By KC Golden
If you’ve been calling on Washington, D.C., to deliver climate solutions, you might feel like you’ve been waiting on hold listening to Muzak for 30 years. But the new administration has a mandate to answer the call. Biden and Harris campaigned on climate solutions as a top priority and a centerpiece of their economic recovery strategy.
In those decades of dithering, however, reality marched on. Intensifying fires, floods and droughts are making more places uninhabitable, increasing migration pressure as people flee to safety. The most vulnerable folks, who did the least to cause climate disruption, are suffering the worst impacts. But no one’s immune. Remember when summer was heavenly, the best time to explore and enjoy the wonders of the West? Now we wonder if we’ll be able to breathe.
This is not a political position. It’s just physics getting physical. And it’s not messing around.
But another, brighter reality is emerging too: the clean energy revolution. Sustainable, economical energy and transportation choices are becoming available. We now have the tools and technologies – and the intergenerational responsibility – to tackle the climate challenge head-on.
No one solution
There’s no single, perfect solution, but here’s a great example: Electric vehicles are poised to break oil’s monopoly on transportation fuel. They’re quicker and more reliable than gas cars, with fewer moving parts. Some of the first models are pricey, but when they get to scale, they’re projected to be cheaper than comparable gas vehicles. And renewable electricity to power them is already less expensive than fossil fuels.
California, Europe and even General Motors have adopted plans to go electric for all models. Need a truck? If you watched the Super Bowl, you were inundated by ads for electric F-150s. Whatever you’re driving now, you can probably make it your last petroleum-guzzler.
Consider the economics: A mile’s worth of electricity costs about 3-4 cents. That same mile on petroleum costs around 12-15 cents. So when you go electric, roughly 3/4 of your old fuel bill stays in your pocket and then gets spent at Hank’s or Twisp Feed or wherever. The one-fourth you spend on electricity goes to the Electric Co-op or the PUD. All of it is freed up from the distant oil economy and potentially available for local goods and services.
And it adds up. Currently, we spend about $20 million a year on petroleum fuel for transportation in the Methow. That’s $20 million gone from the valley, straight into the coffers of OPEC, ExxonMobil, etc. – a huge oil leak in our economy. A fat chunk of that money goes to the lobbyists and influence-peddlers who defend oil subsidies, block alternatives, and cast doubt on climate science.
That’s right, you pay for that jive at the gas pump. When we go electric, we take that money back. Building convenient charging stations will take some investment and ingenuity, but it’s not that hard. We’re basically talkin’ big plugs. Most of the time, we’ll charge up at home.
Necessary transition
Despite the fossil fuel industry’s best efforts to squash them, solutions are ripe. The question is, how fast can we deploy them, making a sweeping transition from the Fossil Fuel Era to the Clean Energy Age? Climate science (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says we need to get halfway there by 2030, and we’re moving way too slowly.
But the new administration seems determined to get cracking, not fracking. When Joe Biden – the ultimate establishment insider – pledges to transition America off oil, as he did in the last presidential debate, we’re getting somewhere.
Even with a more solution-focused administration, we know better than to wait for federal action. States and communities are moving forward; Washington’s already on a path to 100% fossil-fuel-free electricity. Look for more great local solutions when the Methow adopts its Climate Action Plan early next year, including affordable transportation choices, healthy forest initiatives, water and energy efficiency projects, and agricultural sector solutions. To learn more, go to www.resilientmethow.org. They’re having a big (virtual) public meeting on Dec. 10.
Local communities can do a lot. But we need our federal government to provide global leadership and adopt a sensible national climate policy that supports local efforts to deliver solutions on the ground.
The United States will rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement on Jan. 20, breathing new life into the international campaign for solutions. To make good on that global commitment, we’ll need a Methow Agreement too – a working local-state-federal partnership to show what our community can do to make climate solutions real.
KC Golden is Board Chair of 350.org and former Energy Policy Director for Washington state.
