Pocket Change and Climate Change
Immediate concerns as opposed to possible long-term problems
I’ve had trouble explaining the extent of many people’s passion and anger about the climate change movement. What I will say below may strike you as too strong or overstated. I am trying to get you to understand something that severely harms others but doesn’t hurt you.
To put it in context, I ask you to watch a 7-minute YouTube talk by Konstantin Kisin
before you read the rest of this article. Kisin was born in the Soviet Union and migrated to Britain. He was a comedian and is now an active writer and speaker. This talk is part of a formal debate at the Oxford Union on climate change.
If you watch that, you’ll understand how many people react when asked to pay even the most minor price to “save the planet.” Why bother? It is pointless. The rest of the world will counteract it. Why should I suffer?
An individual’s wealth has always been measured by the amount of energy he controls. The wealthiest man had the most sons, wives, daughters, slaves, oxen, and other animals. He commanded their efforts. Kings and lower hierarchs controlled those below them. Military leaders commanded the effort and energy of others. Later, wealth was displayed by having household staff, coachmen, etc. Taxes paid in goods or money are tokens of the amount of energy expended to earn that tax payment.
In the twentieth century, the middle and lower classes gained access to energy when oil and electricity gave them mechanical servants in their homes. They had light at night for entertainment, study, or relaxation. Home computers and the internet let the average person draw on the immense power of server farms to gain access to resources never available, even in the grandest libraries in history. Homes had better and easier heating and even air conditioning.
Refrigeration, stoves, and ovens improved and changed food handling and preparation. New ways of transporting food have expanded diets in ways even the wealthiest people before them would never have imagined.
Trains, planes, and automobiles have opened unbelievable new opportunities for many levels of society. I’m an early baby boomer and saw the development of the Interstate Highway System. I had a 1969 Chevrolet with wings that would lift the car’s rear end and a 1976 Pontiac Grand Prix with a massive engine. I have flown many times on business trips and used cruise ships and trains for vacations. When I worked in downtown Washington, DC, I used the “Metro” mass transit train system.
Now, the powers-that-be seem to have decided there are limits to what the Rubes can have. The public expected their leaders to use the available technology to continue to provide energy. If they are worried about CO2, they can use cleaner fuels like natural gas or nuclear power. Instead, they keep driving up the cost of fuel and the cost of living.
The Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago and The AP-NORC Center conducted a national survey of 1,202 adults in November 2018 to understand the public’s willingness to spend money to prevent climate change. Only 79% said climate change was a reality, but support dropped dramatically when you moved from words to money. Starting with that 79%, only 57% were willing to pay one dollar ($1) a month, and only 23% were willing to pay forty dollars ($40) a month.
When Biden took office in 2021, he canceled the Keystone pipeline. He took other measures against fracking and drilling offshore and in Alaska. An area in Minnesota has minerals needed for batteries to support either electric vehicles or solar power, but it was declared off-limits to protect the environment.
Phillips 66 just announced plans to close a California refinery. It seems that California is passing new laws and regulations daily, impacting trucking, farming, imports, appliances, and anything else remotely using energy. These laws impact costs nationally. There are many civilian airports and military air bases in that state, and there is a constantly decreasing amount of extraction and refining. More fuel is needed and imported from hostile countries. California has the highest gasoline prices in the country.
Those who have not been harmed by the inflation of the last four years don’t understand what is happening. If you haven’t changed your dining schedule or locations, you’re OK. If your children haven’t had to lower or cancel their education goals, you are in great shape, and if you don’t even blink in the grocery store or the gas pump, you have no idea what I’m talking about.
Some people see changes in basic costs, equivalent to 15 to 20% of the take-home pay. Even the most prudent people in those income levels don’t have room in their budgets for that.
This level of pain gives people a voting issue. Germany closed its nuclear plants and lost access to the natural gas it was getting from Russia. Their fuel costs for consumers and industries have mushroomed. Households are in a “heat or eat” dilemma. The economy is in serious trouble. Volkswagen is closing three plants in Germany in no small part due to drastic increases in energy costs.
It is one thing to try to save the planet by reducing CO2. It is quite another to do it in a way that deprives the poor – or anyone who has less than you do – of their ability to pay for necessities or even costs them their jobs.
It looks to them as if sophomores are doing your planning in their dorms at 3:00 AM. Solar Power does not work at night. Germany built more windmills and got less energy because Mother Nature didn’t cooperate.
The production of these devices overturns lots of land for mineral ingredients and uses lots of fossil fuel to mine those materials, mold them, and ship them to their destination. In place, they require immense amounts of land, provide intermittent and undependable energy, threaten birds, and require other energy sources as a backup for when they are not producing power. When they wear out, the recycling problems they will cause are worse than those for nuclear energy. So, tell me again, what other benefits of these renewable energy sources did I miss?
Nuclear power requires far less space, produces more power on demand, and has a good safety record when you look at facts instead of exaggerated reports about past problems with older systems. Besides, if “the world is coming to an end” and we must make half the world bear a heavy cost to save it, nuclear power must be scary to avoid using it.
Another source of anger is the belief that there are hidden agendas in the environmental movement. College professors and others speak in Malthusian terms of human beings being a virus or plague. The earth would be better off if a significant percentage of humanity weren’t here. In the movie Kingsman: The Secret Service, Samuel L. Jackson does a superb job as the villain of the piece who holds this view.
Another agenda is held by those who are convinced that the whole world looks like Manhattan, downtown Washington, DC, or some urban center and can’t understand why ordinary people want pickups, SUVs, or any other vehicle that can survive a head-on crash with a mosquito.
Let me summarize. Political parties think they have the driving issue in a campaign. When I hear people like Bill Maher talk about a terrific economy, I know they’re in for a shock. Their favorite might still win, but a pattern has emerged all over Europe, which will probably show up here. People who have little or no pocket change not only don’t give a damn about climate change, they get angrier every moment because of the costs they bear so wealthy people can brag about “saving the planet.”
The parties and politicians who understand this anger and not only talk about it but do something about it will get and hold the support of these people.