see an example of a seismic shift
We need to move from a high-carbon to low-carbon energy system to better protect our environment and health, as well as secure an energy source that is less economically volatile and more diversified both geologically and technologically – two things that will greatly strengthen our national security.
This means we need to increase our domestic production of things like electric vehicles, heat pumps and batteries, as well as solar panels, wind turbines, fuel cells, and hydrogen combustion turbines, which fits in perfectly with our plans for manufacturing. Get this, a study by the Costs of War Project at the Watson Institute of International Affairs at Brown University found that “while defense spending is indeed a source of job creation, other areas create many more jobs for any given level of spending. Education and health care create more than twice as many jobs as defense for the same level of spending, while clean energy and infrastructure create over 40 percent more jobs.” That’s really good to know!
However, as we make this transition, we cannot be unrealistic or naïve. Like it or not, we must have domestic oil and gas until we have more renewable energy. Yes, we need to advance renewable forms of energy as quickly as possible, but this is a process and facts are facts. Renewable energy sources accounted for just 21 percent of total American utility-scale electricity generation in 2023. That’s a major improvement from 12 percent in 1990, but we’re just not there yet.
Because it will take time for renewable energy solutions to fully materialize, fossil fuels remain a necessary part of our energy portfolio. The numbers just don’t work otherwise. That doesn’t mean we should keep doing business as usual. In the meantime, we can make sure there are strong protections in place to protect the environment.
Remember that environmental issues aren’t the only consideration here. This is also a national security issue of the highest order. We must remain as self-sufficient as possible through this transition. We cannot ever put ourselves back in the position where we are held captive to any one country or region for our energy needs. The national security of the United States depends on our energy sovereignty, regardless of the form it comes in.
We would never recommend that fear dictate policymaking or that relationships with Middle Eastern countries be discouraged. However, it would be incredibly irresponsible to disregard the national security part of this conversation. Even though the United States is now the world’s second largest energy producer – behind China, grrrr – we are only 9th when it comes to proven oil reserves (i.e., oil that has already been discovered and that can be recovered under current technologies and prices). Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Russia all clock in ahead of us.
Just under 80 percent of the world’s proven crude oil reserves are controlled by members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The current OPEC members are Algeria, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. To put our crude oil reserve situation into perspective, Venezuela has 303 billion barrels of proven reserves to our 48 billion barrels. Saudi Arabia has 267 billion barrels, Iran 208 billion, and Iraq 145 billion. Seven OPEC members have more oil in reserves than we do.
Because of OPEC’s vast amounts of oil reserves and production, the cartel enjoys a huge amount of control over the global market by manipulating how much oil reaches consumers, which leaves the rest of us vulnerable to supply interruptions and price fluctuations. Through the years, the oil riches and investment capabilities of the Persian Gulf states have empowered them to, among other things, greatly affect worldwide interest and exchange rates. Multiple times, they have deemphasized holdings priced in U.S. dollars and invested heavily in alternative markets like China and Asia. We can’t relinquish any more control to these guys. Period.
This is an emotionally charged topic, no doubt. Building pipelines, fracking, and offshore drilling evoke reactions from enthusiasm to discomfort to complete hostility, and we completely understand the entire spectrum of emotions.
This topic is understandably emotional because it affects our health and the air we breathe, and our children’s health and their children’s health and the air they will all breathe. It’s emotional because how we get our energy directly affects the wildlife we love, this beautiful land we love, the communities we love, the people we love.
Let’s go ahead and get this out of the way now: We will not debate anyone on whether global warming is a real thing. We simply refuse to waste our time arguing about this because the highly agenda-driven, volatile arguments are a complete waste of time.
This is a common sense issue. Period. To suggest global warming is some sort of elaborate deception is absurd.
We don’t need a study to tell us that when billions of people live on a planet, they have an affect on it. We don’t need a study to tell us that fewer toxins in the air are better than more. We don’t need a study to tell us that we can’t continue to act like our natural resources will last forever. We don’t need a study to tell us that taking no environmental action poses a dangerous risk to our planet, our health, and our international strength.
< Sidebar: Global warming refers to earth’s overall temperature, which is rising. That’s just a fact. Global warming, in turn, causes the climate to change. Climate change causes extreme weather patterns, rising sea levels, shifting jet streams, and plenty of other things that are really bad. As a result of climate change, floods, droughts, ice storms, and heat waves become more frequent and more intense. Essentially, the extremes become even more extreme. So, when people use the fact that parts of America have historic cold and icy weather any given year as proof that there is no global warming, they are inadvertently proving the exact opposite. This annoys me, so I just wanted to clear it up. >
Call us crazy, or bleeding-heart liberals, or anything else, but we care about the tens of thousands of dolphins, whales and other marine animals that have been harmed by the Trump administration’s approval of deafening seismic surveys off the Atlantic coast. We care about the sage grouse that is now endangered in the American West. We care that, in the spring of 2020, California, Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico, and Idaho had to suffer through the first megadrought in over 1,200 years. We care that two massive Antarctic glaciers are breaking free, perhaps initiating the collapse of the entire West Antarctic ice sheet, and that the world’s largest iceberg A-23A (which weighs nearly one trillion tons and is around the size of Rhode Island) may possibly hit the island of South Georgia, a refuge for penguins, seabirds, and seals. We care that our planet is now registering the highest temperatures on record, to the point that some places on earth are now too hot for humans to live. Seriously, how in the world could anyone not care about these things?
This is not only a volatile issue, but also a sexy one – blood for oil, shady international cartels, billion-dollar lobbying efforts, ferocious environmental debates… this is an issue that has it all.
It also offers a perfect example of how we constantly work against ourselves in the quest for sustainable solutions.