Climate Action Plan

I recently heard about cities in California being required to create Climate Action Plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to adverse climate changes. We're all familiar with this type of thinking and can guess what is in those plans. I'd like to propose my own plan, one which is achievable and not merely aspirational, one which is driven by growth and not reduction, and one which leads to human freedom and flourishing and not governmental crackdowns.

First, we need to gratefully acknowledge that we have been given the sun as a source of practically infinite energy. According to NASA, the sun shines down 44 quadrillion watts of energy on the earth every year. This is the equivalent of 44 million large power plants in continuous operation. And even that is a miniscule fraction of the total energy emitted by the sun in every other direction than Earth. The amount of energy available to us can be regarded as infinite.

The sun has always been the source of all energy on the earth, but our method for capturing and using that energy has varied. A primitive hunter-gatherer eats plants and animals which channel energy from the sun. Burning wood or coal releases energy captured from the sun using the more advanced technology of mills and mines. Pumping and refining and burning oil was a major advance in technology that propelled modern economies, but with unforeseen consequences. Nuclear, solar, wind and geothermal energy are newer advances which have not matured yet, but have potential.

In all these cases, the energy coming from the sun can be regarded as infinite, but the limiting factor in capturing and using that energy has been human ingenuity. Any increase in human creativity and ambition is rewarded with a greater use of what we've been given. This positive, limitless perspective is fundamentally different from most climate catastrophe theories, and I sincerely believe it is correct.

Second, from this perspective, governments should see their part in fostering the growth of human creativity and productivity. We need just and peaceful societies that facilitate the education and advancement of the brightest and most ambitious among us, without regard to racial quotas or income inequality or other revolutionary social theories. Even if the schools of your city don't produce the next Einstein, your city can be a model of how to encourage learning and productivity which is then emulated elsewhere where the next Einstein lives.

Third, governments should tell the truth about what is actually happening and what is actually possible. Instead of aspirational plans without viable mechanisms, instead of virtue signaling on Earth Day, instead of recycling bins without any feedback loop on what goes in them, governments should focus on making accurate data available on the impacts of human society on the earth. Collect the data and allow human freedom and creativity to figure out what to do about it. No elected leader today knows how to solve the problem. I don't either. This should humble us. But we can agree on where the solution will come from.

Fourth, governments should avoid alarmism. We often hear of water shortages in California and are urged to conserve. "We're still in a drought" is a common refrain. Yet the amount of water on earth is constant. Sometimes the reservoirs of California are full and sometimes they are empty. Climate change may cause increased droughts in some places, but it can also cause increased rain in other places. In all cases, there is an energy cost associated with pumping, damming, desalinating, and filtering. With the right technology, we can pay the cost and everyone can have water. Instead of banging the drums of calamity and reduction, which eventually are tuned out, we should focus on costs and benefits, which can lead to understanding and action.

Fourth, US and European governments should advocate solutions that can be applied worldwide because climate change is a worldwide phenomenon. One can debate whether 40 million Californians can afford EVs by 2035, but 1 billion Indians cannot. Any "advance" we make in our small corner of the world which can't be replicated by the billions trying to climb out of poverty amounts to virtue signaling. You aren't saving the planet; you're just driving a Tesla.

Fifth and finally, we should all calm down and be grateful. Compared to all of human history, the Industrial Revolution is a recent phenomenon. The Digital Revolution has barely gotten started. We have witnessed so much growth in prosperity and education and opportunity in our lifetime that we lose perspective on how quickly things have changed and how much we have benefited. There is certainly more to do, and some of that work may be unwinding the unintended consequences of past progress, but it can be done if we allow people the freedom to do it.