Not all clean tech companies need to produce more environmentally friendly products in order to make a difference; some are leaders in the industry because quite simply, they change their procedures in order to ensure that their practices reduce their carbon footprint. In this week’s Newsweek “Green Rankings” were released, and many of those higher up on the list include leaders in technology that are trying to make sure that their environmental impact is just that much cleaner.

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Last week’s Newsweek/American Petroleum Institute panel at Stanford that I was invited to helped shed light on the very technology v. behavior problem I addressed above.** The panel moderator, Newsweek Senior Editor of Business and Technology, David Jefferson kicked off the event by admitting that, while he is certainly cognizant of the pressing environmental issues we are currently facing, he could be doing be more. He candidly admitted that he drives a Mustang convertible, that he has installed compact fluorescent lightbulbs in his outside lights, but not his indoor ones, and that he does not shy away from using his home’s thermostat, although he is also not afraid of throwing on a sweater if it is a little chilly.

Kennedy set the event off on an interesting note by taking an editorial position that struck me. Kennedy said something like, “it is not about changing consumer behavior,” and this is where Kennedy and I have a theoretical and philosophical divergence.

[Note: I included the photo above as evidence of the rapidly changing world of media. Five to ten years ago, who would have guessed that oil executives would ever sit down with green bloggers to talk about energy policy? Certainly, not me. Pictured left to right are Maria Surma Manka of Maria Energia, me (Tim Hurst) of Green Options & EcoPolitology, Paul Siegele of Chevron, and Brian Westenhous of New Energy and Fuel].

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In the wake of yesterdays annual meetings at ExxonMobil and Chevron that saw shareholders vote down several proposals that would have required the two energy giants to give greater consideration to issues of environmental protection and human rights, Chevron and Newsweek are co-hosting a forum called “Energy’s Future is in Technology: Innovation in Energy Supply, Energy Efficiency and Alternative/Renewable Energy” (now that’s a mouthful). The event, hosted at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California has just commenced and I am blogging in a room of about 150 academics, journalists, energy industry representatives, and opinion leaders (they even gave us our own table to sit at). More to come…

(Part II - Politics and Policy)

(Part III - Consumer Behavior)

Photo courtesy of the API

J’Accuse Robert J. Samuelson of facilitating inaction in the face of Peak Oil.

J’Accuse Robert J. Samulson of putting this nation through your peddling of false information about options to deal with Global Warming.

J’Accuse Robert J. Samuelson of putting this nation, humanity, my (and your) children at greater risk.

Robert J. Samuelson, J’Accuse … J’Accuse

"J’Accuse," by Émile Zola is perhaps the most influential and single "greatest newspaper article" in history. It caused an uproar in French politics. "No other newspaper article has ever provoked such public debate and controversy or had such an impact on law, justice, and society." Amid the falsely based prosecution of Dreyfus, it accused the French system of anti-Semitism and covering up treasonous acts by another. It is a powerful and important work, one that should be studied and remembered. And, it can speak to our times in so many ways.

And, when it comes to Global Warming,

"la verite est en marche et rien ne l’arretera"

Truth is on the march and nothing can stop it.

Robert J. Samuelson, J’Accuse. I accuse you of fostering a rear-guard battle against the truth. I accuse you of using your pedestal at Newsweek, The Washington Post, and elsewhere for peddling falsehoods cloaked in seeming reasonableness. I accuse you of seeking to confuse, rather than enlighten, on the critical issue of our times.

In Newsweek, The Washington Post, and elsewhere, Samuelson just published "Greenhouse Simplicities," which was an attack on the previous week’s Newsweek cover story "The Truth About Denial."

Samuelson’s claim:

The global-warming debate’s great un-mentionable is this: we lack the technology to get from here to there.

Upfront, clearly, unequivocably: This is false, this is not true! We, the United States and humanity, already have in hand energy efficient options to dramatically cut energy use and therefore emissions. (Well, that compact flourescent lightbulb that cuts your lighting electricity by 73%, that is just the tip of the (melting) iceberg folks.) To quote Royal Dutch Shell’s CEO,

More than half the energy we generate every day is wasted.

What’s the point of producing even more energy if we continue to waste most of it? Instead, we should aim to become twice as efficient in our use of energy by the middle of the next century. That is entirely feasible, provided that the will is there.

We have renewable energy (and, yes, nuclear power as well) technologies aleady in hand that can be displacing coal-fired electricity. We can (solely using technologies that already exist today), eliminate coal from our electricity system within twenty years.

That is entirely feasible, provided that the will is there.

Well, what does Samuelson claim: "At best, we might curb emissions growth."

Simply, purely, not true. It is not just the minor issue that we must do better, we can do much better than that without hardship and, well, we could even create a path for a carbon-negative society by mid-century "provided that the political will is there."

That is, unless we abandon any concept of an American ability to lead the world to a better future. Oh, well, Samuelson has abandoned that as he states:

Democracies don’t easily adopt painful measures in the present to avert possible future problems.

That is true, not easily. But, do we abandon all hope in the face of this? I guess, for Samuelson, that is the case. That we cannot hope for better from America and Americans but surrender in the face of challenge, inaction in the face of threat, lack of will when courage is called for. J’Accuse, Robert J. Samuelson, of denigrating America and Americans’ spirit and strength of character.

But, he wants to pound this in.

One way or another, our assaults against global warming are likely to be symbolic, ineffective or both. But if we succeed in cutting emissions substantially, savings would probably be offset by gains in China and elsewhere.

Ah, why bother to do anything, after all the Chinese and others in that ‘developing world’ are going to be polluting? Well, hmmmm, would not smart policy create a path for them to leapfrog to a sustainable and prosperous energy future, avoiding as much as possible heavy fossil fuel pollution? "Entirely feasible, provided that the will is there. …"

What to do about global warming is a quandary. Certainly, more research and development. Advances in underground storage of carbon dioxide, battery technology (for plug-in hybrid cars), biomass or nuclear power could alter energy economics.

Certainly it is a quandary, because those like Samuelson are inhibiting moves to anything sensible.

This is Samuelson’s favorite.

He claims that we don’t have anything in hand to do something about emissions (a claim, again, that is false) and thus we need to do research. Research to find that Silver Bullet solution.

Well, first off, there is no Silver Bullet solution. But the right path is that we do fund research, we do look for better paths forward, we do look for great new technologies. But, as we search for the better mousetrap to come, we start employing the great ones that we have in hand.

We have, in hand, much of what is required to create a prosperous and sustainable energy future despite the truthiness propaganda coming from the likes of Robert J. Samuelson.

Samuelson’s concluding paragraph begins:

But the overriding reality seems almost un-American: we simply don’t have a solution for this problem.

Yes, there are solutions. To again quote from an oil company executive, a solution path

is entirely feasible, provided that the will is there.

Well, Robert J. Samuelson, I have the will. Others have the will. We have the will to Energize America and the Globe to a prosperous and sustainable energy future.

This future “is entirely feasible, provided that the will is there.”

We will, Mr. Samuelson, we will provide that will.

Ask yourself: Are you doing your part to Energize America? Are you ready to do your part?

Your voice can, and will make a difference.

So … speak up… now!!!

Notes:

• Samuelson is impressive for how much mendacity he can fit into just one column. See Mary’s excellent Global Warming Naysayers for a discussion of other areas where we should say, "Robert J Samuelson, J’Accuse."
• Samuelson, sadly, often merits being called out. Just over a year ago, J’accuse! Distorting reality in "Global Warming’s Real Inconvenient Truth”, which was about a Samuelson OPED that "has factual errors, misleading statements and conclusions, and provides a counterproductive path for thinking about and achieving change for a better future."
• Answer the Call for a better future.

"They patterned what they did after the tobacco industry," says former senator Tim Worth, quoted early in the article. The key tactic? Creating doubt in the minds of both policymakers and the public by disputing the science behind global warming. As soon as then-senator Al Gore brought global warming to Washington’s attention in 1988, groups with benign names such as the Global Climate Coalition and the Information Council on the Environment, which were actually lobbyist groups from the petroleum, steel, auto, and utilities companies, began an all-out war to contradict the overwhelming body of science that supported global warming.

The rhetoric changed as the science supporting global warming grew more and more conclusive. It started with "the science behind global warming is wrong", moved to "global warming is happening, but it is not the fault of humans", and ended with the current denier mantra, "global warming is happening, and we may be causing it, but it’s effects are hardly anything to worry about."

Also impossible to ignore in the article is the amount of money and power changing hands between lobbying groups, policymakers, and scientists. One Exxon-Mobil-backed group has offered $10,000 to scientists willing to speak out against global warming. And that might be what’s so depressing about the "deniers": it seems that from day one, their motives were entirely based on the acquisition or preservation of money and power. As Gore demonstrated in a graphic in An Inconvenient Truth, what’s more important: bars of gold, or the entire planet?

The article is fascinating and puts a face (and clear strategy) on the campaign against the planet. This issue of Newsweek is on newsstands now, and the entire article can be found on Newsweek’s website.