. Why should Americans be scared about the plan if they care about the earth?
Japan faces similar demographic shifts without top-down edicts and for other reasons. More pundits should promote the idea of "population right-sizing" for a given land mass and geological factors.
1
We need legislation to address packaging and delivery. Since much of what we purchase is now delivered to our homes, outfits like Amazon must turn green. Delivery vehicles run all over and contribute to the emissions problem. Also, Amazon has got to stop swaddling toothbrush-sized items in five pounds of plastic! All that plastic used for shipping is a horrible waste because it is never recycled. Amazon's services create waste and it should be more responsible for the cleanup.
1
This could all be part of a huge infrastructure plan, if we include education, energy production and distribution and telecommunications speed and security as part of our nation's infrastructure.
This year should have made clear the need for immediate construction of infrastructure to mitigate the harm caused by ever increasing fires, storms and floods. We need to build canals to control flood waters, roads to escape fires and public transportation so the poor can escape dangerous storms. Building this infrastructure would create jobs in every part of our nation.
Once the people see how much it costs to mitigate against the damage caused by climate change maybe then they will be interested in investing in new energy production and distribution systems to prevent it from growing worse.
1
"60 Minutes" had a segment about an individual unlocking the secret to making fuel out of dead plants. it's incredible.
New ideas are coming to light every, single day and WE THE PEOPLE must DEMAND that new technologies that are environmentally friendly - and affordable as plant fuel is - are allowed to flourish.
Keep BIG energy and BIG investors of all kinds OUT. Do not let them control it because they will just kill or minimize it. OUR hard-earned taxpayer money can fund it and OUR governments can administer it. All profits must go to support OUR infrastructure and social safety nets including health coverage and education.
2
To be democratic, this new green deal must include all the people. It must be of,by and for everyone, and we need to include learning how to be a people of democracy is part of a greener future.
1
Although I agree strongly in principle with Mr. Friedman, he fails yet again to address the stubborn -- nearly intractable -- problem in getting a Green New Deal accepted.
Namely, that renewable energy is widely seen by conservative politicians (and the voters who keep them in office) as something that liberals like and want: reason enough to automatically and fiercely oppose it.
Worse than a mere political divide is the chasm-like cultural divide it represents.
I don't know how we will bridge this immense gap and convince conservative Americans that a Green New Deal is solidly in their best interests and the nation's. But, with all respect to Mr. Friedman, they just won't be won over by simple math and statistics.
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@Richard
Democrats oppose conservative policies because they dislike conservatives. They therefore assume that conservatives use emotion to resist progressive policies.
As long as Democrats base their policies on emotions and Republicans base theirs on facts, the cultural chasm is unpassable.
The debate has nothing to do with science, although greenies believe in their heart of hearts that Al Gore has accurately reported what the scientists believe. They are unaware that "belief" and "consensus" are religious and political terms, not even vaguely associated with the scientific method. AL Gore has done a grave disservice to science by his hyperbole, yet he became extremely wealthy selling his misrepresentations to a gullible public.
What Trump and conservatives think is that if the wealthy industrialized democracies hobble themselves with high energy costs while the wealth and power of totalitarian China grows faster using low cost coal, the world will be worse off.
China will add more CO2 to the atmosphere between 2016 and 2030 than mankind has added since the inception of the industrial revolution, increasing their CO2 production every year. They are building coal fired plants in Kenya and Viet Nam as well as the rest of their sphere of influence, building an empire of totalitarianism.
Better the democracies continue on a path of increased wealth and adaptation rather than capitulation to autocrats.
Facts and reality trump ignorance and emotion. That is the chasm.
5
@ebmem The fact is that China still emits much less per capita and has emitted less historically than we do. Rich countries blaming global warming on developing countries is the global equivalent of Al Gore flying around in private jets while yelling working class people they can’t drive cars.
12
@ebmem
Ah yes, another arms race the conservatives think can be won. A race to see who can destroy the climate first so the rich can keep all their wealth right up to the end.
28
Rather than the "grid" model of energy supply, existing and developing technologies give individuals and communities the option of self reliant local energy production. It's already feasible, though still expensive, to generate all the electricity needed for a suburban house using solar photovoltaic panels and to store in lithium ion batteries enough for nighttime and rainy day use. Prices will come down as economies of scale grow.
Think how our neighborhoods would be aesthetically improved and our home energy reliability improved if we could get rid of all those utility poles and storm susceptible overhead lines.
65
@Steve M well, the poles can be removed and the grid lines put in the ground. That is what we do here in Sweden, not because of global warming but storms trowing trees on the grid lines. Off the grid solutions can be used in exceptional cases but as a general rule, renewable sources should be connected to the grid for at least 2 reasons: 1) efficiency 2) increased grid stability.
16
I think Friedman is too tied to big technology, and those kinds of solutions may cause just as many problems as they solve. I believe that the answer is in local generation of energy, whether it is on a house by house level or small municipal generating plants. It is cheapest that way, easy to set up in rural communities or developing countries and safest in terms of terrorism or severe weather.
The grid exists to make board members rich. Innovation is also tied to making money for just a few. Why isn’t Leon Musk designing an electric “Volkswagen” that can be mass produced and sold cheaply? In the US, an electric car has to be a luxury car. Wind power has to be giant, noisy, grating behemoths on huge farms. Factory farms can produce a bounty of food and feed millions, but only at the expense of our health and environment.
And I hope that Paul Ehrlich is getting small satisfaction from finally being recognized as right about population growth, after taking much heat for his views over the years. We should all be sorry he was right.
I hope we can come up viable solutions, but if they are not sustainable for all the world, we will fail. In these days of runaway capitalism and the new robber baron, I just don’t think the will is there. Small is beautiful.
16
@Steve M
That's a lovely vision, as are so many green plans. But our electricity system does more than provide for your suburban or rural home. Most electricity is used by businesses and urban users, and self-contained systems are not an efficient or practical solution for either. Further, even those people with enough acreage and roof for a theoretically independent system still want to be connected to the grid as a backup and load balancer, although they don't want to pay for it. Household systems are a libertarian upper-middle-class dream that actually is getting in the way of a broader solution to climate change. Real society-wide solutions will involve an expensive new grid, massive unsightly solar farms, dams and reservoirs to store power, and new nuclear plants. That's what it will take to actually stop pumping greenhouse gasses into the air, and green activists and NIMBY homeowners will fight against all of it, particularly those on the political left. Friedman's Green New Deal doesn't even begin to solve the full problem. It is, for the most part, just virtue signalling by the political left.
2
Great to read Mr Friedman supporting the Green New Deal and reducing carbon consumption. I'm with him all the way! At least I was until I got to the part about "green capitalism" which is an oxymoron if there ever was one. (Sort of like supporting the Iraq War in the name of democracy!) Capitalism is what got us where we are and the solution is not to pour more gasoline on the fire. We Americans need to question our quasi-religious devotion to capitalist principles. The Dalai Lama is not a capitalist. Jesus was not a capitalist. Love of money will not get us to the Green New Deal.
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@Unconventional Liberal
When I finished reading the article, I was about to write a response. Then I read yours. No need for me to go further.
There will be no green solution under Capitalism.
25
@Unconventional Liberal
Amen.
9
@Unconventional Liberal I don't quite agree. No significant progress can be achieved without involving private enterprise, there will be no Green Deal that can be imposed purely by the state. The US is not China and never will be. The Federal government can impose regulations, subsidize industries, raise taxes, etc, but cannot replace the market.
10
Mr. Friedman,
This sounds great. I'm energized. I agree so much with you that as a 60 years young entrepreneur/ IT business refugee I've just now landed a position selling and leasing rooftop solar to low and middle income home owners here in Connecticut. It's the perfect job for a guy like me that likes to meet people and mix it up.
However, one of the first things I discovered in my due diligence leading up to this new job, is as follows:
The State of CT set up a fee that is paid by each consumer every month to fund Green Energy initiatives for the low and middle income citizens. For conservation, rooftop solar, led light bulbs etc. Things started rolling and many new businesses and programs got off the ground. Guess what happened next?
The state ran into budget issues, and on Oct 31, 2017 swept $150 million dollars from the Green energy fund, into the state's general fund. To use for other stuff. To fill a hole in the budget.
Dreams are nice. Reality isn't.
69
@Billy
The fees were rolled into electric bills as part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative [RGGI] in New England, NY and NJ, which increased electricity costs.
The same thing happened in every state involved. A few pennies were contributed to better insulation, CF light bulbs, programmable thermostats. The cost of energy improvements increased, because demand for solar panels and labor increased. The fees increased to further reduce CO2 production. People cut back their consumption, partly by efficiency improvements, partly by cutting down trees and burning them [which made air quality worse], partly because utility rates increased. The utility companies were able to avoid investing in new power plants because demand ticked down. But because they were selling less electricity, the public service commission gave them a rate increase because they still had the same amount of overhead, and then some because they had to improve computer controls to deal with the expensive intermittent solar and wind. The greenhouse gas fee was diverted to general revenue.
You would love to see the $150 million that CT consumers are paying in higher electric bills devoted to your business, installing solar. You could raise prices with the extra money and get a bonus for selling more systems.
Electric bills are permanently higher and rising. CT residents are paying more for less electricity.
Greenies want to nationalize the failed system by imposing a national carbon tax.
3
@Billy- wow! And I thought CT to be an affluent and progressive place.
3
@RjW
It was. The affluent people mostly moved to Florida to avoid state income tax and the progressive to places such as Colorado.
4
The US is important to what Friedman is proposing, but one could argue that fostering progress on clean energy in China and India is even more critical. The US can play an indirect role by pushing the development of wind and solar. This will improve things around the world by encouraging adoption of low cost energy sources. Wind energy has been the big success in US, creating movement toward green energy in all regions of the country that have good wind. This growth has survived reduced government subsidies because it can be developed so fast. Solar promises to eventually outstrip wind because it can be developed over most parts of the world, providing the biggest boon to places near the equator. Is it possible to counter the horrible developments of additional coal power in China and India by some combination of international support for wind power and dramatic conservation?
1
Before hammering out new deals let's start with convincing conservatives to accept science. The rest should be easy.
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@sapere aude
Or we could convince China not to double their CO2 production by 2030.
8
@ebmem
They have been convinced, this from wikipedia:
"China is the world's leading country in electricity production from renewable energy sources, with over double the generation of the second-ranking country, the United States. In 2013 the country had a total capacity of 378 GW of renewable power, mainly from hydroelectric and wind power. China's renewable energy sector is growing faster than its fossil fuels and nuclear power capacity."
12
@ebmem Stop using China as an excuse. That is not an excuse for inaction - it is an even greater argument for us to be taking the lead on this, both to ensure the planet remains habitable AND to start pushing back against China's rising hegemony over renewable energy production.
Your neighbor's house being a fire hazard isn't a reason for you to throw lit matches all over the place in your house. It's a reason to start fireproofing yours.
5
Worthy goals. Based on all the SUVs and McMansions around us, not gonna happen, we already are doomed.
93
@Whine Boy Such fatalism will, indeed, be fatal.
2
I certainly agree with Tom that we need to "harness the greed, with all due speed".
But first we've got to get a government back that actually has some respect for facts.
And that's not going to happen in this country without complete public funding of elections--no corporate, union, or organizational donations, and very low limits on individual ones, reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, legislative overturning of the Citizens' United decision, and the like--because you can't get representatives representin' their actual constituents when they're dependent on a handful of libertarian oligarchs--many of whom have fossil fuel fortunes--for their continued political careers.
138
I can only applaud this approach, but wide-ranging and ambitious as it is, I have to agree with other commentators in saying that a Green New Deal as it is laid out here will not be enough. In addition to Mr. Friedman's proposals, the ugly reality of factory-farming and the climate impact that comes from the production of animal products must be addressed. I love my cheeseburgers, but along with the rest of the planet must accept that if a substantial portion of the global population does not turn vegan, we will barely dent the climate change crisis.
Beyond this, drastic efforts will be needed to protect the ever-more-fragile house of cards that is our ecosystem as we face a sixth extinction and the vulnerabilities that will come as we lose biodiversity. In a world where the value chain crossing production and consumption is globalized, this will require a Green New Deal that is global in scope. A New Deal that will not only change the way Americans consume energy but will also encompass production of commodities in Australia and Indonesia, agricultural products in the Amazon region and finished goods in China. A New Deal that will help developing nations like India, Brazil and others leapfrog fossil fuels and unsustainable agricultural production. It would hardly be an overstatement that the developed world through national governments and the UN should put this priority ahead of all others.
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@ConcernedExpat
Excellent comment and precisely what is required (if not more) Thank you.
8
Afraid to mention the biggest, baddest threat to the Planet : Extreme Overpopulation ??? The single largest factor for each Persons Environmental impact is the number of Children they Birth. There is NO good reason for ANY couple to give Birth to more than Two children. For the record, we had ONE. And that was nearly 40 years ago. “ But I just love kids “. Fine. Adopt and/ or Foster as many as you are allowed, as long as you are able. Birth Control and Voluntary Sterilization should be Free, and readily available. Yes, we Humans are Animals. But we needn’t breed like them, despite GOP efforts.
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@Phyliss Dalmatian
The number one cause of over population is poverty. The poorer the country or family the more kids they are likely to have. The reason, children are your only hope for a better future, for someone to be successful enough to care for you in your old age. As poverty lessens so too does the need for more and more children. Overpopulation, like most problems in the world today, is the result of income inequality.
12
Don't let the surname fool you. We are not animals We share some drives which humans are able to direct for good or not. It seems to me there are many ways to live environmentally responsibly and limiting the number of childfen is only one option which is not suitable for all.
2
@Phyliss Dalmatian
In this article the author talks about the reason to not talk about overpopulation: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/26/16356524/the-population-question
Talking about female empowerment and income equality are more actionable and less fraught with unintended consequences in the discussion.
10
There is only upside in a green new deal such as the holistic one Thomas Friedman proposes. While I wallow in frustration that there has not already been momentum in the face of such stark consequences of inaction, I will put my remaining hope in the American people and our representatives finally putting the race to save the planet - with its many economic benefits!- as it’s number one priority. You can call it naivety. I call it desperation.
2
Good start, but omits population (as many commenters noted), agricultural contributions, cost of construction of the zero energy buildings (ie concrete) as contemporary major contributors, and does not include technologies to reduce existing CO2, identified in recent NAS report. Give the individual an opportunity to directly reduce CO2 (not simply reduce their contributions to increased in CO2) and concerned citizens will act.
1
With all due respect, a green New Deal is not enough. The Paris agreement was and is not enough. Free market ANYTHING will not be enough.
'' I am a green capitalist. I think we will only get the scale we need by shaping the market.'' - No.
The scale that is going to be required is MULTIPLE governments around the world (NOT just the U.S.) all working in conjunction with one another with a MASSIVE scaling up of green technologies NOW for even a chance for us to survive.
That is of course excluding population growth.
Very soon, (if not already) the costs for clean ups, rebuilds and the like will FAR exceed the costs to protect ourselves. We will not be able to rebuild coastline, fight massive and continuous wildfires, grow enough food, build enough homes, or have anywhere near enough potable water. It is already happening, let alone a dozen or more years from now.
I appreciate a columnist (conservative or otherwise) promoting what seems on the surface to be a logical step in this fight. but again ... it is not enough.
Be bold or perish.
235
@FunkyIrishman
This is not a gotcha question: What are you doing to help achieve this life-saving goal? (I've read all the boilerplate things, but I wonder if you might have better ideas.)
Can a low percentage of individuals really make a difference? Let's be realistic: Most people aren't going to radically change their lifestyle unless forced to.
Thanks.
15
@Jim
The two greatest things any single individual (or family) can do (as far as I understand and try to practice as well) is to stop eating meat (or cut down drastically) and to not have a large family.
The greatest pollution we cause has to do with meat consumption and production, and of course overpopulation.
Of course all other green endeavors count such as taking public transit, recycling and so on, but they are paltry compared to the above.
Of course taking voting seriously to put people into power that think the same is required too.
Hope I answered your question.
43
@FunkyIrishman
Well of course you’re correct about meat eating and fewer children (my last piece of meat was a triple decker cheesburger at Howard Johnson’s in 1971, down the street from Lincoln Center, and I don’t think our two black cats are adding to the world population problem).
But you know how hard it is for people to change the diet.
There’s only one solution, and of course, everyone knows it’s impossible. Change people’s consciousness - radically.
Can’t be done, right?
There’s a wonderful YouTube Video of Dan Siegel talking about “integration of consciousness.”
He uses a simple image which conveys the essence of the greatest philosophies and religions. “Consider your brain to work like this,” he says. “Imagine a wheel - at the center, is the simple fact of being aware. Around the edge of the wheel is everything you are aware OF. Learn to shift your attention to the center and rest there. Then, when your attention goes out to the stuff on the edge (everything that normally makes up “you” and everythign that makes up what we call the “world”) don’t disconnect from the center; remain poised in and as Awareness.”
At one point in the interview, Siegel just mentions that if everyone in the world could achieve this integration, it would change everything. He’s done the experiment with over 30,000 people, and it has reduced or eliminated symptoms of depression, anxiety and much more.
It won’t work, yes, but there’s no other solution.
Www.remember-to-breathe.org
10
Yes, do all of that. Do everything.
But put at the top the single clearest thing that can do most to save our human civilization from devastation: a CARBON TAX -- big enough and rising fast enough to shut down burning of fossil fuels in a decade, starting now.
With every cent of net proceeds paid back to all the people, monthly, so all can see it all the time. This is necessary to build and hold public support.
A single step that bends the market forces in the direction of preserving condition of life for our human civilization and species here on Planet Earth.
Doing everything else can help. But for all the rest, get the money from other sources, ideally the obscenely rich.
But there's too much risk that getting that money will be stalled by the moneyed, and action on choosing among the many ways to use it will be stalled in committees, while the ship of human civilization on Planet Earth goes down.
6
I agree with Tom -- think BIG and FAST. We need to do this now, and we need government help. We will always need it. Government scientists working away at Argonne National Lab on battery storage. Research -- both basic research and development -- into better solar panels and wind turbines. Working out the national grid so we can consume the cheapest energy and overcome the variability of wind and solar. Regulatory reform for everything from building codes to emissions limits to permitting transmission and clean energy arrays. And we need the other kind of green -- $$ -- to help make the transition fast. If we do it with commitment, we will actually improve standards of living -- no sacrifice necessary.
8
The Green New Deal just like the NEW Deal itself is dependent on one very important factor-Democrats in the Majority in both the Senate and House plus a democratic President. Most Americans will vote their own selfish position when it concerns taxes, in that they don't want their taxes raised, they will also vote their own prejudices. The great depression was just the national calamity that broke through all the selfishness and prejudice, FDR was able to push through social security, unemployment insurance and a host of other significant legislature, with the republicans fighting him every step of the way.
Obama was elected in very much the same way, an economic crises which threatened to be depression 2.0 had to be faced and dealt with. The problem solved, America went back to voting for the politicians who best spoke to their prejudices and selfishness. America and American's never change. But never fear, if Trump is President long enough, an economic crises, lets call it depression 3.0 will give us Universal health care and a New Green deal. It's a shame it takes a national emergence for voters to pull the lever for D but the republicans have a way of making it happen.
3
Concur that the green new deal ideas need to be tested and implemented. The core issue is energy use and efficiency. I have convinced both conservatives and climate deniers that reducing energy use saves money. When I point out that energy efficiency standards and other green ideas reduce energy use and saves them money, they get on board.
1
Where as I agree with Freedman's Green Deal it will also take convincing people to be more conservative in the usage of all forms of energy. That's the hardest job of all, to wean people off wasteful practices. Turn off lights when not in use. Turn the thermostat down in winter and up in summer. Wearing warmer clothes in winter and sweating a bit in summer is not going to hurt anyone. And how about those unnecessary driving habits? Do suburban teenagers really need a car to drive to school when in most cases there area busses to take them to and from ?
Perhaps higher taxes on gasoline and coal fired power plants would not be a bad thing at all.
2
If we are really serious about saving the planet for human habitation, we would immediately push for a one child only policy. Yes, much can be done in regards to conservation and new technologies, but we are about to hit 8 Billion in population and according to the WTO planet Earth will be up to 11.3 billion by 2100 (40% more people). We cannot "eco" or "green" our way to a livable planet that is almost 4 billion more humans than what we currently have already.
To not address the need to stop, if not reduce the population growth is sticking our heads in the sand, and all of this "eco" and "green" stuff is akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
2
@Shend In 1960's, Zero Population was recommended. That meant a couple had two children to replace the couple. We need Zero Population in the fore front now although religions would put up road blocks.
1
Charge all fossil fuel companies full price for transportation subsidies, and security. Fine them for the long term costs of pollution, global warming, and healthcare costs. End all tax incentives to this extremely profitable industry. Demand real royalties on products extracted from public lands. Eliminate all taxpayer paid infrastructure improvements needed by the fossil fuel industry. The savings and added revenue will more than pay for a Green New Deal and defray the costs of Medicare for all.
Of course, elected officials who are dependent on bribes from the fossil fuel industry will have to relinquish this revenue source and it may be necessary to charge them with a criminal conspiracy to defraud tax payers and poison the air and water and jeopardize the National Security of the United States. This can happen. Most of the criminals are wearing their crimes on their sleeves.
4
I can only add that a large carbon tax could --keep it in the ground and fund free mass-trans and . Rebates can be given to low-income and wind/solar companies.
Mr Friedman I applaud your optimism, a very difficult thing to maintain when contemplating the future of life on this planet. Just yesterday the NYT published an article about how emissions were still increasing in the US, despite the rise of the renewable energy industry. Apparently, thanks to the growing economy, more energy is needed and hence more emissions.
The fact that people have more money to spend on bigger vehicles is a contributing factor. Until people are willing to accept that they absolutely need to change their lifestyles as a matter of urgency, we will never win this fight.
Just look at the contretemps in France over Macron's attempt to tax fossil fuels. You'd think he'd attempted to make pedophilia legal! Governments and the special interests they serve are only part of the problem, the biggest issue is the selfishness of humans who think they are entitled to it all.
More living space, more beefsteak, more horsepower, more convenience: more, more, more!
Forgive me, but I sometimes think that a world war is the only thing that will make the difference. Not only will it cut back on the insane number of people on this planet, but it will force people to make do with less. Rationing, now there's a concept people need to embrace! The way we are going now is simply a march to doom.
1
it's time for homo sapiens to leave the planet --- and not just go to Mars. What's the use of saving ourselves from global warming if we continue on to our own destruction, killing Gaia by a thousand other means. We no longer think of homo sapiens as one a innumerable species making up an unimaginably complex matrix of life. No, now the world is our big mono-garden and dumping ground. We talk about some new technology to save the planet but what we're really saying is to save ourselves and our conveniences.
Simple fact: there is no new scalable technology that will save us. We are in the beginning of the Anthropocene, an epoch of the 6th extinction which includes our own destruction and probably half the species of life on the planet. In the extremely unlikely case we solve global warming, we will unravel too much of the complex fabric of life by other methods to allow us to survive.
The end won't come in one great series of storms or fire in the next century but will come by an escalating events combining drought, sea level acidification, and economic/social turmoil this century, likely in the next few decades. We will see economic collapse ,war, and massive population die outs in our life time.
We need a modern day Jeremiah to tell this truth.
2
The great thing about the "plans" proposed here are that there aren't the usual people sitting around the table who would be expecting an explanation as to how it will be possible to achieve the goals of these plans in reality. And since it is impossible to have even a single large city to be powered by 100% renewable energy within 10 or 20 years, and its impossible to have a single city that can guarantee a job to every person who wants one let alone hand out free "basic incomes" etc etc, what is the point of these "plans". Ocasio-Cortez's "plan' comes across like a child speaking of what they would do it they were granted magic powers.
As for Friedman's plan, at least he qualifies it by saying "this may well be our last chance to build the technologies we need at the scale of the challenge we face in the time we still have". That is its our last chance to build the technologies we need, even though we have no idea what those technologies even are.
However even though we have no idea what those technologies even are the plan requires that they be built at the scale "of the challenge we face in the time we still have". This does not qualify as a plan, nobody that hears that responds by saying "lets do that". And that is because an idea with no realistic explanation as to how it can be achieved is usually referred to as a pipe dream. And this is because pipe dreams are produced by people for whom that pesky thing that is reality is not a factor.
3
Green revolution in the U.S.?
In best case scenario technology wise, which is to say imagining right now the U.S. has the technology and at affordable price to make a profound switch to clean energy, still I doubt the U.S. has the brains and political coordination to bring about such a change, and my doubts grow daily with increase of population and the obvious dumbing down of society which is occurring all around us.
On one hand we have science, intellect, etc.--the arrow shall we say aiming toward civilization--but on the other we have increase of population and multicultural lack of coordination which just results in lowest common denominator thought and action, not to mention attempts by power to control, box in, overfeed the population in everything from bad food to propaganda, advertisement, and "entertainment". The U.S. and Europe and Asia as well, appear to be more authoritarian whether in right or left sense and dumbed down with every passing day.
We have the story today of so many being brought out of poverty, that the world is becoming globalized, getting better (decline of war, crime, increase of medical attention, etc.) but there is no question that it's a dumbed down world with elites arguing amongst themselves certainly silently, sometimes publicly, how all this crowd is to be managed. A green revolution would certainly be a great force of inspiration. But can any inspiration, great thought and act, occur when dumbing down, mediocrity occurs and rules all?
1
The fundamental problem with climate change is that it is not a mechanical or technological problem. We know there are ways to deal with it effectively: limit growth, limit human population, limit consumption, ween ourselves from fossil fuels and move to renewables (wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, even nuclear). We have the capability to do all of these. *But the US cannot go it alone.*
There is an open secret to climate change. The elephant in the room. It has been sent to us as a puzzle, to test whether or not we have the capacity to cope with the one viable option open to us. There is only one answer. We must come together and unite as a planet. We can only solve this existential problem globally, as humans united and acting with true humanity, treating each other truly humanely.
Can we do it? And how can we do it? It's not about the technology: that will always simply be the tool, and we have it, now. It's about us. All of us on Earth. It always has been. Now ... how about some columns about that?
4
I like AOC but her statements suggest she’s all about the dream and none about the reality. Transportation—cars, trucks, freight trains, airplanes—emit as much or more carbon than the electric grid in the US. Eliminating fossil fuels from electric generation—if that’s even possible given existing technology—will make us feel good but it will also drive down the global price of gas and coal further and then what? Does China really forego even cheaper coal or tell the Russians thanks but no thanks for the new gas pipelines? Do US and other coal producers really halt their exports? Does India really come about face and abandon its stated position that it has a “right” to continue to pollute to develop its economy since the West did so for almost all of the last 200 years? Those players make up about half the Earth’s population. What we do unilaterally might not end up where we hope. Think of a squishy balloon. Squeeze it at one end and the carbon dioxide you’ve blown into will a bulge at the other. You don’t get a net volume reduction of the whole. And the whole is the planet not just the US. We’re going to need better solutions than a tax and retreads from the 1930s .
4
@Gordionknot: By 2050, more than half of all vehicles on the road, including heavy trucks, will be all-electric, and more than half of the electricity used to power those vehicles will be generated by photovoltaics and wind.
That energy transition is already underway worldwide. The only question for the United States is whether we will lead that transition, or be dragged kicking and screaming into the future.
4
I don’t think the options are that desperate or as rosey. PVs are at best 15% efficient and have you seen the footprint on a typical solar or wind farm? They’re measured in square miles not acres and produce a fraction of the power of fossil-fueled plants. Wind and solar—16th and 19th Century gizmos souped up with 21th Century material and computerization—are transitional, and will help until engineers and scientists develop a game-changing mode of commercially viable electric generation. I don’t know what that will be and neither does anyone. It will happen and I have great faith in American know-how to “lead” that revolution. Maybe commercially—viable fusion in about 75 years. I’d be for a tax that funded a Manhattan project-like effort to develop such a game changer. But wind and solar are small, albeit valuable, interim steps. They’re not the solution.
2
@Gordionknot The solar energy landing on the Sahara desert alone is enough to power the entire planet. What about the Gobi? Space is not the issue. Solar arrays go on the roof, can be used on covered parking spaces, spaces that are too hot or barren for human habitation. The challenge is not harnessing the energy but getting it to where its needed most.
This reminds me of the health care problem. Back in the 90's Hillary Clinton led an effort to come up with a plan to revamp health care. And she was shouted down. Then for the next 10-15 years, nothing was done. Like with climate change, the handwriting on the wall was viewed as graffiti. Something to be painted over. Well with both healthcare and climate change, the handwriting is back on the wall and the Republicans only want to paint it over again. That is exactly why the Republicans are on the way out. Milk the industry for all the profit you can get and ignore the problems associated with it. And try to keep America a white and male place when the walls on that are closing in as well. Republicans.....on the wrong side of history. They not only whitewashed the handwriting on health care and climate change. They also paint over the narrative of their place in America's future. But those words never seem to be completely covered up.
6
Anything to further green progress is to be applauded and supported -- whatever the program's name.
But looking to government and industry to solve our problems is not enough. (It's also laden with obstacles and inefficiencies). Reducing consumption -- significantly -- is key.
Some say that's not possible, especially under consumer capitalism. But it's The American Way.
We are, mythically, a nation of individualists. "Rugged individualism" does not only mean clearing a path for self-centeredness. It means we are responsible for ourselves and capable of self-discipline -- precisely what's needed in this, our new, and possibly last, frontier.
3
I am always upbeat when reading this articles in the morning. Then I go to my local gym, driving my Prius into a parking lot filled with SUV's, pick-up trucks, and high end sedans and sports cars. My local Toyota dealer who services my Prius confirmed that the these models are not selling as well as their high end SUV line. Now with the world seemingly awash in oil, I feel our country has fallen off the green wagon and resumed its addiction to buying as much horsepower as possible.
8
@Amanda Jones As one can see from the latest auto shows, even SUVs and trucks are going green. The answer was never to shove a square peg in a round hole. All electric vehicles will include all vehicle classes and that diversity of product options and the improved capabilities that are coming with it will vastly improve consumer uptake.
1
The main problem we face -- only hinted at here-- is over-population. We have long known that runaway population growth would bring disaster. Well, here it is. It's time to attack the real problem or nature will do it for us.
4
@Phillip Parkerson It May seem counterintuitive but prosperity has always been the solution to population growth. The more people have opportunities in their lives the less they procreate. The west would have a declining or barely sustained population if it weren’t for immigration. The more we can spread prosperity and peace to others, the slower populations will grow.
3
I am all for green energy. Please do not put Industrial Wind anywhere near homes. Along the northern Adirondacks we fought off, so far, an industrial Wind invasion that severely disrupted our rural community. Industrial Wind Systems only last 20 years and are very dependent on taxpayer subsidies.
See www.nnywind.com and Concernd Citizens For Rural Preservation. Keep Industrial Wind offshore and away from homes!
We built a high efficiency home. After researching other comparable homes, we went with all electric stoves and hot water. We installed solar electric, PV, with an electric charger for a future electric car. This system is subsidized, but had a lifespan of 40 + years, is silent, no moving parts, and does not kill birds nor disrupt my community.
5
How do you keep speculators from driving up energy prices with carbon taxes? You can't. Easy money right? California the fifth largest economy in the world is 48th in the US for education. Its government is probably the greenest in the Country. Remember the Oroville Dam nearly destroyed by heavy rains and government neglect? Greens say the natural order is out of balance. It should be dismantled. Smelt lives matter. Education doesn't. Besides if the poor had money they would make the planet a worse place for the elite.
The wealthy are building a wonderful world for themselves. They can afford high energy prices and to be green. You haven't noticed the yellow vests are still protesting in France. France, England and most of Europe suffer from the same problem an elite that outlived its usefulness.
1
Didn't we build a lot of dams during The New Deal which now everyone wants to get rid of. What is the environmental impact and cost of the huge land use required for both wind and solar? Farmers use Wind machines to heat orchards in the spring; we should understand these thngs before we make laws and spend money on a highway to nowhere. I believe that Climate Change has human input, what I am sceptical of is the politicalization of the issue and the effectiveness of the remedies offered.
1
Welcome back, you have been missed. I read your books, including "Hot, Flat and Crowded." My recollection leads me to think that you did not foresee the recent populist political changes that have taken place. The world was getting smaller with technology and perspectives bringing people together in a "global economy" and open world. That no longer seems to be the case and, unfortunately, the result is that it has become more difficult to focus on the most important issue, climate change. Nations, and voters, are challenged by what they perceive to be more important issues, often self-created. Nationalist and nativistic beliefs allow climate change deniers to gain and hold power. We don't have another decade to waste yet I am certain we will. But please keep ringing the warning bell. Perhaps some day the naysayers will hear it.
Some traditional practices may also work: how about readjusting agricultural subsidies to encourage local producers and giving grants to cities for encouraging backyard gardening using sustainable practices (e.g. less water use, composting) and community farmer's markets and planting of trees. A movement cannot sustain itself unless individuals feel they are doing something .
3
In order for a zero carbon grid to exist, America needs to build an interstate energy grid. Much as the Interstate Freeways opened up the American economy after WW2, an Interstate Energy Grid will spur non carbon energy production. A state, like North Dakota, could sell endless wind energy. We could have North Dakota wind sheiks buying mansions in Hollywood, and dating starlets, just because they owned lots of wind blowned acres.
2
@Michael To me, a more national distribution system is highly inefficient. Renewable power will be more effective if distribution is more local, where applicable. At least a percentage of power should be generated where we live. This is why California is requiring that new homes be built with solar.
2
@John For the purposes of wind power. Efficiency is based on where the wind blows hardest and most often. That is in places like North Dakota. This does not preclude producing energy locally. For green energy to really succeed it is going to have to be immense and that will require massive generation points as well as local contributions. One does not exclude the other. Efficiency, as you say, is the key.
1
The problem here is who benefits. The original New Deal helped ordinary people. So far, that hasn't been the case here.
1
@Mike Livingston Solving our energy and climate problems benefit everyone. Future generations will need energy as fossil fuels are limited and they will want a livable planet.
2
What Mr. Friedman is discussing is all on point and is all happening. The reality is that these important innovations will occur, just not on the timeline that US Rep. AOC et al. forecast.
@dmanuta In my opinion, AOC’s plan will harm growth of green technologies. We should learn the lessons that Europe is dealing with. Punitive strategies have shown to be ineffective and cause societal issues.
Nuclear energy fixes the problem tomorrow --- nothing else.
Based on current climate projections and as to your point on population growth --- there is no choice at all.
Some in the Green Movement have begun to speak of this option, but it nowhere in your column.
We have an immediate answer that is being ignored --- but perhaps those that view the worst case scenarios really don't.
6
@tobin I am for expanding use of nuclear energy. We should use the latest technologies and the safest practices available, but we should definitely utilize it in the mix as solar and wind are best as a percentage of the grid instead of trying to use them exclusively.
3
@tobin
Politics has turned Nuclear into a boondoggle; we have effectively lost over 30years of research and development in this area; along with the continuation as opposed to the replacement of old dirty nuke plants from the 50's and 60's. At least that is what the engineers in the field have told me....."but I guess that science can be denighed"
1
The green economy is already happening. There are no new coal plants being built here. The vast majority of new energy projects are renewables. Electric vehicles are being developed and rolled out. We are already in the midst of the green revolution. It doesn’t happen overnight but it’s already started and there’s no going back. To further the cause, government should focus on incentives to further development and increase adoption.
2
There is no scale at all to what you speak about and electric vehicles are actually worse than conventional cars as to environmental issues
1
@tobin Actually, you are wrong. Studies have shown that from manufacturing through disposal, electric vehicles are much cleaner. This is even shown to be true when a substantial percentage of the energy used to power the vehicles comes from coal. Emissions are 40% to 90% lower than gasoline vehicles depending on where you live.
3
This is all great, but I see no mention of agriculture. I don't see why a Green New Deal can't be applied conceptually, and supported legislatively, to producing clean (slow, local) food as well, and revitalizing all the depressed rural pockets of America--on a massive but geographically widespread scale. It's not hippy-dippy, as Friedman suggests, it's rational and smart.
Supposedly thousands of Millennials are eager to work the land. Just Google it.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1&q=millennials+return+to+farming
If thousands of young people bought cheap land and worked it organically across the U.S., employing methods such as organic beekeeping, sustainable crop rotation, humane animal husbandry and other healthy farming practices that are completely counter to BigAg, imagine how much healthier and happier we could become as a nation.
Fossil fuel isn't the only gigantic, noxious industry that's had its hand in the national cookie jar for way too long.
7
@Jan
Until they get their hands dirty and have to wake up before dawn, millennial wannabes won't know what farming really means.
Where is this cheap land that you suggest they buy?
1
The battle against climate change is much like Don Quixotes' battle against windmills; the's why the picture of the windmills accompanying this article is appropriate. Friedman is correct, measures should have been put in place in 2007, actually long before that, but weren't. Al Gore made a fortune off climate change but did nothing to stop it except buy some energy credits! Obama put in regulations which were mainly aimed at displacing workers employed in professions that he deemed "environmentally incorrect." Now Trump is in command. I support the President. I support Trump, America First! MAGA!. Thank you.
2
This is why we lose alternate energy arguments. We keep preaching climate change. Alternate renewable energy should be a goal because it forces thinking, creates change, develops technology, builds factories to manufacture the technology, creates companies that install and maintain the resulting products, creating good paying jobs and middle class wealth, even mega rich wealth. We’re stuck not in a world of climate change deniers, we’re stuck in a world of people who make tons of money doing what they’ve been doing for well over 100 years. By arguing climate change we’re not bringing the real issue to the surface. Oil, Gas and Coal make tons of money for tons of people that have no incentive to try anything new. Things are just fine for them thank you.
JFK invented the internet by deciding to go to the moon, challenging us to develop technology that created miniaturization, solar power and wireless communications and so much more, that inevitably created huge new companies, millions of good paying jobs and expanded individual earned and accumulated wealth. He challenged us to actually think, trump and the Rebub’s seem to be averse to that.
7
@Paul Lief
One thing more would be take the tax credit from Oil, Gas, and Coal. Use the money to give us better infrastructure.
Good stuff. I have been researching and writing about this since the 1970’s. Here are some additional points to consider.
1. Checkout CALPINE, they generate about 750 MW of green power from geothermal vents in Sonoma Valley. MIT reports there’s enough heat energy under the inter mountain states to power the country for 1000 years with very similar technology.
2. You don’t mention carbon absorption but there are strategies for removing billions of tons of CO2 by stimulating plankton growth in the middle of the ocean. Cutting emissions is no longer enough.
3. We’re running out of fossil fuels and have no choice about converting. The 2014 BP annual report estimates there was a 54 year supply of oil left. That reserve ought to go to making materials like pharmaceuticals, plastics and concrete, rubber for tires etc. It’s too valuable to burn. Also jet fuel, there’ll never be an electric 767 or Airbus.
4. Economically, this is the beginning of a K-wave, a 50 year cycle that will be the greatest money making opportunity in history. Green can be extremely profitable.
See “The Age of Sustainability.”
22
@Denis
This sounds really promising, but we can't build a wall around the US to keep climate change out. Countries like China and India can burn coal for the next century, and what can we do about it, really? So I guess the question is: how much plankton can we make? (Globally, humans are pumping about 50 billion tons of extra carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, so I don't think plankton will save us.)
2
@Blue Moon Good points. The numbers I've seen from DoE are a bit lower at about 40 gigatons per year but the difference isn't material. It's a big ocean and plankton are prolific but we can't rely on that completely to save us. Coal is being outcompeted by gas and solar. Geothermal is cheap too and there is a belt of geothermal zones literally around the planet that can be tapped. The only reason we burn coal is because we have burned coal. This is behavior mod 101.
3
As David Roberts said: "....the environmental movement has become acclimated to the notion that it is operating outside the mainstream..." It is probably outside the mainstream because those opposed to replacing fossil fuels with clean energy alternatives have commanded the narrative on the subject. And there is a second problem: A "Green New Deal" isn't going to happen unless Democrats control the entire government. What you propose is reasonable and necessary, but it will be an uphill fight all the way.
10
Alternatively, it could mean an order of magnitude fewer people living in a sustainable fashion. The West has largely brought its population bomb under control, so where are the additional hordes of people coming from? Largely places that are already not very nice places to live or spawning grounds for radical religions intent on overthrowing Western political and social norms. So yes, it would be lovely for the U.S. and Europe to further curb our carbon emissions per dollar of GDP but not if it means merely marching in place so other countries can double their populations without seeming to care in the least.
8
Maybe the idea never caught on because of Mitch McConnell and the Republicans total opposition to any idea of president Obama. Generations to come will pay a price for this obstruction in multiple ways.
18
We need energy to be nationalized. We don't need more free market schemes that don't work. We need national healthcare, a comprehensive public transportation system, national broad band, and we need these things now. For profit is not more efficient except at stealing good from the general public for more private profit. We need to raise the tax rate on the super wealthy and we need to make our country more attractive to business at the same time. We are 17th on the list, with other countries with national healthcare, up to date communication and transportation, well ahead of in desirability for the establishment of new businesses. Let's make things simpler for businesses to be established. Nationalized systems would go a long way in establishing convenience and the reduction of over all costs to attract businesses to our shores.
11
@Carolyn Egeli Nationalization would kill green energy. There is no comparison as to what type of economy best picks winners and losers and it’s not socialism.
In 1900 the buggy whip industry was one of the biggest industries in the US. By 1920 the buggy whip industry was a memory.
If we wait for this revolution it will be too late. Raise consciousness now. Keep speaking loudly about the green revolution and act locally. Find out how you as an individual can do your part.
Changing to a vegan diet will help with individual and planetary health.
Change now and that means me.
3
@Rich Pein
Buggy whips were a fringe industry in comparison to vehicles. It makes a nice meme but hardly a fact.
1
Environmental activists, climate change scientists have the science to back up their conclusions. But no matter how dire their predictions people just aren't buying it. I'm convinced and so are lots of people, but not enough to convince Senators and the President. That's because they and Friedman are selling a Green New Deal, all wrong. People are motivated by money. We need to sell clean energy projects by how we can save individual families money in the short and long term. Also how wind and solar design, engineering, manufacturing, fabrication, sales, and installation will produce jobs. How wind turbines and commercial installations provide passive income to land owners. How excess energy produced can be sold to other utilites to produce income.
2
We the People need a leader... AOC will live on Earth at least another 70 years and her ideas are spot-on. Her fear of our future is shared by all. The distractive and harmful Trump exposes the greed of Big Oil to keep its power moving ahead. We the People must engage the New Green Deal dramatically to save AOC and others under 30 toward creating with urgency a clean power and environment to ensure. God bless AOC to proceed toward her goal to save us all!!!
8
Our problems with global warming and climate change primarily involve three greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapor. Water vapor and methane are both far more potent than carbon dioxide. We do not have a good handle on how to regulate water vapor in the air, so we do not talk about water vapor. Methane comes from natural gas leaks, agriculture (meat), and release from the gradual melting of permafrost. Carbon dioxide arises from the burning of fossil fuels, primarily coal, oil, and natural gas.
I doubt we have much hope of reducing general consumption (including meat) or the global population in the foreseeable future. But we still must drastically reduce carbon dioxide and methane. We therefore need to radically cut down on the burning of fossil fuels, including the "bridge fuel" of natural gas. How do we do it?
Renewables (e.g., wind and solar) are great, including batteries as discussed in this column. But wind comes from the coasts and the hinterlands, and solar farms would be best in the desert southwest. That means constructing a new power grid to channel the energy where it is needed. That will be costly and time-consuming.
While we are doing that, we should reconsider *nuclear power.* The main pluses: these plants can be built anywhere, and they do not release carbon dioxide or methane. The main drawbacks: accidents and storage and long-term disposal of waste. But we could get the plants up and running in 25 years. Why not?
3
Vehicles (cars and trucks) will be electric and will get their electricity from nuclear power plants. Long-term waste disposal? Yucca Mountain (for now). Short-term disposal? Securely at the plants, then train transport to Nevada. Accidents? We have many nuclear plants worldwide, and no accidents. And if we have one or two more? How would that compare to what we are doing to the planet with greenhouse gases and climate change? It's basic risk assessment. And if you don't like nuclear, when we get wind and solar up and running robustly, we can decommission the nuclear plants. What other choice do we really have, worldwide and within reason?
3
There are a lot of good ideas here, but relying on Father Greed to spur growth of a green economy is not one of them. Of course, self interest must be a vital part of the mix, but one of the things that made Roosevelt's New Deal so appealing was that it drew powerfully on a sense of the common good. The same idealism should apply even more today. For if America becomes green, the rest of the world will be sure to follow its example. For too long America has suffered from the right wing delusion that self interest--that there is an invisible hand that guides economic decision making--works infallibly for the well being of all. In truth, it just leads to the insanity of the Tea Party and the Freedom Caucus.
3
Thank you for writing this. Greed will not save us.
We need a new economy based on cooperation, mutual self-interest, and sufficiency.
There's no reason this can't happen, other than inertia, advertising propaganda, and the immense narcissism of the wealthy. We don't need all the useless garbage we're told we need. And neither do they.
Look at what makes people happy & satisfied. Nowhere on these lists will you find "more stuff."
Few people in the US are going to voluntarily sign up to pay much higher costs for energy in every endeavor, higher taxes on top of it and give up many modern conveniences to boot.
This is especially the case when the evangelical energy expressed by both Friedman and AOC is not so much about saving the world as it is about telling/forcing people how to live.
This is not sober pragmatic reality based analysis no matter how much Friedman pretends. This is about forcing people, mostly non-millionaires and non-billionaires to live according to his preferred standards.
3
How is living in a single family home, driving a car, using electricity at point of service, and consuming goods different from what you do today? The difference is that we don’t want any of those that are wasteful and inefficient to the point of sending the Earth into a death spiral with humanity helplessly riding along.
3
@Lilo, you've just illustrated the essence of conservative thinking - stick with the status quo for fear that something new might not work. The reason for considering change is that what we now have isn't working. So, what do you propose we do to solve this huge global problem?
3
We need government to lead the way towards rescuing our environment, but the success of the effort depends upon building consensus. That means, of course, that the private sector must be nudged – not bludgeoned – into cooperating fully in restoring the health of the planet.
When individual citizens, regardless of their politics, put science and facts ahead of the misinformation spread by lazy captains of the fossil-fuel industry, the use of smart energy will grow at breakneck speed.
Choices about how to spend our tax dollars will need to be made by our state and federal governments, but there ought not to be any sacrifice of projects which define the intellectual curiosity of mankind.
We can do the exploration of Mars and the rehabilitation of Earth at the same time, and we may even find unexpected synergy between both efforts.
1
A great column loaded with great, big ideas. The challenge is a huge one that definitely requires the scale you urge, and not simply a culture of individuals proudly reducing their carbon footprints. At the same time, rising to meet the challenge ought to be a rewarding experience for individuals and organizations up and down the scale.
The satisfaction of designing or building the elements of a green society is bound to be greater and more attractive than just the satisfaction of knowing you’re pursuing a green lifestyle. Such careers are already front and center in countries where escape from dependence on fossil fuels is a naturally acknowledged good and not a heresy resisted by domestic fossil-fuel interests. There, thoroughly realistic people in industry, government, and academia are developing practical green solutions and putting them into effect as if there were not a naysayer in the world.
A just-right lifestyle is of course one of the building-blocks of a green society. That offers satisfaction, too. It does mean a reckoning for the consumerist economy; but then, as you point out, the changes that are needed imply the rise of new industries.
The Green New Deal is something that can inspire us at every level of our lives: a vision with substance.
2
Alas, 100% renewables is not possible for electricity generation let alone all the other uses of energy. However, 100% low carbon and sustainable energy is possible. Simply add to the mix of renewables enough nuclear power plants.
As it is, "100% renewables" is just code words for mostly burning natural gas, rather like the wizard behind the curtain. Ask the engineers.
3
I actually just read Obama’s energy plan. Which included nukes, and used nat gas as part of a transition away from fossil fuels.
You know, kind of a balance between the ideal and the possible?
7
The Green New Deal, in any of its multiple possible forms, is a wonderful idea. I fully support it.
As we find a way to reduce our human population without destroying our economy, we will have the energy sources, food productions methods, communication, and transportation options of a newly green world. These technologies scale better to smaller populations than the current petrochemical techniques. And with advances in computer intelligence, the technologies reduce the need for dangerous human labor.
Reducing the population? Japan has shown the world that it is possible to reduce the number of people without destroying an economy. Constant growth is not required. Controlled reduction in economic activity can happen, as long as the basics of life are met in other ways. So I suggest we take the pressure off families who do not want children of their own and let them be childless. We can do that be guaranteeing that the couple will have what they need to be comfortable throughout their whole lives.
In this way AOC's suggestions all fit together to provide a world where the environment is protected, humans shift into being part of the structure of the world, and the needs of all beings -- human and nonhuman -- are met.
Green New Deal proposal; yes to rural broadband and yes to rural community colleges but more than that yes to combining the two. Why not build a truly national public online college system? Such that everyone regardless of location has access to same quality education.
1
A Green New Deal was on the verge of appearing in New England in 1955 when the Times reported that heat pump technology was about to take over the task of heating and cooling. Those words never appeared again! Not even in comments today - except this one.
Time to bring them back: heat pump
The same is true for these three words: solid waste incineration.
And even for this single word, biogas.
My entire city, Linköping, is right now being heated by a "fjärrvärme"/distance-heating system - the term in the US is the misleading "district-heating". The world's most advanced solid waste/bio waste plant just 5 km north of my house is sending hot water that enters a small white box in the basement of all but one home on this street at 80 C and leaves at 40 C. Renewable, silent, non-explosive, non-fossil energy.
Our food waste arrives at the same plant in green bags that are optically separated from the solid waste to become biogas to run the city buses. Fossil-free.
Just 600 meters from my home is a new apartment building, solar panels on the roof, ground-source geothermal heat pump system boreholes underneath. Heat/cool!
If the Times is to take the Green New Deal further, it apparently will have to send a reporter to Denmark and Sweden to learn about the 24/7 renewable energy systems never mentioned in the Times with one exception: 2010 Elisabeth Rosenthal.
Say after me:
Heat pump
Solid-waste incineration
Biogas
or visit
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
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@Larry Lundgren I am bringing the blog up to date with photos of the apartments and my own home in a cluster completely heated by the systems named above and in part supplied by solar-panel electricity.
There is exactly one modern solid-waste plant in the US, the West Palm Beach plant designed by Danish Babcock & Wilcox, the company that designed the two most advanced in the world, one at CopenHill in Copenhagen, the other here in Linköping.
Ground-source geothermal heat pump systems are well represented in Vermont at Champlain College, Saint Michaels College, Vermont state installations, and in Manhattan at the Bloomberg Center on Roosevelt Island.
All are, of course, invisible. This may partially explain why the NY Times always represents renewable with a photo of wind turbines as you see her above Friedman's text.
A major advantage to solid-waste incineration and all heat-pump systems, including ground source is that they can be installed rather quickly.
5
@Larry Lundgren. Of all humans the western Europeans seem to really have their act together. I applaud your society. As for America we are a lost cause. It's that simple. If the truth were known we were never right. We just got lucky to have a country with a lot of resources and people ready to exploit those riches.
10
@Rick - America os my country too and I keep hoping that all is not lost. But when I visit in June I know I will see that things are only getting worse with one of the most dramatic markers being forced to ride a failing Greyhound bus to get from Albany to Logan when it is time to return to Sweden.
I add this: I am reading a magnificent biography about Vilhelm Moberg, The Man In The Forest, who wrote novels that became movies showing what emigrants like mine faced when they took the boat to America. Moberg spent much of his life going back and forth SE-USA and he developed love-hate relationships on both sides - sometimes things are complicated.
Larry
2
There is no better laboratory for resource conservation than space travel, which is what we all are technically doing.
I agree with this in principal, but I cannot help but feel like assumed population expansion, meaningless economies, and a standard of living that far exceeds the necessary doom any effort that does not address this basic premise:
Every living thing on this planet must be considered in everything we do, we are not obliged to continue the way we have - even meeting the green ideals presented here - without understanding what constitutes our real responsibility.
We first must understand we are no more important than anything else here. Good luck.
1
It is really dismaying how few people in these comments seem to realize that solar and wind are moving fast, even without dwindling government support. Thanks to the Republicans, and their oil and gas cronies, incentives for renewable energy are actually being phased out!
In spite of this, there are solar arrays everywhere.
I'm reading the same variety of uninformed statements as 6 or 7 years ago.
12
It is certainly easy to visualize cars powered by renewables. As storage technology improves, solar panels can replenish batteries during daylight hours and charge vehicles at night.
What is more problematic is base-load generation for industry that needs a reliable, constant level of power and the transportation system, mostly aircraft, that cannot run on renewables due to energy density considerations.
It is great to see these things discussed again in this horrid time of Trump. The Koch Brothers may not like it - however we all know where they can go...
9
The only problem with carbon taxes is that they usually end up falling on the poor, directly or indirectly. And what is often proposed is a "refund" that typically is not a full refund -as there frequently are proposals for a new bureaucracy. Although somewhat different, what we saw in France can occur here. Ultimately. because of these issues, and the lack visibility, carbon taxes can be disempowering to individuals and are easy to corrupt. With it's free market mechanism and lack of understanding about how taxes affect the common person, it's almost as though it was developed at the Heritage Foundation (irony). We should be wary about any additional taxes falling on the poor and what's left of the middle class. Carefully targeted laws can do whatever a carbon tax can do- and it has worked in most states.
1
It's immensely disappointing that someone as insightful as Tom Friedman lists "the four zeros" and leaves out the most important zero of all: Zero Population Growth.
If we could prevent the billion more people Tom anticipates by 2030, we would accomplish more for the planet than all his other measures combined.
We need a cultural shift that throws aside outdated religious objections to contraception, and acknowledges that family planning is essential for civilization's survival.
95
Great. But: you need to combine it with birth control available to every man and woman and with a complete dedication to saving species.
You can't use desert space for acres of solar panels and save species. We need to reverse the population explosion.
Unless we save species, set aside lands for non-development and live in spaces less needed contiguously for animal species and plants and unless we make birth control available to all humans, no amount of green projects will save the earth.
36
Mr Friedman ... how did the " World Is Flat " globalization work out for us? Any bets regarding " Green New Deal "?
5
A good piece, but I am a bit disappointed Friedman has to take a cheap shot at the space program to make his rhetorical point. NASA’s research has paid all sorts of dividends in advancing clean and sustainable technology, not to mention the intangible value it has provided by giving entire generations of Americans a new perspective towards our planet. And it does all of this on a budget scarcely more than the spare change under the DoD couch cushion.
10
Well I'm going to say it: I think the global warming situation will get so serious that it will lead to WW3, or something close to it. Nations possessing advanced weaponry will use it against other nations perceived to be moving too slowly to reduce their GHG (Green House Gas) emissions. Specifically, PGMs (Precision Guided Munitions) will be used to destroy coal and methane (natural gas) fired power plants in a last ditch effort to slow or halt thermal run-away. Well, let's hope it doesn't come to that.
@Gregory - you think? Personally I expect the countries with the weapons will be the ones not transitioning fast enough.
And nobody will start a war over pollution; we will instead end up fighting over the dwindling habitable land and resources.
3
“Who believes that America can remain a great country and not lead the next great global industry?”
True, but also and even more importantly: Who believes that the world can get an upper hand on global warming if America doesn’t take the lead?
7
I don't get all the negative comments. Mr. Friedman is throwing out four goals for policy consideration and research focus, acknowledging the market, and inviting other ideas. It's a starting point, a challenge, to which he adds "Let’s see what sticks and what falls by the wayside." Yes, going green will be a big leap for our current form of capitalism (and lawmakers), but if not this leap, which one? The only alternate story I can think of is that humans decide to kill themselves off. Pretty smart, very possible.
2
This is silly. None of these renewables can compete with natural gas. We have a century's worth of natural gas.
It makes the climate slightly warmer. There is no harm in that.
3
@Jonathan Katz. I’m. That’s just wrong. Solar and storage are cheaper and “a bit warmer” means hugely unstable, which means no industrial food production. No harm in that unless you’re one of the people who likes to eat.
8
@Jonathan Katz
By that logic, turn the thermostat up, "slightly," on your fridge and save money on your utility bill. Hey what harm is there? Your milk, eggs etc goes bad a little sooner, so what.
The Democrats' primary reason for opposing Mr. Trump's Wall seems to be that they think it would not be cost-effective. I welcome the Democrats' embrace of cost-benefit analysis as the appropriate way to analyze proposed public policies. Let's apply rigorous cost-benefit analysis to the proposals for a Green New Deal, and weigh all the economic costs and benefits, discounted to present value and only go forward with projects that have a net present value. Costs and benefits that can't be ascertained to a reasonable level of certainty should be ignored.
2
@Douglas. That’d be great, because we would kill the fossil fuel industries immediately.
and bicycles and walking. low tech, cheap, healthy and proven in Europe. don't look past the obvious.
7
I’m there now. Amazing how few fat Europeans one sees.
Our only chance to stem catastrophic climate cheating is private sector innovation. If we attain it it will have to be scaled and implemented across the globe. This could take decades. While we work feverishly on this mother of all challenges, we must concurrently devise a way to remove or inactivate the CO2 already in our atmosphere - all the prevention of future emissions matter little if we are unable to remove the gas already warming our planet. Tall order, to say the least. Godspeed
Great piece. Critical message.
2
Soak the rich.
Save the planet.
Easier said than done, but what other choices do we have?
4
I'd like to live in "Valley of the Blue Moon", Shangri-La. Like in the 1973 movie "Lost Horizon". I was 19 years of age when I seen it in theater in Detroit, Michigan back then. But it seems we are in a quagmire at the moment and we're living in a world where no matter the politics it's what is driving the United States to fail miserably, competition. Without foresight and knowledge where we're falling behind innovation such as electric only cars in mass production and infrastructure that goes along with it. It's as if we are living in the time of the fictional character "Indiana Jones" and the 1981 movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark" or worst yet the 1989 movie "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade". They were both good movies but ended poorly for my second cousin on my mom's side of family Allison Doody who played character "Elsa" in the 1989 movie. "Elsa" died in that movie. Because the Holy Grail was something "Elsa" could not possess. Maybe that is where we are right now as a country along with the people of other nations. "“This barrier is absolutely critical to border security,” …. “a choice between right and wrong, between justice and injustice.” as President Donald J. Trump said in his Presidential Address which lasted about ten minutes tonight. Is that what he is grasping at the Holy Grail?
1
@Joanne Rumford
I love your comment.
...but no wall, please.
1
Tom,
Dr. James Powell, Superconducting Maglev inventor, his son. Dr. Jesse Powell, a Scripps educated scientist and I are in total agreement with your Green New Deal. The Powells are technologists and I am an energy and environment public policy wonk that has worked in this field for 50 years.
Last year, we completed "Spaceship Earth, How Long Before We Crash?" that agrees with your population/energy math and scale of the problem.
"Spaceship Earth" is about: affordable electricity, desalination of ocean water, and a system for capturing and sequestering massive amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Is humanity willing to give up fossil fuels and the standard of living that they enable and go back to a lower standard of living, shorter life spans, a horse & wagon type of existence? Emphatically, NO!
Humans will continue to burn vast amounts of fossil fuels.
Humans will only give up fossil fuels and switch to clean energy if the new energy sources continue to sustain our lifestyle & are AFFORDABLE.
We describe how to use Maglev to launch payload to geosynchronous orbit for less than 1% of a chemical rocket launch. The payload is an unfurling solar cell that generates electricity 4X more efficiently that ground solar, converts it to microwaves and beams it to fields of antennae on Earth. The wholesale price of space solar electricity? 2 cents per kilowatt-hour.
With 2 cents per kwhr, desal, atmosphere scrubbing is a piece of cake.
Funded by World Bank?
I adore the cheerful “atmo scrubbing is a piece of cake.”
This will not catch - creating new markets by regulating old markets to fail. Or calling an abstract ecological sustainability patriotic. Ain't these all arguments that are founded in the logic of a political conviction ? It is the same to call coal patriotic, just by someone who does deny climate change.
Also new regulations will have an effect on purchasing power, they may be muffled, dribble down through a system of transfers, but they will somehow affect the lowest incomes. And will exclude more people from the western standards of being middle-class.
America has a wealth parity problem. The world has ecological problem. You can find policies that addresses both problems. But there is no compelling logic that one issue is linked to the other. AOC's socialism is not the solely solution to climate change. Linking them to get make it just harder to sell to an already stressed audience.
4
A 'Green New Deal' is a polite way to acknowledge what has always lain quietly at the bottom of all climate activism schemes: economic chaos resulting in mass unemployment and vast government welfare programs funded by wealth expropriation on a totalitarian scale--in effect, communism as heretofore envisioned only in the dreams of Soviet planners. This hopefully to prevent revolution by the tens of millions shut out of an upended, shrinking economy--shrinking to what purpose? To reorganize the whole WORLD economy to deal with climate changes, progress against which might be unmeasurable during anyone's lifetime. And even this does not recognize that the entire world would have to unite and subscribe to this plan for it to have any chance of success. Surprise, surprise, the Democrats do not control the world, yet. So, as we voluntarily eviscerate our own economy, other nations will laugh and happily move into economic and world-power opportunities we vacate as we go into our national suicidal death throws. Welcome to the future innocently envisioned by the Democrats. Belief in such an idea is not only post-rational, it's positibely religious!
4
@Ronald B. Duke
Under your scenario, there will be no future.
1
Apparently adding trillions to the debt and forcing everyone to pay higher prices is okay with Dems.
3
Beats doing the same for more weapons, stupider policies, and a damaged planet.
The car, even if it is electric, is still a lousy way to get anywhere. Clogged roads. Traffic jams. Drunk drivers. Sleepy drivers. Road ragers. All that noise pollution. Ugh.
Can we build more bike lanes and bike trails please and make sure all our children - through PE in public schools - know how to ride bikes? And improve mass transit, the walkability of our cities and towns and vastly improve the bike-ability of towns and even suburbs. This is what I'd like the Green New Deal to include before/instead of anything car - related. Thank you.
7
@jay
Florida for all its wisdom has been putting bike lanes on most of the major roads. But they have not put any sidewalks for pedestrians to use. I have even seen pedestrians in the bike lanes.
Everyday we hear about 1-3 people killed in the bike lanes or crossing the streets either walking or riding. I feel much safer here in a car.
A ‘Green Deal’ that includes universal healthcare, guaranteed minimum Income, mandates for private citizens and the elimination of an entire segment of the economy is dead on arrival.
5
This article’s suggestion that a carbon tax be used to fund rural development seems counterproductive, as people living in rural areas use far more energy per capita than people living in dense urban ones. If we are serious about environmentalism, we should not develop rural areas but actually incentivize people to live in denser areas.
Similarly, AOC’s attempt to include things like a jobs guarantee, basic income, and universal healthcare in her Green New Deal seem counterproductive too. Competing priorities are only going to take money and attention away from environmental investment. The purpose of a Green New Deal is to reduce carbon emissions, not create jobs. For example, if we can reduce the cost and increase the use of solar panels by importing them from lower-wage countries and using less labor-intensive processes for installing and maintenance, we should do it even if it means we aren’t creating as many jobs.
A Green New Deal will be taken more seriously and have a higher chance of success if people do not try to mix it with their other pet political projects that have nothing to do with the environment.
6
@Aoy
Some of us have ZERO interest in living in 'denser areas'.
Incentivization will not influence us. Should some sort of disaster befall Civilization (a grid-frying EMP comes to mind), there are those of us who want to be able to survive it more or less unscathed. That means a lot of self-sufficiency which is developed over time and is impossible to sustain in said 'denser areas'. Thanks anyway. (And we don't use that much energy, plus we are primary food producers, which most urbanites are definitely not.)
3
@Irene Wood
It is naive to think that living in a low-density area and cultivating survival skills will insulate you or your children from the worst effects of climate change. We are in the early stages of the Holocene
Extinction, which is entirely man-made and is on track to rival the Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction, which wiped out 75% of all plant and animal life, including the dinosaurs. All the animal and plant food you consume is part of an ecosystem (a delicate web consisting of prey and predator, microbes, insects, pollinators, gases, minerals, precipitation, etc.), and all ecosystems will be severely disrupted by climate change because species cannot evolve quickly enough to adapt to it. When food sources begin to dry up, social order will break down. You and your children may be able to "survive," but it is not a life I would want to bequeath to anyone.
1
@Irene Wood
There is a big difference in how much energy rural and urban residents consume. Alaska consumes more than four times as much energy per capita as New York https://www.eia.gov/state/rankings/
Most rural residents aren’t food producers either. Plus you don’t need that much space to grow food. The world’s second largest food exporter after the US is the tiny and densely populated Netherlands.
And some civilizational disasters could disproportionately affect rural areas. The Dust Bowl and Great Depression did, for example.
1
I rode as a passenger in the front seat in a Tesla 3 on January 4, 2019 with my niece's husband driving and my niece and their children in the back seat. Visiting me for Christmas 2018 from Canada. Amazing it only cost $4.00 for about one hour and four minutes driving time charged here in the United States before heading home. It took about 50 minutes to charge. Of which was not far from where I live. Time spent alone with my niece and their children while her husband drove to charge their car. Oh, and they have a charging station at their house in Canada. How green can you go? I would say pretty far!
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@Joanne Rumford
How will we dispose of the batteries?
2
@Matthew
Tesla batteries are predicted to have a useful life of about 500,000 miles give or take 100,000. After that the materials can be recycled.
4
@Matthew , How do they dispose of the junk in our atmosphere and beyond?
Bravo! for acknowledging Alexandria Ocassio-Cortez' fabulous spirit and a New Green Deal.
There does need to be a government new deal to some extent. Electricity markets are stacked against renewables, Texas is only one example.
An accurate series of articles in the NYTimes, about 100 years' history of fossil fuels government subsidies should start tomorrow.
You have to have a strong democracy and equality.
Pork barrel and monopoly are corruption prone.
There are software people all over the place, but Silicon Valley is not who will make things run. Free Markets need to be fair markets; Replace war with diplomacy for the global public good or we won't beat climate change. It is well documented that greed and extravagance are the hugest co2 footprint.
Free markets wouldn't know an innovation if they tripped over one. Then they would steal it. So called free markets as they are now cause environmental damage; build ugly and cheap, and in excess; are harmful to health, communities and Nature. Wind turbines everywhere are good, but right next to Great Basin National Park? The diabolical blinking red lights ruin the night sky far and wide. Function, beauty, and safety is good for Earth X and wildlife. These things all go together.
Now is the time to insist on this kind of innovation, quality and design; inclusive labor law, fair immigration law, environmental law, and education. They go together.
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@Julie
Innovation and environmental quality are so much better in China, Russia and the EU. \sarc
The more socialist, the greater the poverty and the poorer the environmental conditions.
Pork barrel and cronyism are not elements of capitalism, they are elements of socialism. Democracy and capitalism, along with fossil fuels, raise people out of poverty.
@JulieActually Texas is very supportive of renewable energy.
1
@David
Yes! there are lots of renewables in Texas, but there are still problems with the utilities and the grid. My thought was that the so-called free market won't solve the fact, and the problem, that the grid is mostly privately owned now; is what I meant.This is true in most states.
There are lots of rural municipalities that own their utilities but that is because they aren't profitable to the big grid owners that profit handsomely on big urban and suburban and industrial electricity markets. The Tennessee Valley rural electrification project comes to mind. Though they made mistakes, it was a public new deal project. Things like school systems, water supplies, power supplies are often better being in the public domain; Service and the public good is the objective.
Think of road systems, something that everybody uses and depends on. They are public; state, federal, county. If roads were privatized to make a profit, the way our grid system is, we would be paying tolls or held hostage in some way by private companies and safety becomes an issue too. Coal mines have been notoriously dangerous, for example and they re privately owned. Railroads have always had to be subsidized, or public to some extent. As is the oil and gas industry!
But everybody cries "communism!" I think it's so stupid. Making a good living is great, and owning a business too. Innovation and other necessities to a vibrant society and planet do better in the public commons.
.
Where I live the summers are sunny. I have an incredibly low tech solar hot water system: water panels, tank, thermosyphon. Couldn't be easier. I spend ZERO on heating water from mid April through mid November. (We drain it when there is freeze danger.) The rest of the year, heating water is one of my larger energy expenditures. Why is this simple, cheap, user-friendly system not universal, especially in places with fewer weeks of freezing? I could see a regional corps of Green New Deal youth installing these across sunny areas, rather like Americorps for conservation.
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@Kate
It is an inexpensive option. Why do you think the federal government should get involved? Why don't you form a neighborhood association to implement it in your neighborhood and then spread to surrounding areas?
If the federal government gets involved, they are going to incur high costs recruiting, training and paying travel costs for the new Americorps. [Check out how unsuccessful it is in training for jobs that actually exist. Very low placement rates for the youth trained per the centralized planners in the federal government.]
Next, they will place contract orders for equipment and material for politically well connected companies who will charge more than the goods are worth.
Start your own business, or convince a local business to do so. Get over believing the federal government should solve problems that are solvable at the local level.
1
@Kate Did you build it yourself? How much did it cost? I would like to install solar hot water but got a quote for $10,000! I would never recoup that. Please give details of this low tech system so I can replicate. thanks!
1
We missed the boat in 2007 and the train is leaving the station again.
If there were a chance of getting the job done
California’s cap and trade system would be both understood by the average American and applied throughout the country.
As it is, we’re entertainment driven and will gladly watch The Apprentice 2.O- The Heating of Planet Earth. I hope I’m wrong and we’re about to get to work on doing what needs to be done.
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@RjW
California has cap and trade and the Northeast has RGGI. Electricity costs have increased far more than the value of the reduction in CO2.
Average Americans are aware that raising government revenue never improves the quality of life.
The overwhelming proportion of the California population is opposed to the high speed train to nowhere that will cost more per passenger mile than airfare, and will be subsidized by working people for a miniscule ridership. The cronies who bought up the land hoping for a windfall when the state condemns it; the contractors who are going to profit from the overpriced, project delay bonuses, no-bid change orders, and poor state management; politicians; and other wealthy cronies are not going to give up without a fight.
It will not reduce CO2 production.
Green capitalism? Capitalism is premised upon eternal growth in energy and matter throughput. Decoupling is a delusion. The scale of human presence has to be stabilized and then reduced. Pretending that that is not the case is just a slow motion train wreck rather than a sinking ship. Get real about Capitalism’s locked in relationship with eternal growth. We need to envision a sustainable and desirable future that is based on a dynamic albeit relatively steady state economy that operates within the laws of nature (e.g the laws of thermodynamics) not the mythical invisible hands of the discipline of economics and capitalists.
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@Paul Sutton
Socialist governments with central planned economies by technocrats do so much better than capitalist democracies. Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward comes immediately to mind. Forty five million Chinese starved to death over four years. That would fit in well with your desire to reduce the population. The elite did not suffer. You must think you would be part of the protected class that would profit.
1
GREAT ideas! This is indeed a problem that is urgent, requires national (& preferably bi-partisan) commitment and should be addressed using market tools (carrots as well as sticks).
Where Mr. Friedman falls down though, is that he does not address what will actually be required technically: that is, HOW do we achieve a zero carbon economy, especially in transportation?
The whole global warming debate is polluted by endless argument about whether the world really is warming or if it is, whether humans are responsible and if so, does it matter, and a marked avoidance of what actually we should do about it.
Tom’s Green Revolution at least tries to suggest a way. To really close the circle though, we should ask ourselves: what existing technologies can supply the necessary zero carbon base-load capacity that renewables can never supply? (batteries WILL become better but never more than boutique)?
The answer, unpalatable as it is to Greenies and others, is nuclear and coal CCS.
So get real everyone, and start a crash program. The government’s role is two-fold: first, provide political risk guarantees that future legislation will not render the plants unviable and secondly, reserve say 20 per cent of the power market to be priced at average cost/KwH that will allow the 24x7 plants to be economic and leave the remaining 80 per cent of the market for renewables with their near zero marginal cost/KwH.
1
@Will Liley
Carbon capture is not an existing viable technology. It has never functioned on a commercial level except in very small scale operations where there was a need for CO2 to push hydrocarbons out of oil fields that were playing out. The theory that CO2 should be pumped into deep wells to contaminate the aquifers is absurd.
I approve of the ideas in this column. But i would add two things.
1) Existing, uneconomical nuclear power plants should be supported, if they can operate safely, until their output can be replaced by renewable sources. (It seems Illinois has stepped up to save the two plants the operator wanted to shutter. Good on them.)
2) R&D and prototyping of Gen-III and Gen -IV reactors should be funded to the extent possible.
6
A Green New Deal to save Mother Earth from our rapacious exploitation of natural resources is an urgent matter. But, in the name of greed, it is being thwarted irresponsibly 'a la Trump', a losing opportunity to at least delay destroying the environment (clean air, clean water) by adopting the revolutionary technology we have at hand...if only we had the will to change, and open, our mind to renewable energy, preferably by involving also the current companies embarked in producing and burning coal, oil and gas, so we could accelerate our efforts towards clean energy. Politics is the art of the possible our our politicians, currently engaged in 'politicking', must be educated and engaged in transforming our archaic thinking. What will it take for a paradigm to occur, other than the increased frequency and severity of natural disasters already biting our behinds?
2
@manfred marcus
What is omitted from the article is that the cost to poor and middle class consumers will do more damage to them than will be saved by the programs. There is a cost to society of making it too expensive for them to heat or cool their homes.
In 2009, the autocrat Pelosi ordered the House Democrats to vote for a cap and trade bill. Reid would not even offer it to his 60 Democrat Senators. Obama was silent, despite the fact that he had campaigned in 2008 as an environmental savior. If the true believer Democrats weren't willing to stand up and be counted, it seems somewhat absurd to criticize Trump who perceives the communists in China as being a greater threat than global warming.
Ah, yes, Father Greed. In Latin America, over 40% of electric energy is produced by hydro power. So we are in the sweet spot -- lots of sun, high electric rates, low installation costs, and hydro to balance the downtimes for solar and wind. Full disclosure: my local Mexican partners are gearing up to have a very large solar company, serving areas that no one is serving.
So a great practical policy would be for the US to arrange to provide low interest loans throughut Latin America -- it would cost zero, and be incredibly effective. This would boomerang to the States, to show that US installation costs are not reasonable.
In 8 -10 years, we would be able and ready, under the new trade agreement, to send 15,000 workers north to help accelerate solar there. Green Greed indeed!
1
@J. Genereux
Father greed. A commercial interest in Mexico would like to profit from American money funding their enterprise.
Too many people, not enough habitat.
7
I think that Friedman is dead on-target overall; I find little disagree with in his column. But I am amazed at the number of negative comments! Commenters bring up so many reasons why the Green New Deal can't happen or isn't going to happen. If these commenters are representative of the typical NYT liberal audience, then I'm really worried for the planet's future.
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@RetiredTechnologist
I only read Reader Picks. Most of the negative comments are not liked by many. Remember there are trolls here in the NY Times too.
Green baloney.
The fundamental issue is not green energy or CO2 but rather that humanity has become a geologic force transforming the planet with no regard for anything but the short term. Totally subjugating Nature and turning the whole world into a system of mines and plantations where everything must serve human needs is not mitigated by virtue of being done with renewable energy instead of fossil fuels.
As an example: its is estimated that 500 years ago there were 400 million beaver in North America. That was eventually reduced to about 100,000. So a 99.99+ percentage decrease. Is global warming likely to be a catastrophe for the beaver? No. Because their catastrophe has already happened, and it had nothing to do with fossil fuels. And if you don't care about beavers, the same is true of any number of other species. Worldwide, commercial fish stocks are down around 50% just since 1945. Insect populations are down - no one knows exactly why, or what the implications may be. The human project is too big, a lumbering long-term disaster; changing the fuel supply is a detail.
Friedman's eco-agenda does not address this problem. Rather it legitimizes our ongoing quest for totalitarian domination of the natural world by pretending that the secondary issue of CO2 and climate change, just one piece of the broader picture, is the only thing that matters. Totally wrong.
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@r a
This is a sharp comment, and I agree with much of it. After plowing through terrestrial and marine ecosystems left and right, we become indignant and single-minded with one (large) dimension of it.
But we need to start somewhere. And a Green New Deal is a change in the right direction, that hopefully, can spill over other aspects.
And I hope is not polluted by empty phrases. No guaranteed income for anybody please (people in need must be cared for though). For able bodies and minds, income for work - yes.
8
@r a
Me? I am waiting for the next great Extinction. I fear it is not too far off. Earth will start again without our nasty species. (Only a little irony here: some days I actually wish for it--just not within my remaining lifetime, of course.)
2
I think that climate survival and overpopulation remain our life-threatening problems, so hear, hear, Mr Friedman, as usual. You are a true thought leader. It is past time to scale up our clean energy. I feel the pain of our dying earth every day. It is homicidal for our green new deal initiatives to keep crashing against mega oil greed. But thank you for trying, President Obama, Al Gore, and everyone else. Now it really is desperation time. I heard there were 200,000 people at the climate talks in Poland, where the news was not good. There were too many subjects to keep track of. One of them probably was: how we can talk more openly and sensibly about reducing global population?
30
We'll see how Ocasio-Cortez does when faced with the obvious center point of the solution - nuclear power.
Nuclear power can bring electricity in tremendous capacity, as fast as we can allow it, while these other technologies mature and the things that make them less than perfect - like intermittency - get resolved.
Nuclear has to be part of any green agenda.
13
@WJL - No nuclear may simply allow us to build the house of cards even higher. We are past carrying capacity. The laws of thermodynamics win. Nature bats last. Hopefully I’ll be gone by then.
5
I think that Japan proved the risk of nuclear. I saw it all go down. I highly doubt that splitting atoms is the silver bullet.
7
@Paul, the games not over yet.
There’s work to be done.
Overpopulation. There are only so many resources in a finite world. Please look at the statistics. People with money are not raising large families. Populations are exploding in third world countries, and theyhave zero chance at sustaining themselves with any semblance of a normal life. Meaning basic necessities. I wish this issue would be raised, especially by Mr Friedman.
24
@betsy I think you got that backwards. Poor people in third world countries have a small ecological footprint. They’re only a sustainability problem if/when they become like us, which is what’s happening in India, China, ...
Blaming them?
5
@betsy
In 1800, Malthus predicted the British would be eating Irish children in 50 years. When the potato famine began, that prediction may have prompted the exodus to America.
The solution to overpopulation is not birth control, it is low cost energy from fossil fuels, which leads to wealth, which leads to declining birth rates.
It's what progressives don't get. They believe they can impose their rules on inferior people to prevent them from reproducing and having their descendants compete with the descendants of the elite. We got ours because we are superior and we have no intention of sharing with others. Progressives believe we live in a zero sum universe, and anything anybody else gets detracts from what they get.
1
@betsy No, the problem is overconsumption in rich countries. If you look at the statistics, you can see that all of Africa combined consumes less than 1/4th the oil of the United States.
6
I would add the food industry as well. Greenies need to eat greener. Cows alone have major impact on the environment although I will concede that giving up beef is not an option for this concerned citizen. Anyways, using less energy is working out well for Japan, an example of this is that the annual power consumption on a refrigerator (the largest load in most households) is clearly written on the inside of the door. My fridge (a venerable 15yo) day it averages 14kWh per month. People actually look at that kind of thing. I never ceases to amaze me, the sheer volume of zombie refrigerators in the states. I suggest starting with the low hanging fruit everyone can reach while creating an environment where the renewable energy equivalent of Steve Jobs can emerge.
4
Don't discount hobbies and tinkering on a small scale. Sometimes inadvertently great new ideas emerge. Sometimes even by mistake, like penicillin discovered from a moldy piece of bread in a lab refrigerator.
6
Meat production creates lots of methane. Reduce cattle and pigs and this alone will drop the climate change. Better health and less medical costs
Reduce gas and go to electrical cars and trucks
Energy efficient living and working structures
Use less coal
Redo our electrical grid systems
Wear a sweater in the evenings and turn heating down 5 degrees.
Turn off your lights when not needed
We all can make a big contribution as individuals.
2
By what right may we Homo sapiens divert the natural course of evolution in favor of our own survival and that of the several species we hold dear to our hearts at the expense of our would-be successors in the future. Seems pretty selfish to me. But what do I know?
I agree, but let’s kick start the green new deal with a revenue neutral carbon fee and dividend program that incentivized everyone to get off fossil fuels. Such a program exists and has been submitted to Congress by a bi-partisan group representatives. You read about it here:https://citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-and-dividend/
3
@Alan Wright
As a participant in the RGGI, Massachusetts imposed a carbon tax. How'd that work out for you? Electricity prices permanently increased and the funds were diverted to the general fund.
You are now hoping that the residents of Wyoming, West Virginia and Kentucky will pay $1500 more in electricity costs, get $500 back and refund the high carbon tax you are paying to Massachusetts by contributing to Massachusetts residents for their high energy costs.
I’ve been wanting this ever since Al Gore won the popular vote.
YES WE CAN!
3
@Chris McMasters
Was that when he became VP with 43% of the popular vote, less than even Trump with his 46%?
I thought it was a great idea in 2007 and think it’s a great idea in 2019. But people like me don’t need convincing.
4
We have to stop flying, stop buying, and state wars and the military industrial complex, nuclear war expansion and Cold War upgrades. Turn it off. Stay at home, Go dark. Jimmy Carter, in his sweater in the White House. The Market won't cut it.
7
Spot on! Creating millions of sustainable jobs that pay a living wage via a Green New Deal is EXACTLY what's needed. But what will really get Trump/Republican voters behind it - which is going to be key to getting it off the ground - will be to ensure that a significant investment happens in the "flyover country". Offering alternatives to coal and oil/gas development jobs is the key.
This such a slam dunk idea, it's maddening that no one has even tried to implement it. Get it done!
2
I don't see how anything Green will happen as long as Trump and the GOP hold power.
13
Sorry. But Tom Friedman's book, Hot, Flat and Crowded" came 40 years too late.
A better treatment was given by Paul Ehrlich in the Population Bomb, a book published in 1968, and in the book, Limits to Growth, by Meadows, Meadows, Behrens and Randers which appeared in 1972.
The latter book constructed several mathematical models of what might happen if population growth continued to be ignored by politicians and journalists like Friedman. There were several possibilities, all bad. In some cases, people ran out of necessities, like food. In others, the environment was destroyed (an early warning of global warming).
Because people born today don't use resources at a maximal rate until 20 years later, the models included delays. Those delays produced "overshoot and collapse" in some of the scenarios.
Journalists held up these warnings to ridicule. But we have waited for 50 years for action. During that time the population of Guatemala grew from 5 million to 17 million. That is the reason poor people from Guatemala undertake a caravan journey in the hope of being admitted to the US.
Yet liberals declare that those who have been warning un for 50 years are bigots and racists for not opening our borders to the 17 million from Guatemala, and more from Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, and sources other points south.
Not only do liberals deny the problem but they declare that conservatives are racists for noticing that it is getting crowded in the US (cf the LA freeways).
5
@Jake Wagner
Liberals are the one who support ‘Limits to growth’ more than conservatives. Conservative economists were the primary critics of the limits to growth study. Interesting recent follow ups on the limits to growth study show that their predictions have pretty much nailed exactly what happened in the ‘Business as usual’ scenario. I do admit that many liberals don’t seem to want to discuss the population question. But conservatives are just as guilty of that denial.
1
Your point is great; politics are wrong. It is the GOP that is against not just abortion but birth control; it is the GOP that is against foreign aid that would make birth control its central tenet; it is the GOP that is run by evangelicals, extremist Catholics, and Mormons who collectively think unlimited births per family is "God's plan."
3
Paul Ehrlich was wrong then and you’re wrong now. In 1970 He famously predicted mass starvation by 1985 because of over-population and someone bet him $1m he’d be found to be wrong ($1m was real money back in 1970). They agreed on the terms, he was proven wrong, and he refused to pay up.
3
"Who believes that America can remain a great country and not lead the next great global industry?"
Exactly. That is why it is also important to acknowledge that, "My own definition of a Green New Deal, which has evolved since 2007 as the technology has gotten better . . .."
If we are to be leader of anything, it will be in finding new technology, and finding ways to apply it.
This is a Green solution that requires technology and growth of an industry. Green is too often seen as opposite to tech and growth, by both Green advocates and people who worship national economic numbers.
2
The Green New Deal is packaged to sound attractive, but it misses a fundamental element of human decision-making: "time preference".
When you posit a cost or a benefit far out in time (say 50 years away, like most climate disaster scenarios), people implicitly apply a discount rate to bring that cost or benefit back to a present value they can see or feel today. This is time preference -- a person values a dollar more today than a dollar a year out.
For most people (who aren't financial professionals or academics), the calculation is implicit. But let's toss out a discount rate for illustration -- 10%.
An average US voter applying a 10% discount rate to a climate disaster scenario occurring in 50 years -- a really serious one that would cost her children $1 million -- would bring that back to today as a present cost of roughly $8,000.
$8,000 is not insignificant. It's comparable to each year's property taxes on a nice suburban home, 10% of the annual bill for an elite college education for a child, or 20% of the cost of a new pickup truck. But it's not a "disaster" number: one that would the average voter to take to the streets and insist on immediate climate action.
Immediate pain, distant benefits. That's why the Green New Deal will fail to galvanize massive public support.
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@Stuck on a mountain
You are using things built by people 50-100 years ago! Imagine if they hadn’t, you would be still riding horses and getting killed by simple bacteria ! May be that should have happened then we wouldn’t have all these disasters like pollution etc !
1
@Stuck on a mountain
The reality is that if the present value of the cost is $8,000 per person, Americans cannot afford to spend $2.8 trillion today, or $280 billion per year for ten years, while China is spending Zero or negative numbers. Interestingly enough, the Obama plan was estimated to burden the US economy by $0.5 trillion per year by 2030, increasing thereafter.
The most important existential threat to humanity is power of the democracies relative to the power of the totalitarians.
That is what is missing from your position.
1
Tom is definitely on to something, but the task has always been to show people that forget about altruism, nobody is moving until you can really make the case for economic self interest above anything else. Case in point, probably one of the bigger pure play ETFs that covers the smart grid (symbol GRID) has been giving up whatever gains it had since the Trumpster and his minions have assumed power, so if forward looking investors who have a long time frame don't think it is a good bet, likely the public won't think it will be much benefit. Hitching a wagon to anything AOC endorses (because her precision with facts is almost Trumplike) will likely will get 100% of Republicans and any awful lot of Democrats turned off. I suspect to overcome the back to the 1950s coal enthusiasts, a very big non-partisan tent is going to be needed. Unless we somehow can win over the people who are the biggest influences on our culture (athletes, musicians, academics, forward looking business leaders) and get them to speak out positively and regularly on some of the points Tom has laid out from a grass roots level, we stay on the same glide path.The needle isn't going to move from what politicians say, the persuasion is going to have to be delivered repeatedly from people the public has some admiration for.
3
Agree. Dems and the left media like MSNBC are committing hari cari with every exposure of this Freshman nitwit. Get the cane, pull her off center stage, put her in the back of the classroom with a notepad where she can maybe learn from others more experienced than she. I say this as a very liberal coastal elite who is sick of AOC already. I want to hear from adults. Thanks.
1
With all the support and due respect to Mr. Friedman's idea of "The Green New World" (the author's title paraphrased jocularly -- T.X.), the plans of using the wind, tidal, and hydroelectric power, or waste biorecycling are so much hot air.
In my humble opinion, the only way to counteract global warming -- if it is not too late -- is a concerted development of the utilization of solar energy.
The photoelectric effect was discovered by Heinrich Hertz in 1877 and theoretically explained by Albert Einstein in 1905. One-hundred forty to about 115 years would seem to be enough time to develop the necessary technology for conversion of sunlight to elecgricity.
Ok, reality check time. Here are the hard truths.
1. Renewables are NOT cheaper than fossil fuels when you consider the "always on" and "peak demand" problems.
2. Because renewables are not cheaper the developing world is using fossil fuels as the basis of their economic growth. China is now releasing more CO2 than the US. Within the next few years India will pass the US. What ever gains the US and the developed world make in curtailing CO2 it will be swamped by the developing world. Global warming will continue.
3. Until technology makes renewables cheaper than fossil fuels any Green New Deal is just a slogan. At best it's implementation would make our economy more inefficient and at worst it would be a vast waste of time and money.
4. Global warming is locked in until 2050. Hope you don't own property in New Orleans or Miami or are engaged in agriculture in the Southern Plains. Hope Colorado doesn't expect winter tourism (skiing) to be a significant industry in 2050.
My 2 cents
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@C.G.
"Global warming is locked in until (at least) 2050".
THIS. And it's something most people don't get, that what has already gone into the atmosphere will create changes for another several decades, and what is going into the atmosphere now will not even begin to create effects for some time yet, although that window is closing as the oceans lose their capacity to serve as an excess heat sink.
Al Gore discussed this in his book Earth in the Balance in the early 1990's (it's called 'atmospheric lag time'), which I read when it was hot off the press and never forgot.
4
I concur with Mr. Friedman that free market solutions are the best approach. What he fails to mention and could maybe convince a few doubters to come on board is the laws of supply and demand. Prices for items like hydrocarbons change drastically based on very small changes in the supply/demand curve. Take a look at prices in the last 20 years vs supply. The latter changes little and slowly, while the former changes drastically. While not guaranteed, all other things being equal, dropping our hydrocarbon use each and every year will REDUCE prices because it will result in excess supply. Thus even with hefty taxes (which are refunded to tax payers one way or another) the purchase price may not go up much. There's good evidence that producers won't reduce as quickly as demand drops- just look at what's happening right now in the Permian basin with oil < $50/barrel. Production continues to increase. So it could be a win/win for everyone (except big oil).
1
Does Mr. Friedman realize that it is the CO2 and other greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere that is causing global warming/climate change? Zero emissions energy will solve the other problems. We are in an emergency situation do this--just the warming that we have, a plateau of CO2/ppm, will/is causing additional warming as the ice caps melt. We don't have a carbon tax because the oil industry wants to continue to sell as much oil as possible. The MSM, including google, doesn't push it because their revenue comes from advertising high pollution products--think high profit gas guzzlers and Republicans. It is not just that a carbon tax is needed, the revenue needs to go to subsidize the purchase of renewables, which are cheap hybrids/electric vehicles and a solar/wind grid (with hydro), including individual purchases with the latter, called feed-in-tariff. Bring down new CO2 emissions fast.
The major effort required, from government, would mean the U.S. would have to lead, i.e. alliances made. China would follow on air quality, but coal would have to be banned, including the export of coal plants and the export of coal from the U.S. and Australia. Rain forests, carbon sinks, would have to be protected, especially Indonesia and Brazil.
The developing world would skip the high pollution part of the industrial revolution. They would not only have clean energy, but cheaper energy. Solar/wind/micro-hydro would leap frog a high pollution grid.
Read the IPCC report.
5
Friedman is right -- a combination of regulation and innovation harnessing the power of good old fashioned greed can greatly impact climate change.
Cases in point. We have pretty much solved the ozone depletion problem with regulation and innovation by industry. We have pretty much solved the acid rain problem with a cap and trade approach to sulfur dioxide.
We can apply the same approach, albeit at a massive scale, to tackle climate change and more. This is a political problem -- nothing more. Voting Green is what we need!
12
We did all this green stuff in the early 80's when OPEC jacked up oil prices. I worked in the power industry (construction) and saw first hand nuclear, solar, tidal power, air cooked condensers for large plants, wind, and advanced hydroelectric generators all pushing the technology to the limits.
Then OPEC saw what we were doing, oil prices dropped, and the U.S. got complacent, and all that technology slipped to the wayside, and off we went building oil fired power plants.
You just can't win sometimes.
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@cherrylog754
OPEC (and the US oil industry) saw what was happening and resolved to compete to keep us dependent on fossil fuels by lowering prices. They were competing and using the market to win. As long as they could manipulate oil prices low enough to smother alternatives (which meant manipulating the market) they could safeguard the long-term future of fossil fuels unless renewables and conservation could manipulate the market in a different direction.
Big Oil wants and needs us to see the current behavior of the market as natural rather than as a product of manipulation to encourage the growth of suburbs and dependence on the automobile. Our oil and coal fired power plants are a product of market manipulation and propaganda rather than something inevitable that somehow happened to Big Oil and Big Auto while they just went about their business. Their business was make their domination of the economy happen, and they did.
6
@cherrylog754 oil is a transportation fuel very rarely used for power generation in just a few locations around the world. Coal and natural gas are the primary fossil fuels used in power generation.
@Chris-Not sure how old you are, but I'm 75 and worked in the 70' and 80's on power plant construction. Two examples of oil fired power plants. Canal Plant iin Sandwich, MA and Brayton Point in Fall River, MA. There were many others back then, some what we called dual fuel, both coal and oil capable. In 1981 Brayton Point converted three of it's four units from oil to coal, I happened to work on that project.
4
We already know what to do and we already know how to do it. The only piece of the puzzle that is lacking is large scale stationary batteries to store electricity. Those are probably 10 to 20 years away. In the meantime, we can build wind turbines and solar as fast as we have the money to pay for them.
In three years, the major automakers will be unveiling dozens of electric vehicles with great ranges approaching or even exceeding 300 miles. We already know how to build high speed rail. We already know how to build high efficiency buildings and appliances.
The only thing lacking is the will to do these things. We only lack the desire to commit the funds necessary to save the world from climate change.
Climate change is then primarily a political problem, not an engineering problem.
We can fix it at the ballot. The fix will require a commitment that never ceases. It will take decades to make a significant difference. That's why we have to start now, both here are around the world. The only thing we have to fear are short term profits, corporate political influence, right wing fake news that refuses to acknowledge the problem, and a whole lot of denial from the public. We need a green new deal of attitude and understanding, and political will.
36
@Bruce Rozenblit - Bruce, you in common with all but one New York Times comment writer never mention the technologies standard in the Nordic countries, mentioned once again in my comment a few down from you and soon shown in my blog update.
Interestingly Green Mountain Power a natural gas company has shown the way in a low-income housing project where I believe solar and heat pump systems are combined with battery installations that are of a size that makes it possible for every home to have electricity at least during intervals when power lines are down and no solar is being produced because it is dark.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
When sun spot activity reaches its maximum around 2050, most of the 10B people residing on earth will be baked out of existence whether we stop inputting greenhouse gases or not.
So let oil and coal have their last 25 year run then fire up geothermal generators in the attic for the survivors and cluster around vertical farms and 50OG AI network hubs.
Hey Tom, you left out "lifelong learning" from this week's column! Did you finally realize it's a fool's errand?
3
Cutting out the massive subsidies to fossil fuels would pay for most of any Green New Deal.
184
“You had to reach conservatives and even climate deniers. My way of doing that was to focus on something we can all agree on: math.”
That’s funny.
If they deny that 7 billion people are damaging the earth, why would they think 8 billion will?
30
This should be the rallying cry of Silicon Valley's billionaire philanthropists. While laudable, and meaningful to the individuals and communities directly impacted, efforts to eradicate known diseases, retard aging, colonize mars and the like, will come to naught if our planet's ecosystem collapses due to our continued abuse of the environment that sustains us all.
8
Perfection is the enemy of the good.
Let's promote less polluting sources of energy such as natural gas (the flaring of it in oil fields is a waste and a crime). When the temperature's below freezing and the sky's gray in good old NY in the winter, solar and wind power are not the answer. They have their place, but nothing is 100% correct.
@42 years is enough
You are right but that is where storage comes in; and an environment of serious investment and government subsidies for further renewable innovation. I invite you to walk around oil and gas processing plants. You would be appalled.
1
Yes, 42 years is enough, "60 Minutes" had a segment on Sunday about an individual unlocking the secret to making fuel out of dead plants. it's incredible. It's also cheap.
New ideas are coming to light every, single day and WE THE PEOPLE must DEMAND that new technologies that are environmentally friendly - and affordable as plant fuel is - are allowed to flourish.
Keep BIG energy and BIG investors of all kinds OUT. Do not let them control it because they will just kill or minimize it. OUR hard-earned taxpayer money can fund it and OUR governments can administer it. All profits must go to support OUR infrastructure and social safety nets including health coverage and education
2