Why I support the global warming crusade (and don’t care whether it’s real)

I was reading VF Daily today when I came across David Roberts’ post on global warming. I could have ghost written the piece since it so closely mirrors my opinions on global warming:

The things environmentalists are trying to do in response to global warming make sense to do even if there is, in fact, no global warming.

That’s because global warming is only one part of a bigger picture. The bigger picture is—and somebody really needs to make a T-shirt out of this—The Era of Cheap Energy Is Over.

We’ve been partying on the Fossil Fuel Booze Cruise for a century or two now, and while it has produced fabulous wealth (alongside stark inequality) it is pulling into port. The status quo is no longer a viable option.

At the very least, the status quo is no longer a viable option in the mid-term. Inflation, currency depreciation, and limited supply of fossil fuels (thanks to demand and lack of new discoveries) seem to suggest that energy prices are on their way towards becoming uneconomical.

It just so happens that fossil fuels, at least in the manner in which we extract and use them, are bad for the environment — that’s indisputable. Whether or not it’s changing the environment is debatable. Nevertheless, I don’t really care.

Far before we suffer through a “Day After Tomorrow” scenario because of climate change, we’ll incur an economic malaise — and perhaps war — because of energy prices and scarcity. Economic malaise doesn’t only embody stock market prices, it means that the food you buy at the store is either not there or far more expensive because of the cost of transportation:

We won’t run out of fossil fuels, mind you; we’ll run out of cheap fossil fuels…basic limits on non-renewable resources are driving up the cost of virtually everything, from grains to building supplies, and they’re making our country perilously dependent on energy sources with extremely volatile prices and unsavory suppliers.

Roberts is right to point out the systemic ripple effect energy prices have on our economy. You don’t just pay for gas price increases at the pump, you pay for it when you buy virtually anything. It’s easy to fall into the trap of arguing solely for more mass transit, congestion tolls, and smart growth as a means to reducing dependence on oil. But even if you stop using petroleum all together, you’re still under its gun assuming that truckers are dependent on it, for example.

Shifting as a system off of oil addiction is required to protect ourselves from its consequences. This is both problematic and a tremendous opportunity:

So after a century of industrializing via brute-force mechanization, we need to figure out—and quick—how to generate energy from renewable domestic sources, how to use energy intelligently, and how to change our habits and social customs to re-prioritize time and community over convenience and atomization. If we get it right, we can save our economy, bring jobs back to the U.S., reduce healthcare costs, increase well-being, and make a lot of people very rich. If we screw it up, we could fairly rapidly see our status as global hegemon—even our status as a first-world country—slip away.

If the US tanks because of energy prices, we’re not going to be alone — except maybe those not dependent on energy at all and Iceland. Regardless, we do surrender economic power at each increase of the price of gas precisely because we are so much more dependent on it than everyone else.

It’s because of this dependence — and its ill effects — that we need to reevaluate how we power our lives. It just so happens that green energy is not only better for the environment, it’s better for our economy.