The Big Misconception About Clean Energy
And… [CLAP] "This planet is threatened
with destruction…" "Half of humanity is living
in the danger zone NOW…" "Be mindful and conserve
as much as possible…" ?What people get wrong about energy is
the idea that to slow climate change, we have to use less of it, forever. "From LED lights to solar electric…" "Starting in Asia, skylines around the world
switched off today for Earth Hour…" "Oh don't turn them off. Forget it!" "Saving energy is trending" That what we’re in for is a long struggle
toward a smaller, less comfortable life. That the reason to care about clean energy
is just to try our best to prevent… catastrophe. "That's never good." But that’s not true. In fact, I’ve realized it’s a pretty
backward way of looking at things. The goal isn’t to use less energy, or to just replace fossil fuels. The goal is vastly more energy,
to help more people live better lives and to make it all clean.
"Renewable energy use is on the rise…" "If you have enough energy…" "Energy" "This is the greatest opportunity
for innovation in human history." As long as most of our energy comes
from fossil fuels (and it does) we're in kind of a trap. "It's a trap!" Using less is the only real option
to slow climate change. And throughout my life, we haven’t
had the technologies that would allow us to replace fuels. You know what, actually?
Let's do this outside. See you in a bit! Staaayyyy…. No! Stay. I’m not exactly near a lot of nature in New
York City, but there’s one place I love to go. Welcome to Central Park. A little bit of green
in the middle of a lot of cement. So, where was I? We were in the
middle of that fossil fuel trap and there really wasn't anything else we
could do but conserve energy.
Besides, until recently, people
didn’t really know enough to give a sh*t about climate change. So to get people to care,
scientists and policymakers used what I now think of as
“the stick.” Which is: “We need to use less energy. Terrible
things will happen if we don’t.” All of which is true. That message
– along with efficiency improvements, policy changes, don’t pat yourself on the
back too much – slowed the skyrocketing energy use in some countries
where people could. Keep in mind, Americans use WAY more
energy than most people around the world, so this chart isn’t
particularly congratulatory. I was born here. For my whole life, it went:
"energy equals fossil fuels, fossil fuels equal energy, fossil fuels
are bad, energy is bad." Until recently, I really never
considered another option. Matt Yglesias: “But it turns out, conservation
isn't good enough environmentally, right? We actually need zero carbon
sources of energy.
But if you can have a net zero economy,
then there's no more need to conserve.” That’s Matt Yglesias, my former colleague
at Vox and the author of the piece that really took my lifelong understanding
of how to think about energy and put it through the blender. If you think the way I thought before,
my goal here is to change your mind like Matt did mine. Here's how he did it: In the piece, he describes our current
approach as an "energy diet" and makes the case that
we should try to end it. But before you comment, he doesn’t
use a drop more fossil fuels. He means we need to wildly increase
our clean energy ambition. “When you see the potential of clean energy, I think it becomes much more compelling
to say, we need to make the steps that will sort of unleash this. And you need to
paint for people though, a picture of like, why is my life going to be better?” It is possible that if we do this right, in the future this equation
might look different. And so our thinking should
be different too.
"Open your mind…" So why does it matter how
we think about energy use? I've thought about this question a lot
and I think the answer is: The way that we think about things now
shapes what we can accomplish in the future. "The new climate change report the
UN released today provided the starkest warnings yet." “See this is why I can’t read the news because
then I feel helpless and powerless” "There is a constant fear at the
back of our minds…" "You say the ocean's rising…" "The world is just not a good
place to live in…
"The eyes of all future generations
are upon you…" I’ll just speak for myself: I could use a vision of not just what WILL go wrong if we fail,
but what COULD go right if we succeed. I think it’s time to talk about “the carrot” of clean
energy. Why we should all hope and work for it, for more than just to avoid catastrophe… "We have to look at all clean
energy technologies…" Take another look at this chart.
I always saw this increase in energy use
as shameful, honestly. And in the context of climate change, it is. In the context of
improving life for human beings… it really isn't. This is when Americans started
astonishing technologies like Electricity… and flushing toilets… and refridgerators. "With my Frigidaire cold pantry…" So, the first and most
important goal is: We need to get everybody there. To the
quality of life that most people in rich countries take for granted.
Realistically, we just
can’t do that without using more energy which we can’t do using fossil fuels without
speeding up climate change. This is already one of the biggest fights
on the global stage over clean energy. Richer countries, like the US, who used
fossil fuels to radically redefine "comfortable" for their citizens, looking at poorer
countries and saying, "Well, YOU can’t do that because
climate change…" "What has been said at the higher levels
are far different from what is happening in the
negotiation rooms." "Historical emissions coming mostly
from the West…" "We have the best, lowest number
in carbon emissions…" "How dare you!" Who do we think we are? “Taking the present day as like a ceiling and then
saying, well, okay, well, we're going to conserve.
I think that's not the right solution for the
United States or Europe or Japan, but it's a terrible solution for Vietnam or Ethiopia
or Nicaragua. And it's also not a solution that those countries are going to accept.” The sooner we can get more
zero carbon energy sources, the sooner this fight no longer even
makes sense.
And if we actually do that, just imagine how we could continue
to improve everyone's lives if energy no longer meant
harmful emissions. As I listened to Matt describe a vision of
a future with abundant clean energy, I felt myself begin to imagine. Honestly, I felt a lot more motivated
to do the work that it takes to get there. So, for the next minute, just listen to
him describe what we could do and let yourself imagine
what could go right. “We're now in a world where you can
invent a lot of things that work, but the problem is they're really
energy intensive… It would be really useful to be able to
capture carbon dioxide, especially to do what's called direct air capture. This
is what trees do. You can make machines that do this. Hydrogen could be a zero
carbon solution to lots of problems But you would need the hydrogen. We
could have vertical farms and feed everyone locally to our cities.
With these vertical farm designs, You could use drastically less water.
You could produce incredible amounts of crops at much greater efficiency
with much less pollution, but you need to use much, much, much
more energy, because the sun is free, and lamps
are not free.
You can also take saltwater
and make it drinkable. These are tools that we have, they
are science projects that function, but they're not usable commercially because
the energy cost is much too high. But if we can get more energy and we can
get that energy from clean sources, then we can actually do these things.” This isn’t just a story of, “Huh, one day
we’ll have clean energy and then we can do all this cool stuff.” This isn’t even
a story of how practically we might get there, although I’m working
on episodes about that. This is a much simpler story. It's a perspective
shift I wanted to share with you before we get to episodes like that. This is a story about ambition. About the sheer audacity that it’s gonna
take to get where we need to go. Human history is a story of finding
ways to use a little more energy to make life a little bit better.
And it’s on us to
keep doing that, in a responsible way. The goal isn't less energy. It's more. And we can only have more
by going clean..
