Updating Power is Part of Life

When I was 6 months old, we moved into an upstairs apartment in a two-family house that had been designed for gas lights. The lights had already been converted to electricity before we moved in. Though I was too young to remember moving in, I do remember that we were always afraid that those converted fixtures hadn’t been fully sealed and gas could leak out. There was a big coal furnace in the basement and dad used to shovel the coal to keep the house warm. Dad also used to drive me out to see where the big coal-fired railroad engines were decoupled and replaced by oil-fired engines for the ride into New York City – because the coal polluted too much to allow the old steam engines to puff their way into the city. And I also remember the pantographs and the electric engines that pulled many of the passenger trains. As a child, I loved the big muscular steam engines but the engines that rolled by our house were much more modern and much cleaner.

Later, my wife and I spent three years living in St. Louis. Shaw’s Garden, a wonderful and famous botanical garden, had bred a nature reserve outside the city because “coal smoke in St. Louis threatened the Garden’s live plant collection.” By the time we got there, Shaw’s Garden was again functioning just fine because St. Louis had curbed its use of coal.

We moved to Albany in 1979 and bought a house where we spent several wonderful decades raising our family. In the basement was a monster of a furnace – designed for coal and probably installed when the house was built in 1917 but converted to oil by the time we bought it. You should have seen the workmen struggling to take that iron monster apart and get it out of the house in pieces when we finally replaced it with a more efficient furnace.

In other words, changing fuel supplies in response to environmental change has been a normal part of life over the past century – from coal and gas to oil and electricity. Without making light of the expense, it’s not that hard.

With historic heat waves and floods and fires it has to happen again – fast. New coal and gas fired engines, furnaces and cars need to be banned. The old ones need to be replaced. We need to be prepared to help those who do not have the resources to make that change – I know some people are averse to doing anything to help the poor whom they presume are unworthy, but it’s help them or perish ourselves.

Also, roads and roofs need to be white hereon out to reflect the sun rather than absorb the heat, push climate change, and bake us even when the sun’s down.

Are those changes too radical? It’s got to be done. “Resilience” and rebuilding aren’t enough to deal with climate change. We have to stop burning the fossil fuels that are seeding the change.

Did I mention that my dad grew up having to use an outhouse in Brooklyn. And we had a typewriter – remember those? The world changes and we have to change with it, to deal with it, not cry about it. And we need government to unite us behind that change so that it happens relatively quickly – our survival, our country, our partners, children, grandchildren, friends and all those we care about depend on it.

— If you think I’m on target, please pass it on. For the podcast, please click here. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on July 18, 2023.

New Year’s Wish for the Green New Deal

For my own peace of mind I’m going to go ahead with the commentary I planned about global warming rather than the latest anti-American actions of the person in the White House, so:

My New Year’s wish is to solve our climate change problem across the board. We need a Green New Deal and mustn’t let fear stop us from solving the biggest existential problem facing America. Climate change already floods homes in the Mississippi valley and New Orleans, burns Californians out of theirs, bankrupts farmers, and is sinking Florida, Cape Cod, lowland cities, coastal property, and handing us huge bills just to rebuild those areas without slowing the impact of climate change.

The Green New Deal is a resolution, not a statute, and needs work to fill it out. To summarize an elaborate proposal, the Resolution would make it a federal duty to “eliminat[e] pollution … greenhouse gas[es]” and other sources of climate change “as much as technologically feasible,” and build clean replacement technology in ways that support new jobs, family farming and healthier living. The online text of this commentary includes links to the Resolution’s text and the New York Times’ excellent description of its provisions.

Descriptions by political critics are full of nonsense. Every aspect of the Green New Deal builds on existing technologies and puts money and resources into getting them into operation. One of my relatives tracks the advantages and immanent crossover to electric over gas-guzzling cars, initially driven by regulation and incentives but now with a life of its own. One of our friends has been deeply involved in capturing greenhouse gasses from dairy farms and other livestock operations. The Green New Deal is absolutely doable. What’s missing are the incentives.

We can afford the Green New Deal and need it. Once created, the jobs Americans need become part of tax producing economic activity. Since the 18^th century, Americans understood that some progress couldn’t be made without government investment. Government became a major stockholder to get many enterprises going. It built projects too large for private industry, and projects with such broad public and economic benefits that the cost couldn’t be paid by charging and collecting tolls from all beneficiaries.

People go ape over the word “tax” but whether taxes disadvantage people depends on whether the shills of corporate powerhouses refuse to let their clients pay their full share. That battle is not exclusive to environmental projects and your taxes won’t be cut down by blocking progress. Actually, I’d go one better with a carbon tax so the incentive to use clean energy and other products is systemic, not piece by piece.

The Green New Deal is necessary so we, our children and grandchildren can continue to breathe, drink, work and survive. It’s a major nationwide path to jobs. And it’s doable – every aspect builds on existing technology by adding effort and incentives. The Green New Deal could put the US back in the lead in economic development; resisting it will pass the economic baton to Russian Siberia which is becoming livable while we’re losing our crucial climate advantages.

By contrast, the climate crisis aggravates virtually every problem, including the waves of refugees whose desperation forces them to move despite the obstacles, so the Green New Deal can help ease the refugee crisis.

Don’t let politically manufactured hobgoblins and other scary stories stop the real progress we need. Problems don’t go away because we refuse to deal with them; they just get worse.

And my New Year’s toast is let this be the last we’ll hear from disloyal people in the White House.

— This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on January 5, 2021.

What We Can Do About Climate Change

This is the birthday of Abe Lincoln who saved the country. It’s our job to keep it safe. My message last week was that government is the key to minimizing world-wide genocide by climate change. And of course, this president is not helping. Now let’s talk about our role.

First, the strongest step we can take is to join organizations that are working to reduce climate change. We can’t turn the ship of state individually, but by joining together we can force government to change. We can force each of the political parties to make a major commitment to the war against climate change.

Second, push industry away from release of greenhouse gasses. One of the best incentives is a carbon tax and every delay in imposing it means the tax has to be exponentially larger. We can strengthen the push for a carbon tax by using our power as consumers.

Third, over the past half-century we have changed agriculture until it is now one of the biggest emitters of carbon and methane, the two principal climate damaging gasses. One of the most important changes is to shift away from beef and other meats. Think about how much carbon beef production releases – initially from the use of power to produce crops whose only purpose is to feed the cows, and then from all the carbon production involved in raising the animals and then the fact that the animals themselves produce huge quantities of methane. And that doesn’t include all the carbon and methane from the transportation of the animals and their feed and the fertilizers used in the process. Farming has gone from relatively clean half a century ago to a major problem now. So cutting down on beef is an important start.

Fourth, we’ve put a lot of emphasis on carbon emissions from transportation but, many of us can improve our health as well as the environment by walking, bicycling or using public transit. Growing up in New York City I had to be a public transit user. One of my happy memories of childhood is standing with my nose pressed against the front window of the front car of the subways and feeling the excitement from the sight and sounds of the train gobbling up miles of track in front of me. Later, I went to work by crossing the Brooklyn Bridge on foot. That gave me a gorgeous two-mile walk to work which was definitely good for my health. Coming to Albany, I wanted to get back to walking so we bought within a two mile circle around my office so I could, and did, walk to work. I fully understand the attractions of the countryside but there are huge advantages to city living, especially for the climate.

Fifth, many of us can make our homes much more efficient with insulation, solar panels and other energy saving methods. Reducing what we buy, recycling what we don’t need, and reusing what can be used again, use much less energy than buying and replacing.

Sixth, one step less talked about is passive solar. Zoning and housing codes would help, but windows facing due south get zero summer sun and maximize winter sun. Once the house is designed that way it pays dividends forever. Add a heat sink inside the house and it will spread the heat around the clock in cold weather.

I’ve added some articles and organizations you can look at on the text version of this commentary. But the point is to take action. We need action above all. It’s that or genocide by climate change.

—

Recommended articles on climate change:

David Wallace-Wells, UN Says Climate Genocide Is Coming. It’s Actually Worse Than That, Intelligencer, OCT. 10, 2018, http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/un-says-climate-genocide-coming-but-its-worse-than-that.html

Overwhelmed by climate change? Here’s what you can do, The Guardian, October 8, 2018,

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/climate-change-what-you-can-do-campaigning-installing-insulation-solar-panels

Some of my personal favorite organizations which focus on science and the environment:

https://350.org/ co-founded by Bill McKibben

The Climate Reality Project founded by Al Gore

Union of Concerned Scientists founded by scientists at MIT

— This commentary was broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, February 12, 2019.

The Moral and Legal Meaning of Failing to Deal with Climate Change

I often wrestle with how gentle or how strong to come on. To get everyone’s support on climate change, I want to come on gently. But climate change is so big, urgent and underappreciated that I want to come on strong.

The experts tell us that we can make a big difference. We can take steps that will really slow down and even stop climate change beyond what is already inevitable. But nothing will happen by itself. The economy won’t automatically stop selling carbon-based fuels that produce greenhouse gasses. Government is necessary to do that. Without government coordinating our efforts, each of us individually make only a small difference and we can defend our bad choices by pointing out that it’s legal. But with government coordinating the move to more climate friendly products and methods, we can make a big difference.

Unfortunately, the current Administration is fighting against rules designed to reduce greenhouse gasses. It is rolling back automobile emission and engineering standards that would significantly reduce greenhouse gasses that we produce. The transportation industry produces a large part of greenhouse gasses so real progress requires action among auto manufacturers. But with the Administration working to roll rules back, auto makers say they’ll just wait and see. Meanwhile, Americans buy the largest vehicles they can afford. Progress on sedans gets wiped out by the market for SUVs, trucks and HUMVEEs. One way to control the impact of those market choices is to retain, not roll-back, those emission rules. Another is to introduce greenhouse gas taxes. Government is a necessary part of any real effort to control global warming, for ourselves, our children, grandchildren and posterity.

Failing to act against global warming will increase the worldwide refugee flow which many Americans fear, and turn many Americans into refugees in our own country, from the coasts and the great Midwest Mississippi River basin the where people will be forced to leave their homes and push into places ill-prepared to house, feed and employ them. Failing to act against global warming will magnify the onslaught of tropical illnesses on Americans who are ill-prepared to deal with them. Failing to act against global warming will send our parents to early graves in heat waves that stress their hearts.

The law makes a stronger point that reflects the stakes in global warming. Intentional, premeditated, criminally negligent or reckless killing of one or more human beings is murder.

The lowest form of murder is involuntary manslaughter. An unintentional, involuntary killing is nevertheless manslaughter if it was inherently dangerous or was done with reckless disregard for human life, and the defendant knew or should have known the conduct was a threat to others’ lives.

Does that fit the people who are tearing down the rules to slow or stop global warming and other forms of climate change? We know that climate change will kill many people, in this country and all across the globe. We know that greenhouse gasses from burning carbon-based fuels is heating the earth and additional burning of carbon-based fuels will heat it more. In other words, burning carbon-based fuels is inherently dangerous – it will kill people. The impact of government rules on death and survival is very clear. That will certainly bubble up in lawsuits. But the law also reflects powerful moral conclusions well worth thinking about.

— This commentary was broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, August 28, 2018.

 

Choose Life

I want to focus on a serious issue that is being ignored in favor of all kinds of fake news and grandstanding. In college, I took a course on demography. That means we were looking at the explosion of population in parts of the world, which then leveled off, but at much higher levels than before. Everything we are struggling with in this twenty-first century is related to that explosion of population.

The most significant advances in our longevity were the result of public health advances, precisely the things that people don’t want to spend on right now, on our water and sewer systems. I remember my dad asking every owner of places where we stopped for the night whether the water was potable, meaning it was drinking water from which we would not get sick. That was new in his lifetime. And by the way, my dad grew up in Brooklyn, in New York City, using an outhouse. Sure many of us have used outhouses at one time or another but they are not the best protection for public health in large communities – septic systems take lots of space.

After water and sewer systems, penicillin probably made the biggest difference – it’s probably why I’m talking with you today but never met my sister who died at the age of three before the discovery of penicillin. Those advances added decades to our lives by comparison to very short advances from modern medicine and surgery.

And they are a large part of the problem of global warming. There are lots more of us burning things, driving cars, using electricity, getting what we need for business or pleasure from the furthest corners of the world. That takes energy. Energy has been produced by burning things. And so the world gets hotter, the oceans expand, tropical diseases proliferate, and life threatens to get nasty, brutish and short once again. And efforts to mitigate that will be overtaken if population continues to expand – worldwide it’s doubled in my lifetime.

So when I hear about advances in medical science, like the possible elimination of malaria, I think how wonderful for the likely victims, and then I wonder about the global impact. There is no free lunch. We can make lots of advances. But the world has its limits. More people will put more stress on the environment. And stress on the environment is already heading us toward the next major extinction – us, human beings, our children and grandchildren.

And so I think there is a trade-off between our health and our numbers. There is no human life after we are extinguished – only death and tears. So let’s be clear, I am very pro-life, but to be pro-life demands support for birth control, especially the kinds that prevent conception.

There is no so-called pro-life position that is not also a position about death. It seems to me that The Church and all houses of worship, must rethink their positions about death and destruction along with their positions about conception. The two are intertwined by laws well-beyond our ability to control. Yes the Bible says choose life, all our bibles say that in some form. But are we choosing life if we ignore the reality of death, destruction, and extinction?

— This commentary was broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, Feb. 28, 2017.

Cities Against Suburbanization

Congress has been considering changing mortgage banking, reducing the role of Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, the two federal superbanks that have been insuring and buying our mortgages for decades. Actually, the government should stop encouraging the suburbanization of America.