Paul Krugman: Planet on the Ballot
"Salvation is clearly within our grasp":
Planet on the Ballot, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: We now have a pretty good idea who will be on the ballot in November: Hillary Clinton, almost surely..., and Donald Trump, with high likelihood.... But even if there’s a stunning upset in what’s left of the primaries, we already know very well what will be at stake — namely, the fate of the planet.
Obviously, the partisan divide on environmental policy has been growing ever wider..., denial of climate science and opposition to anything that might avert catastrophe have become essential pillars of Republican identity..., even a blowout Democratic victory this year probably wouldn’t create a political environment in which anything ... could pass Congress.
But here’s the thing: the next president won’t need to pass comprehensive legislation... Dramatic progress in energy technology has put us in a position where executive action ... can achieve great things. All we need is an executive willing to take that action, and a Supreme Court that won’t stand in its way.
And this year’s election will determine whether those conditions hold.
Many people ... still seem oddly oblivious to the ongoing revolution in renewable energy...: the cost of electricity generated by wind and sun has dropped dramatically, while costs of storage ... are plunging as we speak.
The result is that we’re only a few years from a world in which carbon-neutral sources of energy could replace much of our consumption of fossil fuels at quite modest cost. ... All it would take to push us across the line would be moderately pro-environment policies. ...
I don’t know about you, but this situation makes me very nervous. As long as the prospect of effective action on climate seemed remote, sheer despair kept me, and I’m sure many others, comfortably numb — you knew nothing was going to happen, so you just soldiered on. Now, however, salvation is clearly within our grasp, but it remains all too possible that we’ll manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. And this is by far the most important issue there is; it, er, trumps even such things as health care, financial reform, and inequality.
So I’m going to be hanging on by my fingernails all through this election. No doubt there will be plenty of entertainment along the way, given the freak show taking place on one side of the aisle. But I won’t forget that the stakes this time around are deadly serious. And neither should you.
Posted by Mark Thoma on Monday, February 29, 2016 at 07:50 AM in Economics, Environment, Policy, Politics |
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