In 2014, climate activists organized major marches and declared success was near.
“The People’s Climate March in September last year was,” one giddy activist wrote, “without any doubt, a game-changer. Nearly 700,000 of us took to the streets, by far the largest climate mobilisation ever.” Two years later Donald Trump was elected. Nearly a decade after that march, most signatories to the Paris Climate Accord are not meeting their obligations.
So much for a game changer.
The problem is this: the fundamental message of political marches is that only politicians can truly make a difference. This assumption denigrates the power of individual action to directly solve environmental problems despite a solid record of success for new technologies as compared to the dismal record of grand political programs and gestures.
Saying the world must “defuse the climate time bomb,” U.N. Secretary General Guterres claimed the latest report from the IPCC was a “survival guide for humanity,” language not too different from that of protestors who have been destroying historically and culturally significant works of art, claiming, “we are in a climate catastrophe.”
On Earth Day this year we are likely to see many thousands of people echo these fears as they march to pressure politicians to adopt aggressive, but ineffective, climate policies.
Fifty years ago, an Earth Day march for the planet made sense. There were few options for individual action to address the environmental problems of the time. That is not true today. Technology allows virtually anyone to address our most difficult environmental problems. And low barriers to innovation mean new solutions can be created quickly.
On Earth Day 2023, marching makes sense if your goal is exercise, but if you want to help the planet don’t march, innovate.
In fact, by focusing on political approaches, marches can make environmental solutions more difficult. They polarize climate policy, exacerbating the divisions between those who see themselves as climate saviors and those who oppose the poverty or intrusion they believe comes with green policies.
The depth of this polarization was evidenced by a recent article in Nature. The authors noted their endorsement of Joe Biden – justified in part by his position on climate change – reduced their credibility among Trump supporters but had no effect on Biden supporters. Ultimately, the endorsement was a net loss for their credibility. Despite that, the authors said it would do it again. They were more influenced by their own politics than persuading with science.
Divisive rhetoric also makes politics the primary – if not only – avenue for efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. It focuses efforts into a narrow band of potential solutions, even as the rhetoric makes it unlikely that solutions will be adopted and sustained.
Ironically, climate activists and politicians admit political solutions aren’t working while simultaneously arguing that only political solutions can deal with the magnitude of the problem.
That message is completely backwards. Individuals, empowered by technology, are solving environmental problems where politicians fail. Rather than spending hours marching, those hours could be put to work immediately innovating new ways to cut CO2 emissions.
For example, on September 6, 2022, the state of California sent a text to residential customers asking them to conserve where they could in the face of blackouts. Within 15 minutes demand fell significantly – the equivalent of about half the state’s grid-scale battery power. With one simple text, they avoided the blackouts. One text. New technologies make that kind of impact available every day.
Smart thermostats allow consumers to automatically – and voluntarily – adjust the temperature in their house to respond to price signals, saving money when prices are high and helping reduce the risk of blackouts.
In the U.K. one utility has gone even farther. Octopus Energy has created a “fan club,” rewarding members who use electricity when local wind turbines are turning. A decade ago, the ability to instantly respond to electricity prices was something only utilities could do. Now virtually anyone can.
Small innovations can also scale rapidly. I have a small box in my electrical panel called Sense that analyzes my electricity use, providing instantaneous feedback on my phone that tells me how much energy I am using and where I can conserve. The artificial intelligence at the heart of Sense is now available to all consumers with smart meters.
Even if innovation only fills in the gaps where public policy is failing, it will play an important role in leaving the planet better than we found it while conserving the resources of people struggling with inflation and economic uncertainty.
The power of innovation and small technologies to solve difficult environmental problems is only beginning to be realized but is already doing something that politics cannot: bring people together. As politics become more divisive, technology allows people of all viewpoints to collaborate – helping the planet, saving money, and reducing pollution.
A decade from now as we look back on Earth Day 2023, the “game-changer” won’t have come from the streets. It will have come from those who decided not to march, but to innovate.
Todd Myers is the director of the Center for the Environment at Washington Policy Center.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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