Think Globally, Act Locally: Bill McKibben & PERI Tell You How

By Steve Hanley  - Clean Technica, February 2, 2018

A report published January 31 by The Hill claims the budget the Trump administration will release later this month will take an ax to renewable energy funding and carbon reduction research. Specifically, its sources say the administration intends to slash the Department of Energy’s energy efficiency and renewable energy programs by a whopping 72%. In addition, the proposed budget would cut research on fuel efficient vehicles and bio-energy by 82%. Funding for solar energy technology research would suffer a 78% cut. In the process, 250 DOE employees would lose their jobs.

Sun, Sit, and Sell/Sue

Bill McKibben, author of Oil & Honey and founder of 350.org, told The Guardian on February 1 that any hope the federal government will take the lead on climate change or renewable energy was dashed by the State of the Union speech and the Democratic response. Both utterly failed to address climate change, arguably the most serious existential threat ever to humanity and all the species currently sharing the planet with us.

McKibben writes, “If we’re going to make progress on climate change, it’s not going to come through Washington DC — not any time soon. The strategy that’s been evolving for US climate action — and for action in many other parts of the planet — bypasses the central governments as much as possible. That’s because the oil industry is strongest in national capitols — that’s where its money is most toxically powerful. But if frontal attack is therefore hard, its flanks are wide open.”

Channeling Timothy Leary, the 60s era counterculture guru who told us all to “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out,” McKibben has a three part prescription for what we as individuals can do to move toward a renewable energy future without fossil fuels and carbon emissions. He calls it Sun, Sit, and Sell/Sue and it works like this.

Sun: “The first — joining in work pioneered by groups like the Sierra Club — is to persuade towns, cities, counties, and states to pledge to make the transition to 100% renewable energy. This is now easy and affordable enough that it doesn’t scare politicians. Cities from San Diego to Atlanta have joined in, and they will help maintain the momentum towards clean energy that the Trump administration is trying so hard to blunt.”

Sit: “Job two is to block new fossil fuel infrastructure. In some places, that will be by law. Portland, Oregon, recently passed a bill banning new pipes and such, over the strenuous objections of the industry. In other places it will take bodies — tens of thousands have already pledged to journey to the upper Midwest if and when TransCanada decides to build out the Keystone XL pipeline that Trump has permitted.”

Sell/Sue: “Third is to cut off the money that fuels this industry — by divestment, which has now begun to take a real and telling toll ($6 trillion worth of endowments and portfolios have joined the fight, and studies show it is cutting the capital companies need to keep exploring for oil we don’t), and by the kinds of lawsuits that New York, San Francisco and a host of other cities have already filed.”

McKibben concludes his argument with these words: “Those actions keep the industry off balance, affecting its future plans and weakening its balance sheet even as solar and wind get cheaper all the time. If you want a shorthand version: Sun, Sit (in) and Sell/Sue. Yes, it would be easier if the country, and the planet, were acting together — if Washington were leading the fight the way the planet’s superpower obviously should. But since it isn’t, the pressure will find other outlets. This fight is going aggressively local, and fast.”

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Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.