Jay Kuten: More solar and wind, less hot air

Jay Kuten

WE NEED to continue the conversation about the US election. Unlike the deliberative process designed by the constitution's framers to protect democracy, this election had many of the earmarks of war.

Not simply in the take-no-prisoners vileness of both campaigns, but most clearly in casualty of truth, the usual first to go. In this assault on truth the social media, amplified by TV and then reamped by talk radio played a role.

"I read it on the internet" became the mantra of those who continued the work of making rumour become fact and fact become irrelevant to "gut feeling".

We can see the effect locally when a correspondent makes the outrageous claim that the Black Lives Matter movement "call(s) for police officers to be murdered". As only slightly less mendacious than the Pope's alleged endorsement of Trump, it is necessary to counter this lie with fact. To those interested in fact, not inflammatory nonsense, I offer this: BLM was founded by three black women in response to police killings of black men in the US. The movement it heralds is inclusive, non-violent, protest utilising democratic political means with the goal of affirming the humanity of blacks and all minorities (compared to blacklivesmatter.com).

The problem is that countering falsehoods is retail business, while concocting and spreading that horse manure is wholesale. Recall that a lie spreads round the world while truth is getting its boots on. But getting boots we must if we are to maintain a democratic dialogue that is based on fact, not fantasy.

The biggest lie of this or any other election is that global warming is a hoax. Sadly, the language we use to talk about it has been degraded. When we say, instead, "climate change" we should be aware that that term was invented by Fred Luntz, to obscure the facts and downpedal the dangers. Luntz is a Republican pollster who has lent his considerable Orwellian talents to the fossil fuel industry. He's famous for inventing and substituting "enhanced interrogation" for the harsh truth of "torture".

In addition to countering the make-believe, people committed to the planet need a way forward in the event Trump maintains his faith in the global warming conspiracy. Playing to the businessman's business sense, Thomas Friedman, a prize-winning New York Times columnist who has yet to apologise for his own continuing support of the Iraq War debacle, hopes to engage Trump on this issue. This time he's right. His op-ed (http://nyti.ms/2g7evlG) addresses the rising sea levels in Miami that will soon inundate Trump's seaside golf courses, starting with the Doral. The debate over man-made global warming stops when we begin to count the costs, not only of disasters that have happened, like hurricanes Katrina or Sandy, their devastation still being repaired, but those to come from the increasing storms and the rising seas and sea temperatures.

From a business standpoint, the cost of doing nothing rises asymptotically while the cost of doing something useful to preserve the planet is dropping. Renewable energy -- solar, wind -- now costs as little as 3 cents a kilowatt-hour.

That compares to about 6 cents p/kwh for a new natural gas power plant and twice that for coal.

Commodity prices fluctuate while technology costs move downward, making that costly commodity obsolete.

It's clean tech as a great new export industry that is spawning those blue-collar jobs that Trump has promised to create. Also, as the Pentagon will surely tell Trump, the real threat from immigration is yet to come when Southern Hemisphere droughts, unless something is done to combat it.

That realistic business thinking is our last best hope, certainly for the future of the US and the planet. New Zealand's leaders need to take note, lest they be caught commiserating with the 9000 families whose homes will be underwater. We've already got thermal and hydro.

What's needed is more wind and solar and a lot more facing of the facts.

Jay Kuten is an American-trained forensic psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand for the fly fishing. He spent 40 years comforting the afflicted and intends to spend the rest afflicting the comfortable.