Sacred Earth

544

An honest look at climate solutions

With the daily distractions, it’s easy to forget the beauty of the world. The lyrics and sounds of John Two-Hawks’ Beautiful World album, his magic flute, and Lakota wisdom have inspired many people to rise up to heal the planet. “We will hope again. We will heal as one.”

The Green New Deal has opened the conversation on climate for the 2020 presidential election. It is endorsed by the Sunrise Movement and a wide sector of Americans. The GOP has gone on the attack without an alternative plan, based on the following flawed notions:

  1. Humans are masters of the universe

False. Carl Sagan explored the concept of a universe not made for human beings. “Humans are just a tiny part of this universe, we are not that much special as we think we are,” he said.

  1. No alternatives to fossil fuels

False. Solar, wind, and tide power are superior-performance, low-cost, high-resilient sources of power. Solar power storage, the missing link, is now used in Arkansas. The City of Fayetteville collaborating with Ozarks Electric Cooperative and Today’s Power have a 10-megawatt solar array with 24-megawatt hours of storage. The solar array will provide 72 percent clean energy for the site, and $6 million savings over 20 years.

The technology of electric vehicles is far superior to gas guzzlers. Charging stations will soon replace gas pumps making underground gasoline storage tanks and leaky pumps obsolete.

Plastics made with natural gas and microplastics are now in our food chain killing fish in the ocean. Moving away from single-use plastics will reduce the demand for natural gas.

Coal-fired power plants are polluting our air and poisoning our water, and the Trump administration is making the problem worse. There are no alternatives to our planet.

  1. The US economy is booming

False. The budget deficit and the public debt are booming, not the economy. The illusion of an economic boom is maintained by Trump’s claims of “beautiful deals” and threats of recession if impeached.

The U.S. economy, like Venezuela’s, is based on fossil fuels exports, ignoring the growing demand for solar power and storage, and electric vehicles. Trump’s $4.3 trillion budget plan will expand the military, cutting back on healthcare and education for Americans.

  1. The Green New Deal is unaffordable

False. The GOP claims the cost of the Green New Deal would be $93 trillion. This number is made up. The GOP might as well say they have sold their soul and want to keep getting paid.

The true cost of fracking is $60 billion per year. A ban on fracking will fund the transition to green energy creating thousands of quality jobs.

  1. Shale gas is a bridge from coal

False. Shale gas is not a bridge fuel, it’s a fossil fuel with massive emissions of carbon dioxide and fugitive emissions of methane.

Fracking update

Fracking in the US is banned in New York (2012), Vermont (2012), and Maryland (2017).

Florida is the latest state to ban fracking (2019), an awesome victory of the Food and Water Watch unstoppable team. Last January 10, Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis announced a process to ban fracking with an executive order in the Sunshine State. DeSantis ordered his Department of Environmental Protection to take actions to “adamantly oppose” hydraulic fracturing. Florida frackers are not going down easily, they want to use a more aggressive technique disguised as a maintenance method. Fracking on steroids uses acidic fluids to dissolve the limestone.

A fracking ban in the UK to protect the climate was signed last week. The case was brought by Talk Fracking, which challenged the U.K. government’s 2018 shale gas planning policy. The High Court of England and Wales has ruled “U.K. authorities must take climate change objections into account when reviewing fracking licenses.”

In his book, The Uninhabitable Earth, David Wallace-Wells uses fear against climate inaction. Immediate action is needed, but Wallace-Wells is wrong, we do not need to incite fear to fight climate change. Wells is a journalist, not a scientist. Solid science, clear thinking, and honest actions are better than panic.

Dr. Luis Contreras

6 COMMENTS

  1. There are many climate solutions, please see the video “A bright future”

    The first book to offer a proven, fast, inexpensive, practical way to cut greenhouse gas emissions and prevent catastrophic climate change.

    As climate change quickly approaches a series of turning points that guarantee disastrous outcomes, a solution is hiding in plain sight. Several countries have already replaced fossil fuels with low-carbon energy sources, and done so rapidly, in one to two decades. By following their methods, we could decarbonize the global economy by midcentury, replacing fossil fuels even while world energy use continues to rise. But so far we have lacked the courage to really try.

    In this clear-sighted and compelling book, Joshua Goldstein and Staffan Qvist explain how clean energy quickly replaced fossil fuels in such places as Sweden, France, South Korea, and Ontario. Their people enjoyed prosperity and growing energy use in harmony with the natural environment. They didn’t do this through personal sacrifice, nor through 100 percent renewables, but by using them in combination with an energy source the Swedes call kärnkraft, hundreds of times safer and cleaner than coal.

    Clearly written and beautifully illustrated, yet footnoted with extensive technical references, Goldstein and Qvist’s book will provide a new touchstone in discussions of climate change. It could spark a shift in world energy policy that, in the words of Steven Pinker’s foreword, literally saves the world.

    https://www.c-span.org/video/?457382-1/a-bright-future

  2. The new budget promises a military build-up to kill people we don’t like, taking funds away from the poor and the middle class, the invisible Americans

    But some people will be fine:
    All members of the US Congress: full benefits, 3 days per week, no term limits, with no requirements + …
    The “elite – rich and famous” getting the 2017 tax cuts
    Lottery winners

    Buy your weekly Power Ball tickets, you may be one of the lucky ones

    https://www.democracynow.org/2019/3/12/trumps_new_budget_slashes_medicare_and

Comments are closed.