Humzah AhmadCA Politics The need for renewable energy is growing around the world, yet the the United States sits in the backseat on research and development. This is legally due to the United States’ large relaunch on non-renewable energy resources such as fossil fuels, coal, and natural gas. As the years move forward, many are slowly realizing that our reliance on these sources of energy will soon be met with nothing, as sources of non-renewable energy are expected to run out in the next half-century and new attempts of creating resources is destroying the planet as we know it. Contrarily, renewable energy is an infinite resource that can be found using water, wind, geothermal energy, the sun, etc. Developing these resources of energy would not only save money in the long run, they will save the planet we know and love.
Renewable energy often falls under the topic of environmental protection in a political atmosphere. These topics were largely discussed by both sides during the previous election, with Bernie Sanders arguing for its development and Donald Trump wanting to return to a large reliance on coal. Trump’s idea of returning to coal would soon go into play as he would nominate and confirm Scott Pruitt as the new EPA director during his administration, a former coal lobbyist. This action was extremely damaging to the EPA’s mission as well as the progress made in the US when it comes to driving away from a non-renewable energy dependence. Other remarks that falsified the existence of global warming were also made by Trump during his campaign trail and once he assumed office. Despite these bitter facts, California has assumed its position on top in terms of capacity of solar energy within the state (Feldmen, 2018). Furthermore, California, alongside twenty eight other states, has developed a plan for renewable energy growth in the next few years. For California, the goal is to receive at least 33% of its power from renewable sources by 2020, 40% by 2024, 50% by 2030, and 100% by 2045 (Domonoske, 2018). This plan was signed off by our previous governor, Jerry Brown, at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco in 2018. Moving forward, California will also be looking to implement zero-emission resources such as geothermal energy and hydro power. Returning to the effects and desperate need for advancements in this field, in both California and the nation as a whole, our local and state elections during the Midterms of 2018 have provided much more promise to already established needs of zero-emission and renewable resources in California. During the Midterms, Democrats nationwide proposed the Green New Deal, something that hit on a number of issue including renewable energy. This deal received both praise and criticism but its plan for the United States to lead the world in net zero-emission resources in the next few decades was especially relieving for many. With the introduction of this plan, renewable energy and zero-emission resources will indeed be a front-running issue during the 2020 election and voters nationwide should be especially concerned with its direction in the future. Contrarily, the US can also be a textbook example of why renewable energy and zero emission resources have taken so long to adapt into the nation. There is no denying that the United States spending habits are the main reason for our struggles to change drastically when needed. Our current energy plan is highly centralized and developed into a few locations and redeveloping an entirely new form of energy dependence nationwide would call for this to be undone and then redone. Meaning for us to switch over to wind, solar, geothermal, etc, etc, we would have to find new sites, dissemble the non-renewable energy sites, and install the infrastructure required for the renewable/zero-emission sites to work. Following this, one would also have to concern themselves with what is going to happen to the jobs in the market of non-renewable resources. This is something the presidential election of 2016 saw Trump heavily arguing for and making the main reason for his support of the coal industry. In the few years, the nation has seen an increase of opportunity in the renewable energy industry, which is a step in a direction that removes our dependence on coal and natural gas. Despite all these logistical reasons for why renewable energy has been the apex of the nations issues, the largest reason for our lack of progress is the relation between industry and politics. Over 37.5 billion dollars of subsidies, money given to industries by the government, is provided to the fossil fuel industry every year by the United States (Oil Change International, 2018). This has been the case for nearly half a century now and truly goes to show the grasp of the fossil fuel industry over the political atmosphere in regards to the climate crisis and the only way to combat this is to stop giving them money and instead charging them for the damage they are causing to the environment and longevity of our planet, also known as emissions taxing.
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AuthorUndergraduate student generated content. Blog posting and updating done by Kristina Flores Victor, Assistant Professor of Political Science at CSUS Archives
March 2020
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