It’s The Affordability, Stupid! Crafting Climate Strategies That Work

Let’s face it, the sturm und drang about climate change just doesn’t motivate people to change their behavior. James Hansen testified before the Senate in 1988 about the connection between carbon dioxide and average global temperatures. The senators listened, thanked Hansen for his time, then adjourned for a round of golf followed by drinks at their favorite country club. In 2006, the Al Gore movie An Inconvenient Truth told the story of carbon emissions in a clear and compelling fashion. Nothing happened.

In 2015, the nations of the world met in Paris and agreed to create a framework for reducing carbon emissions. The world held its breath, waiting to see if these new strategies could actually accomplish their stated purpose. Now, over a decade later, we know they have not. Yes, the rate of increase may have moderated somewhat, but carbon emissions continue to pour into the atmosphere and the level of carbon dioxide continues to increase.

Fossil Fuel Follies

What Paris did was put the fossil fuel industry on notice that their goose that laid the golden egg was about to be cooked. To keep their profit stream flowing, they began a concerted and deeply cynical campaign to fund politicians who would protect them from climate-focused nut jobs like John Kerry. If that meant supporting people who were willing to tear down the civil society created after World War II, so be it. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. If it takes dictators to keep the oil and gas flowing, that’s fine with the fossil fuel companies.

Make no mistake about it; the carnage being inflicted on the US government today has been bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry. Oh, there are some others involved, from the tech world mostly, but they are parvenus. The structure of the anti-science network has been carefully created by Charles Koch and a coterie of other oil and gas billionaires who founded and nurtured organizations like the Heritage Foundation, the Heartland Institute, and dozens of others who operate in secrecy, thanks to laws they bought and paid for.

The Economic Imperative

There is a lesson here, and it’s pretty simple. People actually, genuinely do care about the environment, but not enough to change their behavior. A heat pump may keep some carbon emissions out of the air, but the reason people will install one is because it will lower their utility bills, not because it helps the environment.

Solar panels may generate carbon-free electricity, but unless that electricity is cheaper than what we get from thermal generating stations, few will install them. Corporations that make steel or cement may want to reduce their carbon footprint, but if it makes their products noncompetitive with products made by traditional means, they won’t spend the money for those new technologies.

Are you seeing a common thread, here? Yes, indeed — it’s money. No matter how much we decry materialism, virtually all our daily decisions are based on economic considerations. Today, James Carville’s famous phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid,” has been altered slightly. Now affordability is the catch phrase that best captures the temper of the times.

Little wonder. The Moron of Mar-A-Loco has plunged the US into a needless and senseless war that has cost Americans tens of billions of dollars, but the military costs are negligible compared to the increased costs of food, heat, and gasoline that ill-planned expedition has caused. Gasoline and heating oil today cost twice as much as they did two months ago. One of the main concerns of voters in 2024 was the price of eggs, but today the price of everything at the grocery store has shot up dramatically.

Diesel Costs Affect Every Economic Sector

The US purports to be energy independent. That’s a lie. Although it is now the largest exporter of fossil fuels of any nation, it gets most of the oil it needs to make diesel and jet fuel from other countries. The diesel engine is the workhorse of national and global commerce. It powers the container ships that bring goods to American shores and it powers the trucks that transport those goods to market. It powers the locomotives that pull freight cars. The price of diesel has doubled since the alleged president decided on a whim to commit war crimes in Iran.

What that means is everything that moves by ship, truck, or rail — that includes most of the food people eat — now costs more, thanks to the blithering idiot in what is left of the White House.

But wait, it gets worse. Insurance companies are finding new and creative ways of shafting homeowners who file claims for losses caused by wildfires or storms using AI to deny claims — that wonderful new technology sending the price of electricity soaring. It is a classic case of supply and demand. Data centers need more electricity than many cities. That increase in demand leads to higher prices for everyone.

The upshot of it all is that today, it’s not just the price of eggs that concerns folks, it’s the price of everything — cars, insurance, health care, heat, air conditioning, gasoline, food, clothing, drugs, housing, and a hundred other things that we depend on to live above the subsistence level.

An Affordability Crisis

What we are facing is an affordability crisis, one that is driven largely by the cost of fossil fuels. Forget about saving the planet. Today, people are more concerned about paying the rent and putting food on the table. Life has become unaffordable for many, even as a few at the top gorge themselves on enormous profits. The oil and gas industry has been raking in an extra $30 million every hour since the Iran misadventure began. They feasted on $23 billion in ill-gotten gains just in the month of March alone.

While you are struggling to pay your electric bill, according to the Energy & Policy Institute, compensation for utility executives has surged by 10 percent in just the first three months of this year. Utility profits are up, so of course their senior managers deserve fat raises. Greed knows no boundaries.

Renewables Are Affordable

The key to the affordability crisis is renewable energy, which can save money in two ways, First, the levelized cost of electricity for solar is lower than any other source and wind is not far behind. Second, renewable energy can be created locally, which reduces the need for expensive transmission lines. Distributed energy resources and virtual power plants save money and put ordinary people in control of their energy costs — something those utility executives see as a threat to their business model.

Dumb Donnie lit the fuse on the fossil fuel demand destruction machine, which may be the greatest favor to clean energy ever done by an American president. Yes, the effect was unintended, but that shouldn’t stop us from taking advantage of the situation.

Emily Becker is the director of communications for the climate and energy program at Third Way. She told Grist this week, “You are lucky to be a clean energy advocate in this moment, because clean energy is affordable energy. So talk to [people] about addressing energy affordability and how clean energy can satisfy that.”

She’s right. Encouraging people to do the right thing hasn’t worked, so let’s stop digging the hole deeper. Affordability is what is on the minds of most people today, so let’s focus on how renewables and other “green” technologies like heat pumps and electric cars save people and families money. Soft pedal the “save the Earth” rhetoric and lean in on lower costs.

There’s a good chance appeals based on economic self interest will succeed where pleas to be environmentally responsible have fallen on deaf ears. That’s a convenient truth we can all live with.