Do we all have to drown in rising seas or
broil in epic droughts before we decide it's time to switch to renewable
energy?
There's
money to be made in wind and solar power, but so far, not very much. And that's
the way fossil fuel giants aim to keep it. As of today, they're winning the
energy battle because federal subsidies for renewable energy are about to
expire, unlike Uncle Sam's
giveaways to the oil, gas, coal, and nuclear industries.
Although
the fossil fuel biz could fare perfectly well without any corporate welfare, it
gives the industry a cozy margin to plow back into advertising and lobbying.
Its propaganda is paramount in holding public opinion at bay, and its campaign
cash is handy for persuading governments to pass lucrative special-interest
laws.
There's
no denying that energy is vital. Modern civilizations run on it, wars are
fought over it, and fortunes are built on it. But it's that last one that
causes the biggest problem. Left to their own devices, sensible governments would
rush into cheap renewable energy. That would reduce dependence on other nations
and on risky fuel transportation, while making our air cleaner.
But
sensible governments are few and far between at either the state or national
level.
Coal
calls the shots in West Virginia and Kentucky, while natural gas is buying
political clout in the unlikely precincts of Ohio and Pennsylvania. A
fast-growing gas and oil production technique called hydraulic fracturing and
better known as "fracking" has become the most destructive phenomenon
since mountaintop removal mining became all the rage.
The
results are the same: A few people win out while the rest get poisoned water
and wrecked land.
There's good news in
Vermont, however. Earlier
this year, the state took the tongue-in-cheek step of banning fracking
altogether. That might seem like a brave move — if the state actually had any
significant natural gas resources.
There's no good energy news to
report from the Canadian province of Alberta. I have personally toured its
massive tar sands moonscapes and watched the exorbitantly costly processing of
that noxious oil.
Luckily
for the moguls, it's all so remote that only the abused and ignored Native
Americans suffer the immediate poisoning. That reduces the political
consequences.
The
local caribou are suffering too, as their habitat is gobbled up, and for some
reason they've got more clout than Canada's First Nations communities. Check
out Alberta's stunning solution for this wildlife problem: Kill all the
wolves so that the caribou herds can flourish. I'm
not kidding.
Meanwhile, unless the
protesters prevail,
all that remarkably toxic oil will soon be heading south from Canada through
the Keystone Pipeline to the Gulf Coast, much of it on its way to Asia and
other export markets.
Do
we all have to drown in rising seas or broil in epic droughts before we decide
it's time to switch to renewable energy? Wind and sunshine are simply too hard
to monopolize and convert into excess profits, so they'll have to wait.
The
oil speculators themselves will merely build homes on higher ground.
OtherWords columnist
William A. Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor of
Norwalk, Connecticut. OtherWords.org
