The Dark Narrative of International Climate Change Policy, Part Two
See my most recent previous publication in March for more background.
Most revolutionary climate change policy is extremely consequential. As a result, its public face is tainted with relations to “socialism” and “extremism.” This is simply not true.
The nation’s largest greenhouse gas emitter is the federal government, owning 430,000 buildings (office buildings) and 650,000 vehicles (Parenti 2012). Our government makes up more than 38 percent of our GDP (Trading Economics 2018). Thus, the most simple solution to the crisis domestically is to reassemble government acquisition away from fossil fuel energy and toward green technology — utilizing the government’s spending vantage to create a new market for clean energy. This redirection of government purchasing would result in tremendous and prominent markets for clean power and energy-efficient vehicles and buildings. If the government initiated green purchases across industry, it would drive down market prices drastically enough that momentum toward green tech would become self-sustainable, and eventually spread to the private sector.
In Michael Lind’s “Land of Promise,” readers see the detailed history of political and governmental involvement in industry. An example of this is IBM and the microprocessor- the federal government not only funded its development, but significantly catalyzed its public reception by being its major consumer. Today, our problem rests with millions of gas-powered vehicles and billions of fuel, alongside thousands of gas stations adding to the struggle. Governments are market movers. They shape and signal to other sectors which investments are wise. Therefore, its leverage in influencing the spread of green technology is fundamentally logical, and empirically effective: after numerous Chinese protests on local air quality, for example, the government was pressured to invest further in revitalizing wind energy (Kuhn 2017). Such examples remind us of the potential of our efforts.
Consensus and collective effort is what drives governments to pay attention to the climate change movement. Scientists are in agreement that we need radical change- and to achieve this, we need the government’s observation and consideration. A political and economic shift to green technology is the simplest solution, beyond even innovation, to fix the climate issues facing us today.
