Yes, Biden is Right, We Have to Abolish the Fossil Fuel Industry Equitably.
Here’s Why: Our Only Other Option is a Dystopian World
Biden, said in the last Presidential Debate that he wanted to “transition away from fossil fuels” and renewables will replace fossil fuels. He’s entirely right. One of the show hosts on CNN suggested that what he said a “gaffe”, and the Los Angeles Times headlined “Biden’s aggressive climate policy runs into backlash in debate aftermath.” But the fact is scientifically there is no other option, either we take a world out of a science fiction post-apocalyptic movie or go the uneasy path and build a better more equitable world. But we need to make sure we don’t leave the fossil fuel workers behind and Biden has a plan to do that.
The IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading body on climate science released a report in 2018, called the “Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 Degrees Celsius.” The report stated we have until 2050 to get net-zero emissions (more on the definition of this in a minute) and reduce our emissions by 45% by 2030, to have a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 Degrees Celsius. What I said here might of sounded like statistical gibberish, so let me explain, and I promise you it involve any math.
If you remember the Climate Crisis, is a problem about our planet warming from our emissions of greenhouse gases. Climate Scientists measure this in “Degrees Celsius in Departure from Pre-Industrial Times” which basically means the difference in degrees between around around 1800 in Celsius. Currently we are about at 1.1 Degree Celsius of warming since Pre-Industrial times. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but that’s planet wide. Our planet’s average temperature is 52 degrees Fahrenheit, think about the difference between the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth and the hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth and the average is 52 degrees and you realize how stable an “average”. A one degree rise in an average is already causing gigantic wildfires out west, big enough to block out the sun and turn San Francisco into something looking like the city from hell.
There are 6 degrees of warming in Climate Change, here is when we are suspected to reach them at our current rates of emissions and what will happen around that time:
— — — -1.5 Degrees. “Dangerous Climate Change”. Reachable by 2040. Could cause:
— — — — — — — 535,000 deaths from hunger alone per year by 2050 worldwide.
— — — — — — — Force an additional 100 million people into Extreme Poverty worldwide by 2030
— — — — — — — A foot of sea level rise by around 2030 in Florida.
— — — — — — — No Ice over the North Pole.
— — — — — — — Wildfires 6 times larger, 1 billion displaced and safe water for Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Louisiana, and Southern Florida is threatened by 2050.
— — — — — — — Loss of 99% of all coral reefs.
— — — — — — — Possibly setting off natural factors called positive feedback loops that could set off chain reactions out of human control leading to 3 or 4 degrees.
— — — — — — Hot days increase by 16%, and yearly drought length increases by 2 months
— -2 Degrees (The Goal of the Paris Agreement, although Paris “strives to be under 1.5 Degrees”, but I don’t give a crap about Paris, because its worthless piece of paper that politicians are burning as we speak.). Reachable by the 2060s-2070s.
— — — — — -Hurricanes intensity increases by 47%
— — — — — -2 feet of sea level rise in some places
— — — — — -Hot days increase by 25%.
Here’s where it gets really scary:
— — 3 Degrees Celsius, reachable by 2075–2085. At this point humanity will not be able to produce enough food to feed ourselves. This means chronic famines. Today we have enough food, we just are not that great at distributing it. Also during this period a semi-permanent great depression may start, and their would be internal refugees in the United States.
— — 4 Degrees Celsius, reachable by the 2090s-2100, large swathes of the planet become uninhabitable including hot humid areas and desert regions, also 4+, possible over 6 feet of sea level rise.
— — 4.1–4.8 Degrees, our current trajectory of emissions if we keep burning at “business as usual” emissions.
— —-6 Degrees Celsius, reachable by some point past 2100. Extinction of Humanity. No, I wish I were kidding. This is THAT serious!
To be clear, if we don’t stay under 1.5 Degrees Celsius, we could set off a natural chain reaction out of our control that will create, large swathes of the planet become uninhabitable, 4+ feet of sea level rise, chronic famines and a semi-permanent great depression.
So, what is this natural chain reaction: Positive Feedback Loops. Positive Feedback Loops are basically the scientific word for the common saying “vicious cycle. Here is an example:
Warming of the Planet melts the white, reflective ice caps, revealing a dark sea or dark land, which is more absorbent of the Sun’s energy than the ice was, leading to more warming.
Here’s Another:
Warming of the Planet melts permafrost, allowing methane once trapped in the permafrost to escape; methane is a greenhouse gas and that accelerates Climate Change.
Here’s Another:
If the Amazon loses to much forest, it won’t have enough water being sent into the atmosphere, so rainfall decreases, leading to drought, that could turn the Amazon into savannah.
Unfortunately, there are more positive feedback loops than negative feedback loops which do the opposite. Because of these positive feedback loops if we hit 1.5 degrees we could set them off tipping the climate over the breaking point, kicking off a chain reaction of destruction out of human control that leads to a post-apocalyptical future. So, look at your children and look them in the eye, think of your grandchildren and where you want them to live in that science fiction movie you saw.
So, how do we stay under 1.5 Degrees Celsius?
We can, but we have to get rid of the fossil fuel industry. According to the IPCC again to say under 1.5 Degrees Celsius we need to reduce our emissions by 45% by 2030, and to Net-Zero emissions by 2050 to have a 50% chance at stopping 1.5 Degrees.
So, what is Net-Zero? In Scientific terms, Net-Zero emissions the amount of emissions that are emitted are also taken out of the atmosphere and put in the ground. But politicians (Ahem, CLEAN Future bill in the House in the US, and Europe’s climate plans, including their Common Agriculture Policy) seem to think this means if they just charge a price on carbon and give the money to some poor country to build a wind farm that magically their emissions go away and they can emit as much as they want. But that’s not what it means, if its emitted, its emitted, and taking emissions from somewhere else, when just putting more somewhere else if just ridiculous, nefarious and absurd and “A loophole we could loose a planet through.” We say net because some sectors, like Airlines or Shipping or some forms of Industry just may be unable to decarbonize effectively, meaning that we are saying those area (and only those areas) should be able to buy offsets, that come from farms that have increased ability to sequester carbon or newly forested lands or other sequestration projects. That is scientifically acceptable. This could also double as environmental payments to farmers. We can’t sequester the entire economy, for a bunch of reason, first and foremost we are cutting down forests at a vast rate, that is barely compatible with what I just mentioned, we need to fix that. Second, it would require planting a forest the size of India per year to be able to sequester all the emissions we are currently emitting. But again, we can get to the scientific “Net-Zero” but doing so would require getting rid of the Fossil Fuel industry and we can do that without sacrificing cars, our houses, and everything else in our lives.
So, also that line says if we reduce emissions by 45% by 2030 and to Net-Zero by 2050 we have a 50% percent chance of staying below 1.5 Degrees Celsius. 50% Percent!! Half and Half!! Flip a coin!! You wouldn’t flip a coin over your son or daughter’s death would you, so why are we putting them on a planet with a 50% chance of turning into a post-apocalyptic world? Yeah, that isn’t really acceptable, with the current targets. The actual number is about 50%-60% chance, but really that isn’t but better when you consider what else is in the report (or personally even if you don’t):
— — — -That emissions scenario (and pretty much any other one for 1.5 Degrees would require sequestering carbon on a scale that would need to be done Direct Air Capture technologies which remove Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere. But those technologies are prohibitively expensive and still in their infancy.
— — — -That also isn’t completely factoring in all of the possible positive feedback loops, they’re may be feedback loops we don’t know about yet.
— — — -That isn’t factoring in countries like India or Kenya who as developing democracies will not be able to transition as fast as developed countries like the United States and on top of that they are poorer and will feel the brunt of the Climate Crisis.
But, don’t fear, we can still do something about this. A proper target to correspond with the IPCC Special Report on 1.5 Degrees and what is technologically and economically possible is a 65% reduction by 2030 from 2005 levels, and Net-Zero emissions by 2045, with a reduction of at least 85%. That is completely doable.
So, just to drive the point home about why we can’t use fossil fuels before I go into how to Transition Equitably, and Decarbonize and Biden’s Plans.
Also because according to the IPCC we have a carbon budget (the amount of time left to stay under 1.5 degrees if we keep burning the same amount of emissions) of 8 years, worse our current stockpile of fossil fuels, not even what is being explored for now, 5 times our carbon budget. There is no way fossil fuels can be in our economy anymore. Any more time we use fossil fuels is just humanity digging its own grave and the fossil fuel industry has every attention of killing all of us for profit, they known the science but have kept their investors out of the loop while funding climate denial. This means no more new fossil fuel infrastructure or exploration is acceptable period!!
That means fossil fuels have to go, and energy engineers and scientists say that is completely possible. Many countries already meet 100% of their energy from Clean Energy sources including Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Costa Rica (Norway, Iceland, Costa Rica, and Uruguay have 100% renewable energy). And many have above over 75% of their energy from renewables including Austria, Brazil and Denmark. Further we more resources including grid storage and a DC National Supergrid to make sure we have enough power.
In Norway has over 60% of new cars are electric vehicles, and used electric vehicles are already price comparable and get over $300 miles on single charge (and contrary to popular belief there is no difference between speeds of the vehicles). Airlines would have to run on biofuels and also would have to be offset (get on that in a minute), shipping would have to run hydrogen, electrified, renewables, nuclear, biofuels, or something other than fossil fuels. Long distance transport would have to run on electricity or something else, either through the road or better batteries.
Emissions from industry would to mitigated with hydrogen or electric arc furnaces or carbon capture and sequestration where emissions are pumped under ground and also industrial efficiency requirements are put in place, manufacturing would have to be scaled up to produce everything needed.
Cooking, heating and cooling in homes and buildings would have to electrified and all homes and buildings would have to be weatherized (No, that doesn’t mean tiny windows, actually it means if you want, larger windows) to make them efficient and prepared for climate challenges. Solar Panels and batteries for homes would have to be affordable.
Big agriculture would have to be cut down to size, and small family and regenerative agriculture take the forefront with precision agriculture, anaerobic digesters and feed additives to mitigate as much emissions as possible.
Public Transport would have to be massively scaled up including rural public transport, urban mass transit rail and bus, high speed rail (before someone argues with that because of eminent domain, may I remind you that Europe did it with weaker eminent domain laws) and more regular passenger rail and every rail line be electrified. Also everything would have to be walkable or bikeable.
We also have to rewild areas and sequester more carbon and create larger forests and protect more natural areas.
We would also have to prepare for climate challenges, which would require moving some communities, erecting dikes, and raising ground levels, building sea wall systems, investing in our hospitals, investing in our emergency services, and upgrading roads, giving internet access to everyone, building systems to store food and water, and flood control systems, irrigation systems. We would also have to enact better water management systems out west, give aid to developing countries struggling to deal with Climate Change which us out of all countries are historically the most responsible, press China to meet climate goals and targets and go further, pass universal health care (whatever that may be) to ensure everyone can see a doctor, good public housing (that’s not in shambles) for everyone who needs it (to protect people from being homeless), building infrastructure that can deal with heatwaves, ensuring the military can respond to climate challenges because its a National Security issue too.
This is a tall order I know, a very tall order, but let’s remember in World War II, we advanced technology about 15 years in a period of 5 years, if we could do that, in 20 years if we put enough effort to it, do 60 years in 20 years. That’s more than half a century. Think about how fast computers came about. Think about the car, in the early 1900s. It’s starting to sound doable, but only if we put everything we got at the problem and mobilize like we did for WWII, but it will employ over 20,000,000 people and get us out of our current economic depression. National Direct Current Supergrid would create about 950,000 jobs alone, and that isn’t the only nationwide mega project either, in addition to that a High Speed Rail network should be build which will require at least that many people. You may still say its impossible, but this country was founded by doing the impossible, by bunch of rag tag untrained soldiers going up against the world’s largest superpower of its day and winning.
Also renewables currently supply more jobs than fossil fuels do. Renewables supply more jobs per capita than fossil fuels, so that means their will be more people employed. That would be more than enough to end the depression we are currently in. But, of course that doesn’t necessarily translate into regions where fossil fuel employees already are, so we’re going to do it justly and equitably.
Biden plans to ensure this transition is just by making sure members of the fossil fuel industry get the pension plans and health benefits they originally signed on to. By protecting retirement benefits, increasing coal companies’ payments to the Black Lung Benefits Program, and reform it so coal companies can’t deny miner’s benefits and expand efforts to detect Black Lung Cases and stricter black lung regulations. It also includes investing in coal and fossil fuel communities with economic development, creating a Presidential Task Force on Coal and Power Plant Communities which would enable communities to get federal investments and move the private sector to create high-paying union jobs in fossil fuel communities, partner with community colleges to create training opportunities, repair infrastructure and keep local hospitals open and keep public employees like teachers on payed.
I am excited about Biden’s Climate Plan. So, first it mandates 100% Clean Energy by 2035, which is a progressive and scientifically possible and necessary target (I wish I didn’t have to put the words “progressive” and “scientifically necessary in the same sentence). Second, it gets rid of fossil fuel subsidies, and stops new fossil fuel infrastructure in US waters and on public lands and it encourages clean manufacturing and electric vehicles and importantly addresses environmental and climate injustice, helping those are Native American, Black people, Hispanic and Rural whose communities are more polluted and more vulnerable to the Climate Crisis. It also creates a new version of the CCC called the Civilian Climate Corps. Leveraging precision agriculture (an idea of mine that even Sander’s didn’t have, and personally I find it the only way to fix the emissions from Nitrous Oxide) For example did you know, one town in the US has already had to relocate due to Sea Level Rise, its a Native American communities called the Isle de Jean Charles and Michigan’s most polluted zip code which also heavily black and brown by prosecuting polluters and making sure these communities get more investments. Biden’s plan also aims at a 50% in emissions by 2030 and net zero by 2050.
I don’t have all praise for Biden’s plan. I have a bunch of complaints, first of which is the plan size, his plan is $2 trillion. You think $2 trillion is a lot of money, but when your talking about switching out everything that runs on fossil fuels in the economy, its really not, when your talking about COVID and putting the economy halfway on life support, its not, when your talking about responding to economic depressions, its not. The truth is even the 2009 stimulus, of $900 billion dollars should of been bigger. Our GDP today is $19 trillion annually (GDP or Gross Domestic Product is basically how much money circulates through an economy). Inherently to jump start our economy, it will require trillions of dollars. Also the debt won’t actually hurt our economy because it create jobs and jobs give people money which circulates in the economy, allowing more revenue to be collected. If stimulus is not done during a depression and you have a large debt like the United States you risk you risk the non-growth part of the debt becoming equal to the GDP, at which point it would kill your economy. Country’s debt systems are different then your own, but really that’s a discussion for another time. Anyways it would cost about $9 to $20 trillion to solve the Climate Crisis in the United States, but that’s over 20 years. So, that comes out to be between $450 billion-$1 trillion per year. Our current US Federal Budget is about $4.3 trillion. Where are we going to get all of that money from? Well here are is a list of ideas:
— — — — A Public Banking System like was done during the Great Depression.
— — — — A Bond System
— — — — Carbon Pricing and then using that money to capitalize a National Climate Bank (This is my personal idea, and it would create $15 trillion dollars to be able to be used in loans out of literally no where and you wouldn’t even need most of the tax to do that, the rest could be returned the people in the form of a dividend.)
— — — — -Stimulus Spending, for a part of it stimulus spending would be a good idea, it would help jumpstart the economy, but I am not suggesting to use all of it that way.
— — — — -Making the Fossil Fuel Industry Pay for damages
— — — —-New Income Tax Revenue created by the plan.
— — — — Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies
Bernie’s Other ideas
— — — — Using the federal Power Marketing Administrations to create $6.4 trillion in revenue.
— — — — Reducing defense spending by $1.215 trillion over 10 years.
— — — —Saving $1.31 trillion by the reduced need for the safety net.
— — — — $2 trillion from making Corporations pay more in taxes.
So, yes, its expensive but we can pay for it. What’s the alternative? Paying $64 trillion this century and in return we get a dystopian planet and a semi-permanent economic depression. But Biden’s plan doesn’t have enough money. But Kamala Harris had the second largest plan of any of the Presidential Candidates, of $10 trillion (Bernie was the highest with $16 trillion) And although Biden is not losing his mind, I highly doubt that he lasts a full term or is able to run for a second.
A second thing I don’t like about his plan is his lack of fossil fuel related phase out stuff. What I mean that keep under 1.5 Degrees Celsius because of carbon budgets we need to do the following things that Biden doesn’t seem prepared to do: A ban on fracking, mountain top removal(though for it to be just we need a 5 year transition timeline, a ban on fossil fuel imports and exports (again with a 5 year timeline to ensure a just transition), implement a climate test on all new federal investments where any federal investments can’t contribute directly to the Climate Crisis, in effect banning the US Government from funding or permitting anything fossil fuel related. Allow local and tribal communities to halt construction of pipelines and make their own decisions over what type of infrastructure goes through their communities (Note on Tribes, End the Trust System and Give the Native Americans their own land back, and let them be the only ones able to use eminent domain powers on their land.), ban all coal by 2030 (Biden seemed to be leaning towards this in the debate though), and Nationalize the Fossil Fuel Industry (Because it would be much easier and more just to phase out fossil fuel industry if they were not concerned about profit).
A third thing I don’t like is he doesn’t really have an Electric Vehicles or Zero Emission Vehicles Mandate that we need (A version we need is like what was recently instituted by Executive Order in California). Now, Biden’s plan does make electric vehicles easier to afford with vouchers, increase electric vehicle manufacturing, try to switch manufacturers to electric, increase charging infrastructure and make it accessible, doing research on batteries, setting a requirement that all new American-made buses are zero emissions by 2030. But really we need an electric vehicle’s mandate like California’s (except earlier) we need to mandate that 100% of new vehicles are zero emissions or electric by 2030. Why? 2030, because the normal lifetime of a vehicle is about 11 years, putting it at 2030, gives us plenty of time to just let fossil fuel vehicles be phased out just from production, as an overwhelming majority of vehicles would be zero emissions by 2041 by that point and also it allow us to try to reach a goal of reducing emissions in transportation by 65% by 2030.
But all in all, although Biden’s plan is not perfect, he is aiming at net zero emissions by 2050, and half that by 2030. He is aiming at if elected President, the most progressive climate policy ever and his opponent on the other hand calls the Climate Crisis a “Chinese Hoax” or more recently stopping everything from fuel efficiency standards, all EPA enforcement of environmental regulations (indefinitely “due to COVID”), pulling us out of Paris (which did literally nothing policy wise except signal our intention that we don’t care about Climate), saying that if a stimulus is on climate, he’ll veto it, appointing fossil fuel lobbyists to important posts in Interior, EPA and Energy departments including Administrator of the EPA and Secretary of the Interior, Deputy Secretary of the Interior, and appointing a person who doesn’t believe his department should exist (or the Climate Crisis) to Secretary of Energy, stopping adaptation studies in New York, trying to stop NASA’s climate research, claiming that Hurricane Dorian is going to go a different direction that where the National Weather Service said it was going to go, trying to defund the EPA and the Department of Energy, getting rid of the Clean Power Plan, blocking rules on phasing out inefficient lightbulbs (which nobody was complaining over in contrast to what he says, not supporting bipartisan legislation to HFCs from Air Conditioners and Refrigerators, rescinded rules limiting methane pollution from fossil fuel infrastructure. I think you get my point. The current president is only adding gasoline to the fire, we need a President that will throw water on it.
Biden saying that we “transition away from fossil fuels” is telling the truth and true leadership is telling people the reality of the situation and telling people what they don’t want to hear, and then providing a plan forward to get them out of the mess and that is what Biden is doing.