The Climate Crisis Future

Moving Heaven and Earth

Note: A version of this essay is frontpaged at the European Tribune.
UPDATE: and now on the "Rescued" list at Daily Kos.

It's hard to be hopeful about the Climate Crisis future. Accepting his Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth on Sunday, Al Gore made his pitch for confronting the climate crisis to one billion viewers worldwide. “We have everything we need to get started,” he said, “with the possible exception of the will to act. That’s a renewable resource. Let’s renew it.” And the Republican/Dirty Energy noise machine has been in high gear ever since, demonizing Gore and his Hollywood supporters, and engaging in even more ferocious Climate Crisis denying. Finding the kind of political will and effective leadership necessary seems only remotely possible.

Still, something pretty hopeful did happen in Washington last week, though little notice was taken. It's worth suggesting what it was and why it is hopeful, before I get to the last essay I planned in this series, speculations on what the future may hold, near and far.

The good news in Washington last week was the Apollo Summit for Clean Energy and Good Jobs, a meeting of the Apollo Alliance. If there is any hope for America's future, it will depend on what Apollo and that summit represents: the blue-green alliance of blue collar and environmentalists, and governors and mayors who make things happen, as well as national legislators who keep at it regardless of where the headlines are.

Doing It

While others argue, governors are acting. They know that most of the world is aware of the Climate Crisis, and that there is a growing need for clean energy technology. Not only because of the Climate Crisis, but the many other environmental and health disasters caused by or exacerbated by dirty energy and its byproducts. They see also the economic consequences of dependence on foreign oil and the loss of good jobs, and they foresee the future that Peak Oil will soon bring. So they are acting.

At the Summit, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick proclaimed his clean energy priority as a total package: "I don't just want the wind farms. I want the companies that build the turbines. I want the ones that assemble the hybrid vehicles and consult on the conservation strategies. I want the companies that design and manufacture the solar panels. The whole integrated industry ought to and can have a place in Massachusetts ... I really believe that if we get this right, the whole world will be our customer. "

Then Colorado Governor Bill Ritter said he had the same goals for his state. These governors have seen what Governor Ed Rendell did in Pennsylvania: his administration brought a company(Gamesa) into the state to build wind farms and manufacture turbines. An early member of the Apollo Alliance, Rendell worked with the Democrats' traditional ally in Pennsylvania, the United Steelworkers union, and he got legislation passed that guaranteed the Commonwealth would buy enough renewable energy to give Gamesa a minimum market base. The result will be 1,000 union jobs, many in manufacturing, and the beginning of a new industry with global implications.

As Rendell told the Summit: "What else can clean the environment, boost the economy, free us up politically in world affairs, make us better able to withstand a terrorist attack or natural disaster, and help us with our trade imbalance? There's nothing else, this ought to be our number one priority."

The Blue-Green (and other colors) Alliance

While these governors talked about jobs and economic opportunities, the important thing in hoping that this alliance can be sustained is that there is a strong committment to the environment as well: it appears to be a true alliance between blue collar and green. Carl Pope, the head of the Sierra Club, spoke at the Summit, along with Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, who said: "it's time for an environmental intervention."

This is crucial because environmentalists and those in the forefront of warning about the Climate Crisis have long been marginalized as a wealthy overeducated elite out of touch with the American public (an image that the Fox Noise Machine is currently promoting in attacking Al Gore and his "Hollywood" supporters.)

On the ground, many conflicts have arisen when big companies successfully pitted workers against environmentalists (as in the Timber Wars here in California and the Pacific northwest.)
But the blue-green Apollo Alliance shatters those images and those cynically-created conflicts. The blue-green alliance is politically potent, as it could well be the basis for reinstituting and reenergizing the traditional Democratic party blue collar base. But even more importantly, it could be the basis for economic progress as well as giving us a fighting chance for the future threatened by the Climate Crisis.

There's another important part of this alliance that must be noted. Part of the elitist image of the environmental movement has been that it is lilly white. But Jerome Ringo, the inspirational President of the Apollo Alliance, is black. So is Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts.

Alliance at All Levels

We are absorbed by conflict, and such headlines as there were from the summit emphasized the competition for clean energy jobs expressed by the governors. But it's more important to emphasize the strength in partnerships, and the breadth of this alliance and its potential power to transform the country and maybe even the world.

The above named are not the only governors committed to clean energy and battling the Climate Crisis. Nor were those named the only union, environmental organization and government officials present at the Summit.

Trenton, N.J. Mayor Douglas Palmer spoke, (note: that's Trenton, not Beverly Hills),representing more than 372 mayors from all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia, that have signed onto the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Among them are mayors who are instituting clean energy programs and efforts to confront the Climate Crisis in their cities. They called for federal block grants to help them in their efforts. "we can no longer behave as if there aren't any consequences from inaction."

U.S. Representative Jay Inslee (WA) called the Apollo Alliance the "most important coalition" in America today, because "this is a matter of our American destiny ... to lead the world in solving this global warming crisis."

Senator Hillary Clinton spoke, as did Senator Bernie Sanders, who has introduced the most aggressive bill against global heating now in Congress. On the blue-green alliance itself, he said: "This is a marriage made in heaven. This is a marriage that will move heaven and earth."

All of this is encouraging and in fact could be crucial. But almost nobody reported on it, and the left blogosphere in particular was quiet about it, including clean energy advocates who have yet to become part of the alliance. Bill Scher of the Campaign for America's Future, a cosponsor of the Apollo Alliance, blogged about it at Huffington Post, which is how I learned about it. But he apparently felt it necessary to attract attention by highlighting the competition between governors for clean energy industries, using "battle royale" in his headline.

But the importance of this alliance isn't about competition (though undoubtedly that will drive some useful efforts)--it's about cooperation: working together in partnerships among groups that were indifferent or hostile to each other in the past.

Yet it is all the noise of charge and countercharge that gets the attention. The left blogs playing into the hands of the right by making Ann Coulter the political equivalent of Anna Nicole Smith, and by covering a convention of conservative Republicans in detail while ignoring this meeting of the hope of the Democratic party as well as the nation and the future.

Here's more on "green collar jobs" at Sentient Times.

Just what the perils may be of all of us ignoring the future is the subject of my final essay in this series.