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A Symbolic Solar Road Trip To Reignite a Climate Movement
An activist caravan to bring one of Jimmy Carter’s solar panels back to the White House symbolizes not only the time the U.S. has lost in developing new energy technologies – but also the urgent need for taking action on climate.
As I write this piece, we're in the midst of a (biodiesel) road trip
to Washington, D.C., towing behind us an unwieldy piece of history: a
solar panel off the roof of the Carter White House. It's decades old,
though it still makes hot water just fine. In a sense, we're traveling
backward-which in another sense is what I think we're going to have to
do for a while in the U.S. climate movement.
The bad news everyone knows. The strongest attempt ever to pass climate legislation through the U.S. Congress came up short earlier this summer. The inside-the-Beltway green groups took what seemed to be the route of least resistance: a very tame piece of climate legislation larded with special prizes for special interests. They worked it as hard as it could have been worked-and in the end it didn't even come close. The fossil fuel industry and their allies in D.C. barely had to break a sweat shooting it down.
So-barring some unforeseen development-we're not going to see significant action on the federal level about climate for at least the next two years.
And that means we're far less likely to see significant international action on climate, since it's hard for other governments to muster the political will to make tough choices when the U.S. is punting.So what do we do with those two years? I think we use them to build a movement, which explains the solar panel we're hauling south from Maine.
The story is painful even to consider. This panel went up on the White House roof in 1979, with then-president Jimmy Carter (in a wide tie, and with a bushy haircut) promising that it would still be there in the year 2000, producing hot water from the sun for whoever was then president. In fact, it didn't make it through the next decade-it came down in the Reagan years, a symbol of our decision to turn away from the idea of limits and veer sharply down the path we've trod ever since.
But not everyone went along. Frugal folks at Unity College in Maine salvaged the panels, and put them up on the cafeteria, where they continued to produce hot water for the next three decades. Meanwhile, around the world other nations took the technology and went to work. Germany and Japan took over the lead in photovoltaic panels, but solar thermal technology like this became the special province of the Chinese.
I sat not long ago with Huang Ming, China's leading solar entrepreneur, in his space-age Sun Moon Mansion in Shandong Province looking over the stats: his HiMin Solar Energy Group has put up 60 million such systems across China-he estimated that when 250 million Chinese take a shower, the hot water is coming off their roofs. In a biting symbol of that passed torch, he keeps one of the Carter panels in his private museum.
There's no question what we should have spent the last few decades doing. But there's no point now in crying about why we didn't: the only job is to try to get back in the game, to start catching up.
Some of that means spending the money so that we can make the next technological discoveries. Many, including the Breakthrough Institute and Bill Gates, are calling for big increases in R and D funding, which might help us somehow claw our way back toward the front of the parade.
But catching up also means making use of the technology we already have, in ways both practical and symbolic.
We're headed for the White House with this old panel, and with a promise from the U.S. company Sungevity that it will supply all the brand-new panels the president could ever want-as long as he puts them up on his roof where everyone can see them. George W. Bush, amazingly enough, actually put some solar back in the White House grounds-on the roof of a maintenance shed, and on, who knew, the Presidental Spa and Cabana. But since he didn't tell anyone, they didn't do much good. We want them up there on the roof, as visible as the White House garden, which helped boost seed sales 30 percent across the nation the year Michelle planted it.
So far, we haven't heard a word from the White House about whether they'll accept the gift and make the promise or not-which, frankly, surprises me. I can't think of a clearer win for the president, a better reminder to the legions of young people who worked on his campaign that he is still focused on the future. He owes environmentalists more than he's given them-by all accounts he decided not to push for the Senate legislation. He's up against tough odds in Congress, of course, given the obstructionist GOP. But they can't filibuster his roof.
What's especially poignant is that we have gotten promises from other, much less likely, world leaders-Mohammed Nasheed, for instance, president of the entirely Muslim and quite poor Maldive Islands, the low-lying Indian Ocean nation that faces inundation from rising seas.
He took the Sungevity offer, and he'll be putting solar panels on his roof on October 10 (10-10-10), the same day that thousands of groups around the world will be participating in a massive Global Work Party, putting up wind turbines and laying out bike paths. The same day we want Barack Obama, sleeves rolled up, out on his roof with a wrench.
The point of all these panels, of course, is not that we're going to solve climate change one roof at a time. (Obama is doing lots of good practical things already-his "greening the government" effort is retrofitting federal buildings across the country with insulation, for instance). The point is that they help build the movement that we allowed to wither away.
Environmentalists lost sight of just how big a movement that would need to be. Too many groups convinced themselves that they could slide some legislation through Congress, make deals with industry, get things going without a fight. It was worth a try, but it didn't work-the fossil fuel industry, the most profitable enterprise known to man, beat us. And they will beat us again and again until there's a real, broad-based, popular, noisy movement underway in this country, a movement that can provide a currency (bodies, passion) equal to the currency the billionaire Koch Brothers can pony up to defeat climate legislation.
Some of that movement will go on at the local level, as we transform cities and towns and show what can be done. Some will be done on college campuses like Unity College, or Middlebury where I teach, which are showing the way forward. Some of it will be done in jails-I'd be very surprised if civil disobedience doesn't become a bigger part of this battle in the years ahead, if only because it's the tool we use to show our society how urgent, morally and practically, this crisis really is.
But some of it must be done symbolically. And there's no more symbolic piece of real estate on this continent than the White House. Let's hope that on the 10th of October it, at least, is transformed. It's been a long, hot summer, in the capitol as in much of the northern hemisphere. Let's make sure that next year that heat is put to some purpose-heating the Obamas' bathtub, and helping power up a movement.
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40 Comments so far
Show AllMaybe corporate America will permit their president to make this symbolic gesture (solar panels on the roof of the White House), but I doubt it. Big Oil is already upset at the few crumbs Obama has tossed out to alternative energy companies so far.
As long as Democrats and republicans populate D.C., change will only be an illusion.
Pres. Obama is not going to want to do anything that will cause himself to be (further) associated in the public mind with Pres. Carter.
My thought exactly, dwatkins9.
And if the Carter association weren't enough of a Kiss of Death, the report that the leader of an "entirely Muslim" nation is supporting this project is a Kiss on the other cheek.
Better they paint the panels red, white, and blue, and re-brand them "Freedom Panels".
And why is Carter so reviled again?
Sure, he is the author of the oil-imperialist Carter Doctrine and all the middle- east strife to this day. He also blew off Archbishop Romero's plea, assuring his and tens of thousands of other Salvadorans a date with a death squad bullet. He also gave us four more years on the cold-war edge of thermonuclear destruction.
But, I suspect that he is not at all reviled for that. What was it again?
Good question, SaboCat. He was treated like an outcast during the campaign, at the convention and even later. And excellent point about what he is NOT reviled for. Then what is it exactly?
It was intended as a rhetorical question, anyone mine of servant's age or older knows the answer.
It started with the cardigan sweaters, carpooling and public transportaton, and turning thermostats down. Then the national 55 mph speed limit. He then gave a speech calling for a US society that turns away from the consumption of stuff (especially fossil fuel) in its search fulfillment and instead suggested that we turn to community, culture, and faith (but not the "faith" of todays christian fundamantalists - Carter legalized home brewing and winemaking and allowed states to lower drinking age to 18).
Read the speech here:
www.cartercenter.org/news/editorials_speeches/
crisis_of_confidence.html
You can also view it on youtube.
Can you imagine ANY politician speaking in such an honest and straightforward manner to the public today? For the unforgivable sin of such honesty, Carter was positively crucified.
Well said.
Funny how Carter is generally looked back on as a "loser", and his feel-good follow-up "Morning in America" Reagan as some kind of conservative "hero". 30 years later, you'd think we would have learned something. Alas, there's no sign that we have.
Carter's presidency was wishy washy even on the environment. He talked about global warming but called for shale oil production. He put solar panels on his roof but nothing significant to promote solar energy production when he could have done it. He was too weak and made Reagan too tempting for even liberals. He was a great after-president but what's the point when it's too late?
Oh, I knew it was a rhetorical qeustion, SaboCat. And it has triggered some excellent posts below, too. Here's one more reason: he had to go ahead and write that inconveniently titled book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid".
To be seen hanging out with someone who talks like that would be a no-no, no?
I liked SaboCat's question, too, so I want to play:
Carter followed Ford, who pardoned Nixon, who followed Johnson, who took over Viet Nam after Kennedy was shot in the head, splattering brain all over Jackie...on a day that Bush, Sr., just happened to be in Dallas, no less...and no less interesting, even now...
lots of heavy players to compare to Carter's general lightness of being...
Could Carter have just been too damn 'good'? a navy nuclear physicist, a preacher, a governor, a family man, a conservationist that actually engaged in conservation personally and nationally, a middle east peace broker, habitat for humanities house builder...and his smile seemed genuine...
we love to think that smart, nice, honest, hardworking, happy, successful people are widely admired...I'm not so sure...
to me, the whole hostage crisis was arranged to play Carter the fool, and Reagan the hero...it worked...I still remember the goddamn ongoing 'hostage day' count, and the miraculous release negotiated soon after he'd left office...
my grandpa always seemed so smart, until he told me how much he liked Reagan, and meant it...
those that work with Obama so well sensed they would never be able to work Carter that way, so he had to go...
I'm glad the Carter Doctrine was mentioned, even though a big negative...he was president, after all...in fact, I forgot to mention the OPEC oil embargo that led to the Kissinger plan to take the middle east...that preceded Carter, and may have lowered public perception of his middle east activities...
Actually, the Iranians stonewalled and stonewalled, then the hostaged were put on the plane to the US at the exact moment that Reagan was swearing in. Of course the Reagan lovers all said it was becasue they kenw Reagan would have nuked Tehran, if the hostages weren't released. But there is of course the evidence of secret Reagan/Bush campaign negotations with the Iranians, who were certainly naiive enough to beleive that Reagan might be a friend. To the extent that the US secretly sold them much needed weapons to use against the Iraqis - because Saddam was percieved to be insufficiently opposed to the godless Soviets, and to get funding for the contras I guess Reagan was friend of Khomeni. Recall in those days, even the most extreme Muslim was a friend of the USA becaue at least they weren't "athiestic godless communists!"
One of the things that the "Carter was the worst president ever" people fail to point out is that Carter would certianly have won re-electon if he had pulled off either the hostage rescue or a negotiated release. So his lack of popularity did not have a lot of depth to it. So much for "malaise".
Thinking back - from Nixon onward - with Ford and perhaps Carter representing the only break, the history of the US presidency has only been one of scandal and high crimes against humanity - and not a single one of them EVER being held to account in a courtroom. Can ANY other so-called democracy make such a claim!
Oops!!! Forget the "Ford and Carter break". I forgot about Ford's continuation of Kissinger/Nixon's support of Suharto's slaughter of a million of his own people - mostly union orgainzers, for being "godless communists". Then more of the same slaughter by Suharto in East Timor becasue the Timorese were communists too - of the Catholic liberation theology mold - almost godless anyway.
And of course, I mentioned Carters foreign policy atrocities earlier.
I suddenly feel very tired and sad.
Is this a trick question?
You're exactly correct to note that Carter isn't reviled on the merits, or lack thereof, of his worst policies or miscalculations.
He's reviled because the Establishment's Manufacturing-Consent Works deemed Carter to be a Loser, and a little on the Goofy Southerner side to boot. You know-- having those awful Southern Gothic relatives like Miss Lillian and Brother Billy, being attacked by a rabbit, making smarmy comments about "lust in his heart" and a "national malaise", screwing up the Iran hostage crisis. All that truthy stuff.
You know, the way Al Gore is, or was, reviled for being pretentious and making lots of preposterous claims about himself. He didn't actually make the preposterous claims attributed to him by a malicious media, but that's not the way the Establishment's Manufacturing-Consent Works tells it.
Now, of course, Gore has newer off-putting characteristics-- but the legacy smears have never quite been expunged from the collective political consciousness.
Hope this helps.
Yup, the trashing of Carter was the first great victory of the consent-manufacturing machine. Most people could not be convinced that Carter never uttered the word "malaise" in any of his speeches.
And, wouldn't ANYONE fend off a bizarre rabid rabbit swimming at their canoe at high speed? Of course, if he had let the rabbit into his boat and got bitten (yes, rabbits can bite), he would have ridiculed that too.
And I NEVER figured out what was so abhorrent and ridicule-worthy about mentioning his daughter Amy's fears of a nuclear war in a debate - that one remark sealed my determinaton to vote again for Carter. If Bush had a young daughter and has mentioned her fears of "terrists" if would have been considered a brilliant campaign tactic!
I lived in E. Tennessee and SW Virginia at the time, so the southern stuff was one of the few things Carter had going for him down there. They really loved him for a couple years.
I still can't seem to get that picture of him tripping and falling in his jogging suit out of my mind. A strong metaphor that made him look weak and VERY unpresidential. Sad.
I think you are confusing Carter with Ford? Ford was the klutzy president. The Chevy Chase skits on Saturday Night Live never ended over that.
but a bit later, I'll never forget the glowing Jimmy Carter and cleaning lady at Three-Mile Island skit, or later, the glowing, inflatable Reagan bean pod that turned normal liberal people at a party into into right-wing Ayn-Rand spouting ideologies.
In the winter to spring of 1976, no one belieived that Reagan had a chance of being elected president. Everyone was expecting him to be the next Barry Goldwater.
A hot water heater that works for over thirty years without breaking...also, efficient...aren't appliances like that against the law in the US?
If they aren't they should be. They cut back on the use of electricity created from burning coal as well, cutting into the profits of two major corporate interests.
We simply can NOT do anything that cuts into the capitalists returns on investment. It ain't 'murkin.
Bill McKibben is jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Solar energy has been political on a near religious level for 30 years. Reagan fired most of the solar researches early in his first term, and used IRS harassment to bankrupt solar hot water businesses. (American Solar King, Waco Texas). During the Clinton years the word "solar" was never publicly used. President Clinton said, "If oil remains plentiful and cheap then solar energy will not be supported" at a private meeting with the King of Saudi Arabia. (It was a political error. The King actually supports solar energy.) Bush II "Zeroed out solar energy research".
Expensive solar energy subverts solar energy cheaper than fossil fuels, like solar thermal hot water and passive solar homes. Fossil fuel corporations are not worried about expensive solar energy. However, their resistance to low cost solar energy has been brutal in the US.
One square meter (11 sq.ft.) of sunlight in Colorado climate is worth more than one barrel of oil per year.
A new coal boiler costs $1/kW. A new solar boiler (solar concentrator) costs $0.25/kW. Solar steam is cheaper than burning coal even if the coal is delivered for free. They do not want you to know that fact. It is a public information liability.
New technologies are a more direct threat to old carbon-based industries than are the political responses to their carbon emissions.
Put an end to their subversion and resistance of low cost solar energy.
Good points, sunflower333. "Solar" doesn't have to be solar PV alone - it could be solar thermal, as well. It's a shame that hybrid heating systems are not the norm.
I love the spirit of McKibben's project. I am a member of his 350 group.
But the Bill Gates doesn't give a damn about this problem and it doesn't have anything to do with 'R&D'. (Gates is into next generation nukes). Rather, the US ruling elite is a MILITARY OILIGARCHY. Goldman Sachs, part of the team, bought up the leases of BLM land where solar projects 'might' be located, only to ensure they won't. The US military-corporate state is the biggest obstacle to world peace, climate change mitigation, banning land mines, ending torture--you name it!
Ironically, the biggest solar installation in the US is at Nellis Air Force Base.
So the problem is NOT R&D and 'being competitive' but political. We need social movements, people in the streets demanding change. If the corporate media doesn't cover the demonstrations (as is the historical pattern--ignore the left), then people take the protests to the MSM, set up tents outside the big media headquarters.
Right now, we're at the stage of taking baby steps--getting people to in very small groups to do banner hangings over freeways, passing out flyers on college campuses, busy intersections, creative displays, educational lectures--that sort of thing. The rest is dreaming.
I really believe McKibben is doing more damage than good.
Read the article again, there is not one mention of the word capitalism or empire. He doesn't seem to understand the fundamental nature of this economy, or how the nation state relies on wars of conquest (using oil) to maintain its hegemony.
Unless McKibben comes to realize that the only way forward is via an anti-capitalist, anti-empire movement, then everything else is just pissing in the wind. We need to dismantle the military-corporate-industrial-warfare state. Do you really believe the military is going to give up oil without a fight to the death?? They can't run their tanks on solar.
I already believe it's too late for the climate movement. The party is over. The best we can do is prey for an economic collapse of the US Empire, and not just because of the energy issue, but to simply stop the killing machine.
Rahm " Son of Irgun" Emmanuel literally told the environmentalists at a WH conference, go "F" yourselfs.
It is pretty simple, Renewables, Renewables, Renewables.
Corporate Capitalist Fascism at work
Just another day at the office for the taxpayer subsidized corporate world.
Mr. McKibben, there was a man employed at Unity College who was instrumental in acquiring that solar panel. I suppose that you should give credit where it is due. Please sir, enlighten us. (I am not that individual BTW).
Pete, if you read this I can appreciate your work.
http://www.unity.edu/NewsEvents/News/JCsolarA10.aspx
The "other" project went by the wayside as an "enron" issue cropped up and also a lack of interest by "college management" forced an end to the effort after you left.
Keep up the good work and again thanks!
The climate movement that everyone seems to be missing. We talk about New York being under water, if we do not get control of Co2. Here is a news flash for you, in ten thousand years New York is going to be under ice if we do not get control of Co2. If we do not kill most of the people on this planet and return to a Paleolithic life style, we probably will not survive the next ice age. If there is nothing left to hunt and gather in the next ice age that will be the end of days. There is an alternative however. We should not be worrying about putting Co2 into the atmosphere, we should be taking it out and storing it. How about building a solar plant that takes Co2 out? We can then put the Co2 back into the atmosphere to prevent the next ice age. When the planet wobbles into another interglacial position, we can take the Co2 back out and save it for a rainy day. Now that is a climate movement.
NAWAPA (& similar water management projects around the world) will turn deserts into forests. Trees are the best way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere (a Sahara forest will eliminate hurricane season). These forests will moderate climate patterns. It would be every bit as big & expensive & all-consuming as war, BUT it will produce MORE life, NOT destroy it. Not only can more people live, MORE animals & plants will live on Earth (the biomass in general will increase). We may even attract the approval & cooperation of those neolithic Earth gods & goddesses who've probably been wondering WHEN we'll get over our insanity & get back to life & liveing, once again. We can stand another life-affirming alliance with the Faere & Shining Ones, once again. We can put science & technology to the service of LIFE, once again. This is do-able. The blueprints have existed for DECADES.
And storing it where? In rock formations? Which ones? What do we know about that? Costs involved? Harmful consequences? No, sequestering carbon dioxide is not the answer.
Sequestering CO2 is a myth King Coal continues to perpetrate while it produces the gas by the ton daily. Think about how hard it is to store nuclear waste. The top 12 coal-fired power plants in the U.S. emit from 16.6 to 25.3 million tons of CO2 a year. There are 8000-plus power plants nationwide most of which burn coal. How and where could this ever be stored in such amounts? Even if the money was available to store it--which is highly unlikely--the task alone would be monumental. And for what? That same money could be plowed into solar thermal, solar photovoltaics (PV), wind, hydro, wave energy, fuel cells--all technologies that exist now and can produce clean, renewable power NOW. Eight years ago when I got into the solar PV industry I thought by now I'd more of an order taker for solar installations. But I still need to hustle every day to sell systems that save people thousands of dollars a year in electricity costs here in Southern California and hundreds of thousands over the 30-plus years a PV system will produce. The copious amounts of money that King Coal and Big Oil (and nuclear) spend to perpetuate archaic energy technologies is not only costing us countless numbers of jobs. It's slowly killing us by degrading our habitats, our water and our air. And we call ourselves the most advanced creatures in nature.
Why can't you bring this down on a train and illustrate
another essential part of the puzzle - the turnaway from
auto/truck addiction?
In reference to revitalizing the climate movement ,Bill states that he wouldn't be "suprised" if Non violent Civil Disobedience becomes more prevelant. I , and most folks, are thankful for his brief endorsement of NVCD. The public is crying loudly for more wack, less yack!! The "big" non profits,ie; Sierra Club, 350.org etc need to use ALL of their energy and tools available to them! This includes NVCD. See you in DC on 9/27, bring your pitchforks and torches... www.appalachiarising.org
" ... we're in the midst of a (biodiesel) road trip to Washington ... "
I find it just so comforting to know that burning biodiesel does not add CO2 to the atmosphere.
It adds CO2 to the air in exactly the amount and rate that that the crops growing to make the biodiesel are taking it out - a closed cycle.
In contrast, when oil or coal is burned, it is adding co2 that has been in storage for millions to hundreds of millions of years, and will take many millions of years to get it back out of the atmosphere.
You are mostly correct. How much CO2 is released in the conversion of biomass to biodiesel. It is probably a small amount. I do admit that you are correct, and I did know this myself, but typically shot from the hip, operating keyboard before engaging brain. I stand (mostly) corrected.
Rethinking my above comment. Once enough biodiesel has been created we can begin to use biodiesel to power the creation of more biodiesel. At that point the entire process becomes carbon neutral.
Thanks, SaboCat.
Raygun was like a pimp handing out condoms to his prostitutes.
"spending the money so that we can make the next technological discoveries. Many, including the Breakthrough Institute and Bill Gates, are calling for big increases in R and D funding, which might help us somehow claw our way back toward the front of the parade."
McKibbens sometimes seems to be in touch with the people and the people's better interests, but then he goes and says things that suck the people back down into the quicksand of laissez-faire capitalism.
We don't need to spend munny in any great amount whatsoever to produce sustainable energy and apply it. The development has already been done. We're close to the point of diminishing returns which places us in a very dangerous position in advocating investment in that area.
Here's what will happen: Some elite thug like Bill Gatez will dump superloads of funny munny into some patented process to gain a tiny increment of efficiency, say 3%. Then his marketeers will spout propaganda to trick the people into believing that it's a fantastic breakthrough, and he'll secure his monopoly, with the help of his "friends" in Washing-town who are always looking for another monopolist to subsidize with the people's treasure.
Again, no munny investment is needed in sustainable energy. Instead, we need the people to stand up and take back ownership/control of production, and sustainable energy is a fundamental sector to start the movement. Are you ready to act? Or will you defer to the thug elites yet again and again and again?
Good point, rtdrury. Maybe it's high time to take back the subsidies handed out to the oil and coal industries, perhaps even retroactively if a way can be found to do that!
It costs money to erect wind turbines, solar, energy storage, hydro, and other renewable sources. It also costs money to make the grid improvements that will be needed. Or will everything down to the basic raw materials be done with volunteer labor? I'm all for "from each according to their abilities" too. but we cant wait for such a world-worker revolution before getting started.
SaboCat, I think rtdrury was talking about a potential windfall for some "well-positioned" investors, especially a possible monopoly or an oligopoly that can reap massive profits from subsidies.
As someone who tinkers with small electric vehicles (scooters and motorcycles) I fully understand this threat. A company called Cobalsys - a division of Chevron-Texaco, holds all the patents having boutght them from the inventor for a relative pittance and completely controls the large-format nickle-metal-hydride batteries. For them, the patents are just a speculative instrument, so they refuse to negotiate any licneses to make the batteries so the price of their patents will go up - this what was behind that California electric car debacle documented in "Who Killed the electric Car". Apprently GM and others faced massive lawsuits if even a single one of their electric cars was kept rolling on the road.
However, at this point, Chevron-Texaco will probably never see the profits thay had hoped, as improved lithium ferous phosphate batteries are showing superior performance and dirability, so their stiocks er..oops patents will soon be worth very little.
But now the same thing has happened to this battery technology. A company called "Phostech" - a division of Hydro-Quebec, has "cornered the market" by getting the US patent office to grant them incredibly broadly-worded patents. Their intent is to lecense the technology only to a handful of very large corporations like GM.
Thankfully, for now, some Chinese manufacturers are evading these patents and making LiFePO4 cells available to schmucks like me - as well as in large quantities to power the many millions of electric scooters seen in Chinese cities. I saw quite a few low-speed electric scooters and mopeds in Toronto too, although no higher performing suburban-capable ones like I have.