Climate Change Deniers Now Control the Legislative Branch of the U.S. Government, But Here’s Why CleanTech Will Not Be Defeated

In response to my post yesterday: Not a Great Day for Those of You with Lungs in which I lamented the sad outcome of the U.S. midterm elections vis-a-vis the environment, frequent commenter Brian McGowan writes:

Relying on the government will not work. We have to do this ourselves individually. It is up to us. I imagine we will see a hard push for the Keystone pipeline, underfunding or total defunding of the EPA, reduction or total removal of any kind of green energy tax credits at the same time as enhancements of credits for dirty fuel companies.

I hear you, and you’re right that it is up to us as individuals. And yes, the U.S. federal government is now in the hands of those whose paymasters are commanding them to dismantle all the work we’ve done recently in moving towards clean energy and environmental stewardship.  I’m deeply saddened, and I won’t sugar-coat that.  

But there is good news: the oil companies and our “leaders” who do their bidding face what they’ll soon recognize as an insurmountable obstacle: the precipitously falling prices of clean energy, by which I mean renewables, storage, smart grid, and efficiency.

Sure, it would have been good if they were simultaneously facing an electorate that has reached its “credulity limit.” Sometimes it appears that even the dimmest bulbs here in the U.S., those who have been historically led around by the nose by the oil companies’ propaganda, are starting to catch on to the truth; however, to be honest, the election returns certainly don’t support this.

The truth, however, is that it doesn’t matter much.  Pure market economics is in the process of driving this migration to clean energy far faster than most people predict. That, of course, is the theme of my current book project, which I’ll have published soon.