Looking Forward (Vol II): Energy Democracy

Disclaimer: I am not even close to an expert. These are just some ideas I've been having, unrefined and I'm sure, amateurish. I realize that there are probably inconsistencies, flaws, and errors from whichever perspective you look at it from. But this is my blog so whatever.


It is clear and obvious to most of us rational and reasonable people that we are on an utter collision course with the fury of nature, as storms and erratic weather becomes more and more common. Indeed, it is well known by the climate science community that we are near a tipping point and unless we reduce our carbon emissions significantly in the next 20 or so years we will melt vast regions of permafrost in the arctic that have enormous stores of Methane gas hidden beneath, a gas that is far, far worse for our atmosphere than Carbon Dioxide in its effect. This melting will release these stores of Methane into the atmosphere and essentially, no matter what we do beyond this point, whether we reduce carbon emissions or not, climate change will become self-sustaining and an action of nature, all at a far more severe pace than we could ever imagine.

Its hard to educate on this matter because by its own nature it is frightening and can be, and has been to a great degree here in the US, interpreted as pure fear tactics. Fear tactics are able to spark short term public submission, as illustrated by the Bush Administration following 9/11, but ultimately always leads to mass disillusion and rejection. I don't believe the majority of the environmental movement wants public submission to their cause unlike the Bush Administration, but unfortunately, just the effort to raise awareness and to educate has been increasingly rejected by the American public in recent times. This is partly because of the scare-mongering interpretation of the effort, but also in large part also because of a major propaganda effort by the world's energy companies, which hit an all-time high during the "Cap and Trade" debate a couple years ago.

The corporate reaction to the noble cause of environmentalism is completely expected; I would be greatly surprised if the energy sector did not fight. Corporations are not moral, they don't care about the welfare of humanity, particularly if its in contradiction with their bottom line. And it must be emphasized that we are talking about their short term bottom line, because in the long term it would do them all well to change. This all illustrates a great problem that all of us should focus on; something that is, in a sense, completely separate from the problem of climate change.

You see, I find it very disturbing that because of corporate opposition from one sector of our economy, we have been completely paralyzed as a country from going forward and doing what is the interest of all of us. The fact is, the solutions to our climate and energy problems do not lie in the executive offices of those corporations, nor do they live in the hearts of our legislators. The solution must come from a decentralized effort; from a purely democratic effort. Much is said by the right wing of government decentralization and in principle, as a libertarian socialist, I agree; to rid our society of illegitimate authority and oppressive power structures is a noble cause and one worth supporting, given that it is for the right reasons and done in the right fashion. However, very little has been said about decentralizing the other sources of illegitimate authority, specifically one that has proven increasingly in the modern era to be far more devious and damaging: the profound concentrations of power held in private hands. It is because of the rampant corporatism of the modern world that we have been continuing on this collision course with our planet, whether it be by the buying off of our federal and state legislators and other public officials, by the indoctrination spread through our powerful corporate media, by puppet think tanks and universities that funnel corporate interests into superficially credible academics and ultimately into policy proposals, or by a combination of all three. This is how a liberal democracy inevitably turns into a corporate plutocracy. This how we have been paralyzed.

The great error of our society has been to assume that the enormous energy conglomerates of our world would obviously be the driving force behind the clean energy transformation, when there has never been an inkling of support for this conclusion. In a sense, we assume this because any other way forward almost seems impossible. Energy today is completely centralized, stemming from an oligopoly on fossil fuel resources, and thus since energy has always been centralized in our lifetime its somewhat difficult to imagine the world working otherwise. When even just an ounce of critical thought is worked into the assumption of where the change will come from, we can realize the flaw of it all. The fossil fuel-based energy sector has an obvious interest against clean energy. Particularly when you factor in the fact that corporations act in the interests of the shareholders, most of which are floating and short term, you will find that their interest will be focused on maximization of profit margin in the short term. Indeed, we all know that in the long term it would do these conglomerates a lot of good in terms of their bottom line(and their survival) to focus on clean renewable energy, but alas this is not a possibility in a capitalist society. However, there is hope in all this doom and gloom; there is something we can do, as a population, to spearhead the change needed, not just regarding our environment and energy, but also the growing cancer of corporatism in general.

The beauty of some of these renewable sources of energy lies in the fact that energy can be harvested without massive amounts of capital or land. To use solar energy, for example, you don't need a large mine or deep water rig. Solar and other sources of renewable energy are still far more expensive than conventional sources, but lessons can be taken from Europe, and particularly Germany, which has done much to reform renewable energy costs and efficiency through its German Renewable Energy Act and Feed-In-Tariffs, both of which were products of the movement lead by the late Dr. Hermann Scheer. These are, of course, matters of policy that have to be done by the government; seeing as how the energy conglomerates have a stranglehold on our policy makers, this may not be a possibility in the near future. In any case, a lot of the reason why renewable energy like solar is expensive is partly because it is still a young technology that isn't getting nearly the amount of investment it should be getting, but also because there is a lack of mass demand, thus a lack of bulk purchasing, etc. However, the prices have been going down at an increasing pace and the lower the prices become, the more demand, the lower the prices, and so on and so forth. Perhaps capitalism can work in our favor, for once.

Solar is currently an expensive way for the individual to become self-sustaining and clean, sure. However, when it becomes a community wide effort, things become much more plausible. More well off neighborhoods or communities could pioneer the effort and create completely clean and self-sustaining small communities. As more of these neighborhoods join in and create their own respective energy pools, the costs of solar or wind power will decrease (and the technology will become more efficient due to an increase of capital for the producers to invest in R&D) and increasingly less wealthy communities will be able to leave the grid and become energy-autonomous. This is Energy Decentralization.

Eventually it will get to the point that Energy Decentralization becomes so widespread that it will begin to threaten centralized energy. This may lead to energy companies changing their strategy and focusing on renewables; at this point, however, it would have to be very important to keep the movement spreading. The last thing we should ever do is let energy become centralized again because what would be happening would be revolutionary; a key service created by the public, for the public, in a completely decentralized and autonomous fashion, free of coercion, all in addition to saving the planet. As energy companies become less powerful, issues dealing with climate change in the public square will become more open, and concerted efforts for reform in other areas regarding environmentalism (and corporatism) will follow, most likely following in a similar, democratic fashion as Energy Decentralization, as we will be a changed country. Indeed, the implications of decentralizing such a large and necessary industry are enormous and would undoubtedly have destructive consequences for other concentrations of private wealth and power.

Idealistic? Yes. However, I believe it is something we should strive for. The environmental problems of our world today are too dangerous, and we have too much at stake for us not to try. I approach this the same way I approach anything dealing with ideology: see the possibilities and work towards a better future, one step at a time, with those ideas in mind.