Tag Archive: wind power

The Biden administration should honor Jimmy Carter in its renewable energy efforts

President Jimmy Carter

Last Saturday, The Carter Center released a statement indicating that, after a series of illnesses (including cancer) and hospital stays, 98 year-old former President Jimmy Carter has “decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention.” The announcement has initiated a lot of reflection and remembrances about Carter’s long list of achievements, from saving a Canadian nuclear reactor from meltdown as a young Navy Lieutenant, to getting Israel and Egypt to sign a historic peace agreement as President, to building houses for Habitat For Humanity well into his nineties as a former President.

However, one achievement by President Carter that may get overlooked was his forward-thinking, early dedication to renewable energy. Perhaps most dramatically, Carter had solar panels installed on the White House roof in 1979, well before almost anyone else used such technology. The Carter administration set a goal of delivering 20 percent of U.S. energy from renewable sources by the turn of the century. What happened? In 1986, Ronald Reagan had the White House solar panels taken down and not replaced. And Republicans (along with a few Democrats) have been doing everything they can to stifle renewable energy in favor of fossil fuels ever since. More than 40 years after President Carter set his goals, U.S. renewable energy consumption is only about 12.5 percent of the total (though thankfully it is slowly increasing.)

Deploy the Liberal Shock Doctrine against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Solar power, a better alternative to fascist Russian gas

The Shock Doctrine is the idea that, when disasters or wars strike, conservatives try to use the events to push their existing agenda, such as privatization of important government functions, in response. Republicans have foisted such policies in places as far-flung as Iraq and New Orleans. We have argued that, in turn, Democrats should institute their policies, i.e. a Liberal Shock Doctrine, when they are in power and disasters and wars occur. That might include, for example, stronger gun safety laws after the shock of a mass shooting, or the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, including government stimulus payments and other federal aid, which Congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden successfully brought about in 2021 after Donald Trump‘s inaction in the face of the COVID pandemic plunged the U.S. into a recession in 2020.

Russia‘s shocking and tragic invasion of Ukraine presents another opportunity for the United States, and countries around the world, to create a liberal version of the Shock Doctrine. First, countries can promote the idea of democracy (which is well-represented by Ukraine) instead of fascist dictatorship, exemplified by Russia and Vladimir Putin. But in addition, there is one specific policy that the U.S. and the world should be pushing right now: