Speaking Out Against the Madness and Demanding a Sane Energy Policy

One of my son’s courses at college this semester is the History of the 1960s. Helping him prepare for a test just now reminded me of those days of political and social awareness – how a generation of young people alerted themselves to things they couldn’t tolerate, and courageously dedicated themselves to making a change. (OK, I know this is something of an idealization; they also smoked a mountain of pot.)

As I learn more about what lies at the core of our energy policy (or lack thereof), I’m beginning to realize that we need the same spirit today – a willingness to call out the bad guys – even at some level of personal risk.  It’s very clear to me that the energy “establishment” is betting quite heavily that we’ve become a population of uninformed and timid sheep. 

But I have to say that brave acts of civil disobedience did not die when the 1960s came to an end. I note that today, thousands of protesters in France and Germany attempted to block a train carrying nuclear waste — some chaining themselves to the train tracks, others driving trucks onto the tracks. Apparently, anti-nuke sentiment is on the rise in Germany following the government’s announcement in September to extend the life of the nation’s 17 nuclear power plants by 12 years.　

I’ll sign off here with the last few lines of my book: 

So I suppose that there really is a silver lining [to the BP oil spill]. It is precisely that now, anyone and everyone (you don’t have to be a clean energy editor/business analyst) can see the truth for what it is. There is one and only one winner in oil, namely the oil companies themselves. Recall the tobacco companies of the 20th Century, and their product — the only legal one that when used as directed causes death. At a certain point we all realized that cigarettes were very good for Philip Morris investors and executives – but that they were very bad for literally everyone else on the Earth. The issue is the same here. The oil companies are the sole beneficiary of oil. And now, finally, it’s clear to everyone.

Let’s acknowledge that we made a grievous mistake in the 1980s [when we halted our progress toward clean energy] — and move on. And let’s maintain focus this time. Dropping the ball once is not license to drop it again. Use this as a litmus test for our leaders: an elected official who is really on your side (if there actually is such a thing) will take whatever political risks may come his way to stay the course in the development of clean energy solutions.

But it’s up to you and me to insist that our leaders do that. In case you haven’t noticed, they don’t do things because they’re right; they do them because they’re forced.