It's a new normal and I really do think that global weirding is the best way to describe what we're seeing.
One of the biggest issues with renewables right now is the fact that if the wind isn't blowing, if the sun isn't shining, we don't have energy. Many people are working on storage technology so when the wind isn't blowing, we can use the energy stored in our giant batteries, essentially. But what happens if we don't have enough stored energy?
Huge advances in clean energy technology are happening all the time. Solar and wind are booming. New ways to generate energy from our windows, the paint on our walls, and even our bike paths are being invented all the time. Technology is moving forward, but it needs to be moving forward faster.
The first thing we can do as individuals and as communities, like a school or a university or a church, is cut our energy use. Do an energy audit or measure our carbon footprint using online carbon calculators that are free, easy, and cheap. Get a list of the ways that we can stop wasting so much energy and save money.
Where I live, if I put solar panels on my roof I'm not allowed to sell that energy back to the grid. I can't change that restriction myself. I need our local decision-makers to fix that.
We must prepare for a changing climate by incorporating climate preparedness into every aspect of our planning - for food, water, health, energy, even national security. We must reduce our emissions to prevent even more dangerous change.
There is also a great deal of behind-the-scenes pressure from political funders too. And by funders I don't just mean the fossil fuel industry. Many of those exerting pressure on our society to ignore climate change, oppose climate change legislation, and shut down efforts to develop a clean energy economy are doing so out of ideology, not just economics. In the simplest terms, many large industries don't want the government telling them what to do with their businesses and they don't want any restrictions on what they can and cannot do, which includes polluting our shared environment.
There's no question that natural gas is a lot better than coal or oil, in the sense that natural gas produces less carbon per unit of energy produced.
Natural gas is a very flexible source of energy that can help us bridge the gap between our current high-carbon economy and our zero-carbon future.
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