American Experience

Public Broadcasting Service

Douglas Brinkley (1960) [Historian]:
It was in stark contrast to kind of the so called greed decade of the 80s to see somebody not looking to make big speaking fees, not looking to sit on corporate boards.
[There's] just something about an ex-president … in blue jeans, with a hammer, sleeping in cots and building houses for the poor.
It's an image seared on our imaginations.
(Adriana Bosch, Jimmy Carter, 2002)


John Adams ( 1735 – 1826) [2nd President of the United States]:
If we must erect an independent government in America, a republic will produce strength, hardiness, activity, courage, fortitude and enterprise.
But there is so much rascality, so much venality and corruption, so much avarice and ambition, such a rage for profit and commerce among all ranks and degrees of men, even in America, that I sometimes doubt whether there is public virtue enough to support a republic.
(Ken Burns, An Asylum for Mankind, The American Revolution, Episode 2, 2025)

The Gods of Profit and Production

Rachel Carson is an American hero …

— Naomi Oreskes & Erik Conway, Merchants of Doubt, 2010, p 216.

(Michelle Ferrari, Rachel Carson, 2017)

Rachel Carson (1907 – 64):
Is industry becoming a screen through which facts must be filtered so that the hard, uncomfortable truths are kept back and only the harmless morsels are allowed to filter through?
The tailoring, the screening of basic truth is done:

• to accommodate to the short-term gain, [and]
• to serve the gods of profit and production.

(Women's National Press Club, December 1962)

[I] could never again listen happily to a thrush song if I had not done all I could.
And last night the thoughts of all the birds and other creatures and all the loveliness that is in nature came to me with such a surge of deep happiness, that now I had done what I could — I had been able to complete [Silent Spring] — now it had its own life!
(Letter to Dorothy Freeman)

[On the island's] western shore the wet sand of the narrow beach caught the same reflection of palely gleaming sky that laid a bright path across the water from island beach to horizon.
Both water and sand were the colour of steel overlaid with the sheen of silver, so that it was hard to say where water ended and land began. …

With the dusk a strange bird came to the island from its nesting grounds on the outer banks. …
[And as] he neared the shore [the pure black] skimmer drifted closer to the water, bringing his dark form into strong silhouette against the grey sheet, like the shadow of a great bird [passing] unseen above.
[So] quietly did he approach that the sound of his wings … was lost in the whisper song of the water turning over shells on the wet sand. …

Shadowy forms moved through the night skies and pipings so soft as barely to be audible drifted down to [the sleeping villages] below, as the birds of shore and marsh poured northward along ancestral air lanes, seeking their nesting places.
(Under the Sea-Wind, 1952)

Linda Lear (1940):
It is one of the great paradoxes of the human condition that, while we are almost paranoid in our vigilance in regard to taking toxins into our bodies, we are all but oblivious to the possibility of poisoning our planet.
(Introduction, Silent Spring, 1962)

Would you like to know more?

Earth Days

If the people really understood, that in the lifetime of their children, they're going to have … perhaps made the globe unlivable in a
half-century, they'd do something about it.

— Gaylord Nelson (1916 – 2005)

(Earth Day, Wikipedia, 29 August 2019)

Rachel Carson (1907 – 64):
[We,] in this generation, must come to terms with Nature.
[We're] challenged, as mankind has never been challenged before, to prove our maturity and our mastery:
Not of nature — but of ourselves.

Jimmy Carter (1924):
The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us.
But it will — if we do not act quickly.
It's a problem that we will not be able to solve in the next few years.
And is likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century.

We must not be selfish or timid, if we hope to have a decent world for our children and grand-children.
We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources.
By acting now, we can control our future, rather than letting the future control us.

Ronald Reagan (1911 – 2004):
They tell us we must learn to live with less.
And teach our children that their lives will be less full and prosperous than ours have been.
That the America of the coming years, will be a place — because of our past excesses — it will be impossible to dream and make those dreams come true.
I don't believe that. …

I cannot, and will not, stand by and see this great country destroy itself.
Our leaders attempt to blame their failures on circumstances beyond their control.
On false estimates by unknown, unidentifiable experts who rewrite modern history in an attempt to convince us our high standard of living, the result of thrift and hard work, is somehow selfish extravagance which we must renounce as we join in sharing scarcity. …

We must and will be sensitive to the delicate balance of our ecosystems, the preservation of endangered species, and the protection of our wilderness lands. …
Preservation of our environment is not a liberal or conservative challenge, it's common sense.
Our physical health, our social happiness, and our economic well-being will be sustained only by all of us working in partnership as thoughtful, effective stewards of our natural resources.

(Robert Stone, Earth Days, 2010)

Rear Vision: 2010

ABC Radio National: Rear Vision

Scientific American: 2011

Scientific American

Radioactive Smoke

[The WHO estimates that over a million people a year die from smoking related lung cancers.]
If polonium had been reduced through methods [long] known to the [tobacco] industry, many thousands of those deaths could have been avoided.

(January 2011, p 67)

Renewable Energy and Mitigation

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Figure SPM.2

Shares of energy sources in total global primary energy supply in 2008 (492 EJ).
Modern biomass contributes 38% of the total biomass share. …
(IPCC, Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation, 2011, p 6)

Climate Council

Despite pledging in 2009 to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, all G20 countries continue to subsidise fossil fuels, collectively spending an estimated US$ 452 billion annually on fossil fuels.
The amount spent by G20 countries subsidising fossil fuels is nearly four times the amount spent to encourage the uptake of renewable energy. …
(p 14)

Despite global growth in renewable energy for power generation, fossil fuels continue to make up 77% of global electricity production, with coal contributing the largest share (40%). …
In 2014, coal plant closures in OECD countries were offset by capacity increases in the rest of the world, leading to a net increase of 66 GW in coal power capacity …
(p 18)

(Andrew Stock, Petra Stock and Martin Rice, A Whole New World: Tracking the renewables boom from Copenhagen to Paris, 2015)

The 6°C Scenario

International Energy Agency

The 6°C Scenario (6DS) is largely an extension of current trends.
By 2050, primary energy use grows by almost two-thirds (compared with 2012) and total GHG emissions rise even more.
In the absence of efforts to stabilise atmospheric concentration of GHGs, average global temperature rise above preindustrial levels is projected to reach almost 5.5°C in the long term (by 2500) and almost 4°C by the end of this century.
Already, a 4°C increase within this century is likely to stimulate severe impacts, such as sea level rise, reduced crop yields, stressed water resources or diseases outbreaks in new areas.
The 6DS is broadly consistent with the World Energy Outlook Current Policy Scenario through 2040.

The 4°C Scenario (4DS) takes into account recent pledges made by countries to limit emissions and step up efforts to improve energy efficiency, which helps limit long-term temperature rise to 4°C (by 2500).
The 4DS is, in many respects, already an ambitious scenario that requires significant changes in policy and technologies compared with the 6DS.
This long-term target also requires significant additional cuts in emissions in the period after 2050; yet with average temperature likely to rise by almost 3°C by 2100, it still carries the significant hazard of bringing forth drastic climate impacts.
(p 17)

[For] the first time since the IEA started monitoring clean energy progress, not one of the [clean energy technology fields (ie renewable power and heat, nuclear power, gas-fired power, coal-fired power, CCS, industry, iron and steel, cement, transport, fuel economy, electric and hybrid-electric vehicles, buildings, building envelopes, appliances and equipment, co-generation and district heating and cooling, smart grids, energy storage or hydrogen) was on track to meet its objectives under the 2°C Scenario.]
(p 4, emphasis added)

[Within the renewable power field, solar] PV is the only technology on track to meet its 2DS power generation target by 2025.
Its capacity is forecast to grow by 18% annually between 2014 and 2020. …
If these medium-term trends continue, solar PV could even surpass its 2025 target.

Improvement Needed
(p 24)

Low-priced coal was the fastest-growing fossil fuel in 2013, and coal-fired generation increased in all regions. …
Natural gas-fired power, a cleaner and more flexible generation fuel than coal, slowed markedly on global markets in 2013-14, unable to compete against low coal prices. …

Total electricity generation in 2012:

• 40% coal-fired
• 21% renewable [— wind and solar 2.8%]
• 11% nuclear …

(p 8)

[The] first commercial-scale coal-fired power plant (CFPP) with CO2 capture [was opened] in October 2014.
(p 9)

… 90% of CO2 emissions from the unit … will be captured and stored underground through enhanced oil recovery … without storage-focused monitoring. …
To meet the 2DS, the rate of CO2 being stored per year will need to increase by an order of magnitude.
(p 32)

[Enhanced oil recovery currently] remains the only commercial driver for carbon capture projects.
(p 12)

In 2014, global renewable electricity generation rose by an estimated 7% (350 TWh) …
OECD non-member economies continued to dominate global renewable generation, with their share increasing to around 55%.
China remained the largest market, accounting for an estimated 23% of overall renewable electricity generation in 2014.

In 2014 … over 45 gigawatts (GW) of new [onshore wind, and 40 GW of new solar photovoltaic] capacity was installed globally …
(p 17)

Renewable Power Generation by Technology — 2°C Scenario (Adapted from Figure 1.7)
On Track	Improvement Needed	Not On Track
Solar PV	Hydropower	Solar Thermal Electricity
	Onshore wind	Offshore Wind
		Geothermal
		Bioenergy
		Ocean

(p 25)

At the beginning of 2014, 72 [nuclear] reactors were under construction, the highest number for more than 25 years. …
[Gross installed capacity is] currently at 396 GW [and] is projected to reach 438 GW to 593 GW by 2025 …
[Under the 2°C Scenario] global nuclear capacity would need to reach 585 GW by that time.
(p 26)

Last year China overtook the United States in annual investment in smart grid technologies.
(p 56)

By 2020 the average lifetime emissions intensity of all new-build plants in China, India and the United States will need to fall to levels near half that of current gas-fired plants …
(p 64)

The average CO2 intensity of electricity generation has fallen since 2000 in [China, the United States and the European Union. …]
Policies to phase out inefficient coal plants and wider deployment of wind and solar power helped to cut emissions intensity by 17% in China between 2000 and 2012.
The development of cheap shale gas in the United States triggered a switch from coal to gas-fired generation that lowered average emissions intensity by 19%.
In the European Union, reductions in emissions intensity have been more modest as policies to phase out nuclear power, combined with ongoing use of coal, have partially offset rapid expansion of renewable generation.
[By contrast,] the emissions intensity of electricity generation in India has risen slightly (by 2%) because rapid growth in electricity demand has been mainly satisfied by subcritical coal plants and because existing coal capacity is ageing and poorly maintained.
(p 69)

Each 1% reduction in electricity consumption in the buildings sector … can help to reduce emissions from power generation by 60 MtCO2, equivalent to an installed capacity of 45 GW of wind power (15,000 turbines) or 23 GW of coal-fired power (46 plants).
(p 75)

(Tracking Clean Energy Progress 2015)