On May 26, a day that hit 92 degrees (a +4 degree record), there was no mincing words.

A decorated and experienced panel, hosted by the Pew Charitable Trust, presented a talk called Energy & Climate Change: National Security Challenges and Opportunities.

The speakers included Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn (U.S. Navy ret), Captain Michael Green (U.S. Army veteran from the war in Afghanistan), and Jim Kesseli, President of the innovative engineering company Brayton Energy.

The Undeniable Inevitability

In 2007, a report was issued by the CIA’s think tank CNA, with advisory input from thirteen members of the military’s upper ranks. The report is called “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change” (PDF Download).

This report reaches a number of conclusions, which it does not shy from stating plainly:

Climate change acts as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world … Unlike most conventional security threats that involve a single entity acting in specific ways and points in time, climate change has the potential to result in multiple chronic conditions, occurring globally within the same time frame.

Projected climate change will add to tensions even in stable regions of the world … Extreme weather events and natural disasters, as the U.S. experienced with Hurricane Katrina, may lead to increased missions for a number of U.S. agencies, including state and local governments, the Department of Homeland Security, and our already stretched military, including our Guard and Reserve forces.

Climate change, national security, and energy dependence are a related set of global challenges.

The military takes the relationship between climate change and energy very seriously. Here is a replica of a slide from Adm. McGinn’s presentation:

The Call to Act

In response to these dire findings, the US Military is taking aggressive action to change their fossil fuel usage.

The Pew Project on National Security, Energy and Climate released a report, “Reenergizing America’s Defense: How the Armed Forces Are Stepping Forward to Combat Climate Change and Improve the U.S. Energy Posture.”

The Pew commission documents a number of initiatives by all branches of the military, including:

• The US Army’s plan to build a 500-megawatt solar power generation plant at Fort Irwin, California and transition to the use of 4,000 electric vehicles during the next three years
• The Navy’s goal to reduce petroleum use in the commercial fleet by 50 percent by 2015 and launch the “Great Green Fleet,” a strike group fueled completely by alternative fuels, by 2016.
• The Air Force’s Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada – home to one of the largest solar arrays in North America, providing more than 25 percent of base energy, saving $1 million and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 24,000 tons annually.
• The Marines’ goal to reduce energy intensity 30 percent by 2015, while simultaneously increasing renewable electric energy to 25 percent by 2025.

Green: The New Color of Patriotism

The speakers focused, in different ways on a simple conclusion – that our current path of reliance on oil harms not only the environment, but ourselves, domestically and internationally.

Army Capt. Michael Green, a New Hampshire native who has recently returned from the Middle East  struck the audience with this analogy: “When you think of a wind farm or a solar field, think of a World War Two victory garden.”

We couldn’t agree more!

Getting off oil is a most patriotic thing – not just as a way to preserve the old American way of life, but to spur the growth of the new one.

A solar power project completed this week in New Hampshire – clean energy is ready to go!

In his first official State of the Union address, President Obama offered a rousing challenge to Congress to get to work on a variety of issues – jobs, security, health care, and the transition to a clean energy economy.

With 2009 behind us, but its challenges far from over, Obama took an approach that was urgent, while at times light-hearted, as he analyzed the country’s problems and his suggestions for implementing change.

We were pleased to see “clean energy” make it into the speech some dozen times, though Obama mentioned “solar panels” only once.

Here’s our take on some of the key points raised during the State of the Union address:

• Obama Lauds Success of Recovery Act
  

  “Because of the steps we took, there are about two million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed. Two hundred thousand work in construction and clean energy”

  Obama put a lot of effort into defending the actions necessary in 2009, both the unpopular bank bailout and the ongoing American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), aka the Stimulus.

  While Obama’s focus on clean energy jobs was on the manufacturing side – he mentioned both “the California business that will put a thousand people to work making solar panels” and a need to create “new factories that manufacture clean energy products,” the Stimulus also has had a big positive effect on those who install those panels thanks to financial incentives that were part of ARRA.

• Obama Sees Clean Energy as the Route to Tomorrow
  

  “We can put Americans to work today building the infrastructure of tomorrow … There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains, or the new factories that manufacture clean energy products… I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change. But here’s the thing — even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy-efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future -– because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy. And America must be that nation.”

  Obama seemed very cautious about making the environmental case for a switch to a clean energy economy, instead rooting his argument in the need to create very real clean energy jobs.

  While we couldn’t agree more, and laud Obama for finding common ground, it’s a bit disappointing that the very real crisis facing our planet is still a point of argument.

  The reality is that regardless of the state of the economy, we need to make a move to clean energy now as an act of survival.

  That Obama was cautious to acknowledge this threat points to an even greater challenge of worldview we still have to resolve.

• Getting There – Incentives and Innovations
  

  “We should put more Americans to work building clean energy facilities and give rebates to Americans who make their homes more energy-efficient, which supports clean energy jobs. … Next, we need to encourage American innovation. Last year, we made the largest investment in basic research funding in history, an investment that could lead to the world’s cheapest solar cells or treatment that kills cancer cells but leaves healthy ones untouched.”

  Again, Obama mentions investment in research as a major player in the move to a clean economy. While we agree, the reality is that there are plenty of technologies that are already here which are reliable, affordable, and available.

  Both grid-tied photovoltaics and solar hot water are energy investments that make economic and environmental sense.

  We’re eager to see what Obama plans to offer with “rebates to Americans who make their homes more energy-efficient,” and wish we’d heard something about a feed-in tariff.

• The Economy of Old – Nuclear, Oil, and Gas?
  

  “But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development. It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies. And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.”

  After so much invigorating news from Obama, it was disappointing to hear his last word on energy mention nonrenewable sources of energy.

  While it may be necessary to find some common ground with Republicans to move the overall initiatives forward, we still disagree that more power plants and “clean” coal are the best way to build the nation’s infrastructure.

Disappointments aside, it’s encouraging to see how large a role clean energy fits into Obama’s plans to move the country back into recovery.

As Obama acknowledged, we have some mighty challenges ahead of us, but the technology is here to move to a clean economy.

What is difficult is mustering the will to act.

The climate magazine Grist reported that the past decade was the hottest on record. Not so cool.

Without going into doom and gloom scenarios, the reality is that the earth’s temperature is increasing in a real and very tangible way.  Despite fluctuations and bizarre weather patterns in the short term, evidence is showing that overall, the temperature is going up, up, up:

Much discussion has been made of temporal, and unusual weather patterns, but Grist reports that there’s much more to the story than that:

These natural cycles alone, however, fail to explain the temperature patterns of the last decade. While the strongest El Niño of the century pushed 1998 temperatures up to their then-record high, temperatures in the hottest year (2005) did not receive a boost from El Niño. And 2007 was tied for second hottest year on record, despite the development of a cooling La Niña. Furthermore, while global temperatures have been climbing to record heights, incoming solar energy has in fact been declining since the beginning of the decade. In early 2009, solar activity reached its lowest level in a century.

This trend is real and continuing.  As individuals, we may not be able to implement dramatic sweeping changes in legislation or the way big business is done, but we can make changes in our lifestyle which, in aggregate, results in big changes.

Of course, ReVision Energy strongly encourages a lifestyle that moves away from fossil fuel use and towards using clean renewable energy sources.

We also encourage everything else you can do to reduce your carbon footprint – drive less, reduce your energy use, support local businesses and energy responsible businesses.

While we don’t have much of it, there is still time to offset our years of environmental neglect and move towards a renewable energy economy.  We can all stay cool together!