March 25, 2009

17 Comments

Don’t be too “Canadian” about the backlash – this is no time for Mr. Nice Guy

by Bill McKibben, cross posted at the Toronto Star

Watching the backlash against clean energy projects build in Canada has moved me to think about what Americans have learned from facing this same problem. I have been thinking and writing for several years about overcoming conflict-avoidance and the importance of standing up for “Big Truths” even at the price of criticizing fellow environmentalists.

It’s not that I’ve developed a mean streak. It’s that the environmental movement has reached an important point of division, between those who truly get global warming, and those who don’t.

By get, I don’t mean understanding the chemistry of carbon dioxide, or the importance of the Kyoto Protocol, or those kinds of things – pretty much everyone who thinks of themselves as an environmentalist has reached that point. By get, I mean understanding that the question is of transcending urgency, that it represents the one overarching global civilizational challenge that humans have ever faced.

In the U.S., there are all manner of fights to stop or delay every imaginable low-carbon technology. Wind, solar, run-of-river hydro – these are precisely the kinds of renewable energy that every Earth Day speech since 1970 has trumpeted. But now they are finally here – now that we’re talking about particular projects in particular places – people aren’t so keen.

Opponents of renewable energy projects point out (correctly) that they have impacts – there are (overstated) risks to birds from wind turbines, to fish from run-of-river hydro, that the projects mean “development” somewhere there was none and transmission lines where there were none before.

They point out (again correctly) that the developers are private interests, rushing to develop a resource that, in fact, they do not own, and without waiting for the government to come up with a set of rules and processes for siting such installations.

The critics also insist that there’s a “better” site somewhere – and again they’re probably right. There’s almost always a better site for anything. The whole business is messy, imperfect.

If we had decades to burn, then perhaps the opponents would be right that there’s a better site, and a nicer developer. There’s always a better site and a nicer developer. But in the real world, we have at most 10 years to reverse the fossil fuel economy. Which means we have to do everything quickly – conservation and plug-in cars and solar panels and compact fluorescents and 100-mile food and tree planting. And windmills, windmills everywhere there is wind, just like off the shores of Europe.

Whatever natural endowments a region is blessed to have, these are the basis for your green economy: solar in the deserts, wind where it’s windy, hydro where water’s falling, geothermal if you’ve got it. Do it all, and do it quickly.

In the ideal world, we’d do everything slowly and carefully – but this planet is rapidly becoming the worst of all possible worlds, a place that before my daughter dies may well see temperatures exceeding anything since before the dawn of primate evolution. A planet facing hundreds of millions of environmental refugees as a result of rising seas, with heat waves like the one that killed 35,000 in Europe becoming commonplace occurrences.

The evidence gets worse by the day: already whole nations are evacuating, the Arctic is melting and we have begun to release the massive storehouse of carbon trapped under the polar ice. Scientists figure the “safe” level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is about 350 parts per million. This is the most important number in the world. Go beyond it for very long and we will trigger “feedbacks” that will result in runaway warming spiraling out of any human control and resulting in a largely inhospitable planet.

We are already well beyond 350 and accelerating rapidly in the wrong direction.

So when local efforts to delay or stop low-carbon energy projects come into conflict with the imperative to act urgently on global warming, they have to take second place. Because even if we win every other battle, if we lose 350, it won’t make any difference at all. You can “keep” every river and bay and lake and mountain and wilderness, but if the temperature goes up 3 degrees globally, it won’t matter. The fish that live there won’t be able to survive, the trees that anchor the landscape will die, the coral reefs will bleach and crumble. Whatever the particular part of the world that we’re each working on, it’s still a part of the world. Global warming is the whole thing.

Believe me that I understand how difficult this is. I have spent a lifetime loving and fighting for the Adirondacks and other treasured areas. Perhaps you’ve spent your life fighting for birds, and I understand how wrenching it must be to acknowledge that “some birds may die from this wind farm.” But what 350 forces us to say is: every bird, every fish, and everything else that we know, is fundamentally at risk in the next few decades.

In the name of birds, I want that windmill on my ridge. In the name of rivers, I want run-of-river hydro. In the name of wild beauty, I want that windmill out my window.

350 means it is too late to be arguing for theories or cool ideas. In the real world, the one where CO2 inconveniently traps solar radiation, you don’t get to argue for perfection.

You can say, as opponents of clean energy projects have said, that we’d do more to fight global warming by improving gas mileage in our cars. You can say that we should insulate our homes and build better refrigerators. You can say that we should plant more trees and have fewer kids.

And you would be right, just as every Earth Day speech is “right.” I’ve given my share of Earth Day speeches. And if we’re to have any chance of heading off catastrophic temperature increase, we have to do everything we can imagine, all at once. Hybrid cars and planting trees, windmills, energy conservation, carbon taxes, emissions caps, closing the coal plants and pressuring our leaders.

I understand the opposition to clean energy projects. And I would have supported the opponents years ago – before climate science became clear. I live in the mountains above Lake Champlain, where the wind blows strong along the ridgelines. I’ll battle to keep windmills out of designated wilderness if that ever comes up, but right now I’m joining those who are battling to get them built on the ridgeline nearest our home. And battling to see them not as industrial eyesores, but as part of a new aesthetic. The wind made visible.

The slow, steady turning that blows us into a future less hopeless than the future we’re steaming toward now.

Bill McKibben is a founder of 350.org, and has been at the forefront of the public understanding of global warming since 1989’s The End of Nature. More recent titles include Deep Economy and Fight Global Warming Now. In between his many other writing, teaching and organizing efforts, he is still trying to find a coal plant where the police force is brave enough to arrest him and NASA’s James Hansen.

Email This Post Permalink Share This

17 Responses so far...

1. Jan Konigsberg, Hydropower Reform Coalition says:

   April 22, 2009 at 2:18 pm

   Bill McKibben is right about the world heading for the Big Melt-Down as atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration escalate past 350 ppm.  We like our bagels toasted, but not our bays or our gulls, so we are in complete agreement about the need to act decisively to curb global warming.  Yet, the “fierce urgency” of the situation does not mean that we should rush ahead to develop everything in sight without some thoughtful planning and consideration of the consequences of that development. We need to develop renewable energy, and we agree that we need to do it very quickly, but we don’t need to do it blindly. You don’t wreck the environment in order to save it, and poorly sited renewable energy will seriously degrade or destroy the ecosystems we are trying to save.
    
   If the U.S. were a signatory to Kyoto,  it would be obligated to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions (GHGe) 20% below its 1990 level by 2012.   Many climatologists agree, however, GHGe must actually be reduced 80% below the world’s 2006 emissions no later than 2050 to avoid catastrophic impacts from global warming and still all allow time to reduce the GHGe concentrations to 350 ppm.  This reduction would prevent atmospheric concentrations from rising above 450 ppm, which would require that the United States reduce its GHGe to 330 million metric tons (MMt) below its 2006 emissions level.  Once and if atmospheric GHG concentrations are stabilized at 450 ppm, there is some breathing room to plan for the best way to reduce GHGe to 350 ppm.
    
   In the U.S., the primary sources of GHGe are: electricity generation (41%), transportation (33%); industry (15%) residential (6 %); commercial (4%), (U.S. Territories, 1%).  In order to meet the 450 ppm-mitigation goal, fossil fuel use in the electric-power and transportation sectors would need to be virtually elimiinated with some reduction in in the other sectors.
    
   Can renewables replace all existing fossil-fueled, electric-power supply capacity? If so, is there more than one alternative?
    
   The “build everything” mentality would have us believe that there is no point in planning how to go about this.  This line of thinking posits that the only sensible “plan” is  just  to build everything we can possibly build, apparently because there are not enough available renewable-energy sources to require intelligent choices among alternatives.  That’s the point at which at which this reasoning unravels.
    
   U.S. renewable energy potential far exceeds current electric-power consumption in the United States.  According to solar-electric proponents, the number of solar-thermal plants that can be sited on about 10,000 square miles in the desert Southwest would meet our electric load at present.  There is also enough wind togenerate all the electricity the U.S. uses in a year; ditto, the geothermal potential.  Given the potential of just solar, wind and geothermal, there would be more than enough to convert the entire passenger vehicle fleet (cars, light trucks and SUVs) to all-electric.  Therefore, assuming the technology is available to harness the estimated solar-, wind-, geothermal-energy potential, fossil fuel use could be eliminated in the electric-power-supply sector and in the transportation sector, which alone would reduce GHGe about 70% below 2006 levels.
    
   Consequently, it is only sensible to analyze the costs and impacts associated with various renewable-energy, development scenarios before proceeding with renewable-energy project construction.  We acknowledge that all renewables have some undesireable environmental impacts.  We also acknowledge that we’re going to have to live with some of these impacts. But these alternatives must be compared on a level playing field, taking into account such factors as capital costs, life-cycle costs (cradle to grave), capacity factor, storage, construction time, transmission, and environmental impacts.  In other words, without detailed analysis, it is impossible to determine the best alternative to meet the U.S. electric load that optimizes for cost, reliability, and environmental effects.  To be fair, this “level- playing-field” analysis should also include the more conventional zero- or low-emissions energy sources, mainly hydro and nuclear.
    
   We’re not experts on nuclear, so we’ll leave that analysis to someone else. We do know hydropower, though, and hydropower simply does not compare favorably to other renewables: Dr. Mark Jacobson, director of Stanford’s Atmosphere & Energy Program, examined various energy sources and technologies and ranked them relative to a number of environmental and social impacts — hydropower ranked just ahead of coal and nuclear.
    
   Hydroelectric projects in the United States produce about 6.5% of the nation’s total electricity generation.  Virtually all the major hydropower sites have been developed in the continental United States, leaving only low-power sites.  The U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory estimated about 130,000 such sites could be developed.  Assuming that each low-power project would disturb at least 1 square mile of area for the dam or diversion, road, and transmission (a conservative assumption), these new plants would occupy a minimum of 130,000 square miles to provide only about 3% of annual electricity generation.  Solar-thermal electric’s 10,000 square miles to produce 100% of current electrical demand would do much less damage at less cost.  Thus, a fundamental drawback of exploiting remaining hydropower potential is that we would trade a very small amount of electrical output in exchange for big capital outlays and big environmental impacts.
    
   While no energy source can be exploited without some impact to the local natural environment. Conventional hydropower typically has the greatest environmental footprint per installed MW of all the renewable energy technologies.  Its heavy footprint is due to the fact that hydropower must be sited smack dab in the middle of aquatic systems, which, on average, are the most diverse and productive habitats of the temperate zone, especially the arid West.  Moreover, much more so than other renewable-energy facilities and even conventional fossil-fuel power plants, conventional hydroelectric plants are literally stuck in the landscape, and, hence, are not easily removed or otherwise decommissioned when more environmentally benign technologies come along.  Among renewables, conventional hydro ranks lowest in the benefits-to-impacts impacts ratio.
    
   Traditional hydroelectric power ought to be avoided in favor of energy technology that has low or no GHG emissions and minimal impact to the global environment, large-scale ecosystems, and local environments.  In the United States, about 75,000 hydropower and nonpower dams have irrevocably changed almost all the major watersheds in the continental United States. What justification can there be to inflict more damage?  If any semblance of “balance” is to be maintained between unbridled versus harnessed rivers, then the goal should be to protect in perpetuity all our remaining free-flowing rivers, undeveloped river reaches, and attendant wetlands.  Together, these comprise the nation’s terrestrial “hotspots” when it comes to biodiversity. 
    
   We should not let (legitimate) panic over global warming cause us to lose sight of this perspective. In his piece, McKibben protests that “You can ‘keep’ every river and bay and lake and mountain and wilderness, but if average global temperatures increase 3 degrees, it won’t matter: The fish that live there won’t be able to survive.”
    
   McKibben is right: there is no time to waste. So let’s not waste the limited time and resources we do have on bad projects like new dams. While the rationale for mitigating the greenhouse effect is unassailable, there is no rationale for causing unnecessary collateral damage to the environment in order to save the earth.  Either way, dead fish are dead fish. There are plenty of renewable energy sources that be can developed for less money and with less environmental damage. We should work on those instead of rushing to develop every single half-baked proposal that comes down the pike, fish and wildlife be “dammed.” They, like us, will all sink or swim depending on whether we execute a plan that gets us from here in 2009 to where we need to be in 2050.
    
   Finally, a caveat is in order: There is likely to be growth in energy use between now and 2050 even with aggressive energy efficiency improvements. Ttherefore, the actual amount of renewable energy that must come on line by 2050 to reduce GHG 80% below the 2006 level depends upon how much energy use grows. There is still significant conservation to be accomplished and doing so will slow the rate of energy growth over the next three decades in the runup to 2050.
    
    
2. Tzeporah Berman says:

   March 29, 2009 at 10:29 am

   Bill — I think we need to be more careful and strategic about deploying the ad hominem approach. And I don’t write off anyone because of their political leanings. It used to be that environmentalists refused to be captured by left or right — we were about moving ahead. We don’t have time to assume Harper or Neufield (or whoever the public elects) won’t do the right thing if we generate the right conditions and if the BCNDP’s position on conservation and carbon tax is any indication we can’t write off the right and expect climate leadership from the left.

   I’d consider posting anything from the political left or right as long as it’s about what we’re going to do.

   But I’ll post yours here even though it doesn’t because I hope to hear your practical thoughts on how we generate this paradigm shift. Seems to me that in practice, while it’s underway, a paradigm shift is made up of mundane daily decisions — Chris Turner has catalogued the nature of some of the successful zero carbon transitions very well. They are not made up of transcendent moments.

   Can’t say that I agree that reducing emissions is now “top of the political agenda” — we clearly have a different analysis of what is being done and needs to be done.

   But I do agree that “reducing greenhouse gas emissions is far more difficult than it seems” — And that “far from a level playing field…change is difficult and severely constrained down paths formed over decades” — there is no release from history, no one gets to wave a magic wand and design things as if we were starting from a blank slate — we have to engage the world as it is in order to help move to where we think it needs to go. And that is a major reason the conversation that I am interested in having is with people that want to discuss what those of us actively engaged are going to do. What actions, what tactics, what events, what strategies?
   If you don’t like conservation measures, renewable energy and carbon restrictions than layout your alternative pathway.
3. Bill Henderson says:

   March 28, 2009 at 8:48 am

   
   Who are you going to ask to post next Tzeporah – Richard Neufeld?  Steven Harper?  They are on your side in this faux debate.  Instead, how about a post about the lessons from a failed decade of forestry reform for climate change advocates:
   http://www.pej.org/html/print.php?sid=6658

   “There is now (almost) universal agreement that human caused climate change is a reality and with Canadians awakening (somewhat) to the suite of insidious dangers, reducing emissions is now top of the political agenda, if not yet the imperative to substantial reduction within this decade that Hansen and other climate scientists advocate.

   “But there remains little consideration or debate about our structural inability to make emission reductions of a scale necessary. In the ten Kyoto years Canada’s emissions soared 24% and without governance innovation we will go another supposedly crucial turnaround decade without even curtailing emission expansion let alone making the substantive reductions necessary.

   “Our present climate regime can be usefully understood as a point, an attractor, a system stability under pressure from the build up of greenhouse gases. The topography of both markets and policy change also has valleys and sinks. Path dependence severely limits change in markets and government’s ability to even regulate properly let alone take decisive, interventionist action (except maybe when faced with a human enemy like a Hitler). Far from a level playing field where anything is possible, change is difficult and severely constrained down paths formed over decades in the past.

   “Our socio-economy has taken the fossil fuel path for generations. Reducing emissions quickly and at a necessary scale requires much more than mere incremental change within the present path. Getting to a clean energy economy requires a conscious choice of a new path and a plan to  escape the present path.

   “There are very pertinent lessons for Canadians concerned with climate change to be learnt from how in BC the needed change to an ecologically sustainable forestry was fudged and greenwashed in the supposedly ‘turn around decade’ of the 90’s. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is far more difficult than it seems – learn from our previous green posturing, learn from our previous mistakes.

   “(D)ecisions made when the sustained yield paradigm was established after the Second World War set the province on a path that has been and will continue to be extremely costly and disruptive to reverse.” Cashore et al. Change and Stability in BC Forest Policy IN SEARCH OF SUSTAINABILITY ”
    
4. Dana Kagis says:

   March 27, 2009 at 10:03 am

   On Norberto’s Milton Friedman quote:

   I find it frightening that anyone would reference the manufacturer of some of the worst economic/social atrocities in the world in defense of global warming.  Friedman’s ideas about unregulated, free-market capitalism would be disastrous for both Canadians and the environment we inhabit.  Furthermore, real, positive change does not need to be born of catastrophe Chicago School boys style, as evidenced by the Latin American cone before it was torn apart by Friedman and his lackeys.  A solid Keynsian, developmentalist approach is what is needed and Harper is clearly not in that camp.  In terms of standing up as Canadians and demanding justice on the global warming front, a good place to start is to GET HARPER OUT.  Can you tell I’m reading “The Shock Doctrine” right now?   http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine#

   On the article’s expressed topic of stalling development of renewable energy, I am torn.  How much leeway do we give companies in terms of initial environmental damage?  It seems to me as though this would be a dangerous precident to be setting, regardless of the short term gain;  especially if the long-term consequences are equally disastrous.

   Cheers,
   Dana
5. Andre says:

   March 27, 2009 at 9:32 am

   There’s more than one way to make a point.

   Here’s one y’all might appreciate and agree upon.

   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/cartoonsandvideos/telnaes/telnaes03272009.html
6. Ken W. says:

   March 26, 2009 at 7:17 pm

   Having just returned from China, it is fascinating to see the conversation back in Canada. The Chinese media often present the hypocrisy of how OECD nations lecture but are not themselves taking easy actions like clean energy. The Chinese government is actually taking warming very seriously. They know the country faces an awful situation just with the warming that is already unavoidable. But the energy challenge the government faces is much bigger than an already industrialized nation. The statements in the Chinese media are often about how the problem was created by Europe and North America but that these OECD countries refuse to take responsibility. And why should China upend the energy system if the US and Canada won’t? It is a very legitimate question. I fear we cannot achieve international agreements if the public in Canada, the US, Europe keep opposing changes.
7. Andre says:

   March 26, 2009 at 3:43 pm

   Ask ANYONE who has ever worked for change, they’ll tell you – ALL OF THEM – that it takes time.

   Look at recycling. I was VP at SPEC (old time environmental organization in Vancouver) when we started recycling under the Granville St bridge in 1981. It took more than 10 years before curbside recycling became acceptable, all along this being our intended first step.

   Look at Corporate environmental responsibility. I started my environmental consulting firm in 1989, when I thought I could work with industry to instill the will and means to assume such corporate responsibility. It took nearly all my working life before I could see its outline, nevermind a more developed form.

   Twenty years ago, smoking was a scourge in British Columbia. Nowadays, smokers are a small minority. Heck, you can go to any bar in BC and find it smoke-free, something that was inconceivable even 5 years ago. But it took 15-20 years of relentless campaigning to bring about this change.

   From this experience, I say be prepared to effect change for the long haul, no matter how urgently action is required. We’ll have to remain doggedly persistent without turning into Eco-Nazis, despite the fact that human society hangs in the balance (it does).
8. norberto rodriguez says:

   March 26, 2009 at 9:03 am

   350ppm is only a number, it is not real for people, it is not hurting people like the economic crisis, people are not losing their jobs, their homes, their SUVs (!) Climate Change is still only a concern, that by the way has dropped in priority with the majority of American and Canadian people.
   Remember Milton Friedman’s words:

   “Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable”

   Climate Change needs to become a crisis so we start taking real action. In the meantime, our insatiable demand for energy will continue the same; and our reproduction habits will continue –and remember that each new American baby has a huge footprint since the day she/he is born; and our over consumption will continue. Even if all our credit cards are maxed-out, we will just ask for a new one, so we can acquire more debt.
   Not until 350 becomes something real to all people, like massive droughts in Arizona, California, Nevada, Texas; or new Katrinas that affect many people —white and black; or more massive forest fires and floodings occur across USA and Canada; or new heat-waves that kill many people. Not until then we will understand that climate change is actually hurting us.

   We just can’t expect to replace energy from fossil fuels with all these green technology wonders. And I am NOT OPPOSING these renewable energy systems. Nor we can just expect, or demand, new energy policies from our governments to solve climate change.
   In my mind, all these renewable energy systems are kind of asking for a bailout for the energy system, so we can keep going business as usual with our wasteful standard of living. Guess what? this kind of lifestyle is about to change no matter what. With or without new comprehensive energy plans, new wind turbines, new solar panels, new run-of-river hydro, new plug-in cars, everything will change.
   I just think that our best, and most urgent alternative is to make dramatic changes in reducing our lifestyle: less babies, less energy use, less waste, less consumption of everything. 

   At the same time, many of these renewable energy systems need to become a reality. The synergy between all these will be the difference.  
   Bottom line, the energy system is broken. Actually, many systems are broken or breaking down. The sooner we accept this the better, then we all can take real action in getting ready for what is coming, relearning forgotten skills to use our hands and brains in the old way, and change many things in our life so to adapt and cope with these upcoming changes and conditions of living. In other words: how can we build resilience in our life and in our communities.
9. Bruce Elkin says:

   March 26, 2009 at 8:37 am

   I think Bill is right that we have to move fast, summed up when he says, “350 means it is too late to be arguing for theories or cool ideas. In the real world, the one where CO2 inconveniently traps solar radiation, you don’t get to argue for perfection.”

   And I think we have to think results, not “fixes”. We have to think creating, not primarily problem solving. By creating, I mean asking what do we want, what do we have, and how best can we begin to bridge the gap between them.

   The dynamics of creating are fundamentally different than those of problem solving.

   In problem solving, we focus on the intensity of the problem and work on reducing that (the feelings surrounding the problem). But as the intensity decreases, so too does the urge to act.

   In creating, we work on bringing into being a clearly envisioned, compelling result.  It does not have to be a perfect vision, just clear enough that we would recognize it if we created it. And as we act, the vision will get clearer.  We may make mistakes, but the structure of creating enables us to learn from them, correct them, and keep moving in the desired direction.  Movement = momentum. And momentum is what we need to generate, quickly.

   For more on the difference between problem solving and creating, and why creating is a higher-order, more powerful and useful skill set, get my free ebook Staying Up In Down Times: How to create resilience, results, and rewards—with whatever life throws at you! http://www.BruceElkin.com/free.html
10. Nicole - Yes Scarborough Wind says:

    March 25, 2009 at 8:20 pm

    I have to ask David, have you actually read End of Nature or is this denier tactics? Written around the same time as Hansen’s famous speech to Congress, these two have proven the most prescient around. He didn’t “declare”  Nature ended. He laid out exactly what was likely to happen which it turns out has happened faster than prediccted. I cannot believe I am reading people comparing McKibben to burning villages in Vietnam and green fascists. Can’t global warming deniers find their own site? The internet is full of them.

    This seems to me just deny and delay. Lots of talk about doing bigger and better plans sometime in the future. We’re sitting all cushy in Canada while people are being forced from their homes, species are going extinct but we won’t do anything till there’s some utopian philosopher king. We’ll be waiting a long time for that! Sounds to me like a successful strategy to keep the tar sands and all the rest of fossil fuel juggernaut going.
11. David Shipway says:

    March 25, 2009 at 7:18 pm

    Sensible and caring folks will not be very comfortable with what often ends up in reality to be this “defacing the beauty of special places in order to save them” approach. Didn’t we hear that same desolate logic in Vietnam – destroying the village to save it? McKibben also openly declared an “End of Nature” over a decade ago. Did that really happen? I don’t think so. She never stays still anyway. What really ended was the sense we could control Her.

    I agree though that we are all heading into a very tight squeeze, and Peak Everything includes human population, especially among the Bigfoots that haven’t learned to co-operate with each other. Nobody’s gonna volunteer for the cull, but with vital systems crashing from overshoot all around us, what else will Nature do? If all we had before us was a sensible adjustment in the composition of the atmosphere, it might be easy to dodge the bullet, but there’s a lot more deep problems than just that. Being Mr. Nice Guy actually helps a lot, since human kindness is a far healthier response to global hardship than acting like a green fascist.

    Let’s have whole solutions. It’s not enough to rev up on green fixes without simultaneously shutting down the old brown habits. Say when. Our current government in BC is still far too enthusiastic for more oil and gas development offshore, more pipelines to sell the tarsands to Asia, more freeways in farmland around Vancouver, and more sprawling real estate in de-forestlands on the islands. Sure, it’s also calling for more hydro electricity to feed this insatiable beast, but seen as a whole policy package, this is just rampant growth addiction in all directions at once, not a credible, focussed and more frugal path to survival.
12. Topics about Energycrisis » Archive » Don’t be too “Canadian” about the backlash - this is no time… says:

    March 25, 2009 at 12:33 pm

    [...] Mendo Coast Current placed an interesting blog post on Donâ [...]
13. Peter ter Weeme says:

    March 25, 2009 at 9:00 am

    These times call for new thinking on longstanding problems. We need to move beyond the predictable “left vs right” and “Pro-environment vs anti-environment” thinking of the past. It’s also time to stop playing politics on the issue of climate change. The BC NDP’s “gas tax” rhetoric is a shocking example of that.

    Thank you Bill and Tzeporah for bringing new perspectives, and dare I say, energy, to this important debate.
14. Elkington Forest Blog » When its wrong to be too Canadian… says:

    March 25, 2009 at 8:45 am

    [...] http://www.zerocarboncanada.ca/dont-be-too-canadian-about-the-backlash-this-is-no-time-for-mr-nice-g... [...]
15. Doug Makaroff says:

    March 25, 2009 at 8:23 am

    The good is always the enemy of the great. For every wonderful idea, every solution that seems full of hope and promise, there is a mountain of inertia that will delay and postpone implementation and actualization. Bill is absolutely correct — we have to stop being so Canadian on this issue and execute plans for action. The flip side of the great Canadian virtue of public consultation and consensus building is that nothing gets done. We revel in the purity of our processes while bankable plans and scientifically solid studies sit on shelves gathering dust….We already know what we need to do — let’s get those wind mills built and run-of-river plants in place, at a variety of scales and decentralized for local needs. Sometimes people of good intentions will not agree. Have a loud and demonstrative debate, then act. But please do not let inertia win.
16. Nicole - Yes Scarborough Wind says:

    March 25, 2009 at 7:39 am

    Well written Bill McKibben. I have read your books since End of Nature. Jodie, there is a huge coalition of farmers, unions, builders and environmentalists pressing for the green energy act. That doesn’t mean we can ignore the real world backlash with public meetings full of people and a fossil fuel industry that wants to stop the government closing the coal plants. That’s a real thing and it will stop the progress we need if we all only try to be loving and inspiring. we have to learn from other movements about the importance of NAMING what is happening. Same problem in Cape Wind, California, BC etc and won’t just go away because we all try to get along.
17. Jodie Tonita says:

    March 25, 2009 at 4:59 am

    Thanks for posting Bill’s article. It provides an important perspective, an essential perspective. I would add… being right is not enough. We are talking about large scale culture change not just a campaign win. I don’t think we can ram through or impose change at the scale that is needed. That in itself is a culture change for markets campaigners who have gained and used leverage to implement policy and change. I truly believe that what is needed here is a massive coalition building effort that is going to bring unlikley and likely allies together to support communities through the greatest change process they will ever experience. To be successful we need long-term inclusive community development initiatives that attract the masses and provide folks with the tools to understand the complexity and urgency of what we are dealing with and the support to innovate and evolve programs and systems that will support the communities’ development. It is going to be more about understanding how to inspire build, develop and lead communities than it is about what projects, where and how. The conversation right now seems way off the mark (ie. the tone of Backlash post and response.) We don’t seem to be building here. We are dividing. At a time when we cannot afford to divide.  I am not in the province right now… following from a far… and very discouraged to see all these wonderful and powerful people in different camps fighting each other. We need inspiring leadership that is empathetic and understanding of the valid differences and that can bridge the divides.

• Join UP
• Donate
• About
• Privacy Policy
• Disclaimer