Poor pay the price for ‘green dreams’

Published 11:59 pm Friday, September 19, 2014

By Staff Reports

 

  1. Nuclear power the only green energy
  2. Natural gas, wind to take place of coal
  3. Georgetown to switch from fossil fuels to solar, wind
  4. Obama to order gov’t to cut its greenhouse gas emissions

We’re all walking bundles of contradicting thought, and that’s all right. As Blaise Pascal wrote, “Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.”

But in politics, we ought to try for some consistency.

If we say we care about our fellow humans, and that we care about the environment, we ought to at least attempt to reconcile the two.

The debate over carbon emissions fails to do so.

“Renewable energy is coming to an economic crossroads, one that could have dire unintended consequences for some of the most vulnerable populations — the poor and the elderly,” writes Loren Steffy in Forbes. “As renewable energy expands, activists around the world are calling for programs that would supplant conventional fuels — coal, oil and, to a lesser extent, natural gas — with renewable sources such as wind and solar. Programs such as the misguided fossil fuel divestiture movement ignore the costs that forcing a move away from fossil fuels imposes on those who are slowest to embrace the change.”



Take Africa, which is still struggling to produce the power it needs to drive its economy into the modern era. According to American University’s professor Caleb Rossiter, limiting fossil fuel use will directly impact the continent and its citizens’ well-being.

“According to the World Bank, only 24 percent of Africans have access to electricity,” he writes. “The rest must resort to burning dung and wood in their houses and huts, leading to horrific rates of lung and heart disease. The typical African business loses power 56 days each year, constraining commerce, agriculture, education and industry. Growth suffers, and because wealth allows people to live healthily, so does life expectancy.”

Africans suffer from an “energy poverty” that will only be made worse if developed nations demand the continent switch to renewable energy sources.

Even in the developed nations, low-end consumers end up paying higher prices to support the green aspirations of their governments.

Producing green energy comes at a higher cost because in developed countries, society depends on reliable sources of energy — even on cloudy or windless days. So solar and wind energy are only supplemental sources. Traditional sources must be maintained, as well.

“Those costs get spread disproportionately among ratepayers who are still using conventional power,” Steffy explains. “As a result, customers who don’t use renewables wind up subsidizing the reliability for those who do. In many cases that means poorer customers who can’t afford to install solar panels, or the elderly who are slower to embrace new technology. The irony is that if everyone embraced renewables completely, no one would be able to afford them. Like it or not, in the developed world, the shift to renewables is being funded by fossil fuels, and probably will be for decades.”

The point here is that two valid concerns — one, for the environment, and two, for our fellow humans — are at odds.

We need an energy policy that recognizes this, and at least tries to reconcile the two. As Steffy points out, the poor shouldn’t have to pay for our “green dreams.”