It Depends on the Meaning of the Word "Future"

This morning I found a op-ed in my local newspaper by our local Congressman, which he entitled Keystone Pipeline Will Secure Our Energy Future without a single hint of irony. Going for an even greater level of unintended irony, he begins his piece with a short ramble about how his political colleagues in Washington and in Albany (this being New York State) are good at "kicking the can down the road and putting off important decisions" and how they "drag their feet on facing up to challenges."

My Congressman then goes on to suggest that we should kick the Transition From Fossil Fuels to Renewable Energy can down the road by investing a greater stake of our energy future on further and more extreme fossil fuel extraction -- a process that by definition has a limited horizon. This vision of the future extends for, at best, only a few decades, and would make the transition to renewable energy much harder to achieve.

Along with more extreme methods of fossil fuel extraction, such as tar-sands oil and fracking, come more extreme air and water pollution, plus more extreme and more common accidents such as the recent Lynchburg train explosion and the nearly-constant gas pipeline and well blow-outs, explosions, fires, and major leaks. Who pays for these problems? Judging by past behavior, we can expect the extraction companies to pass on to the rest of us a large share of the cost of their screw-ups, and of the pollution that their regular operations cause. Some people will unfortunately pay with health problems and decreased quality of life for the extreme profits of the greedy petrochemical industry.

In his op-ed, the Rep repeated some dubious industry job claims, but made no mention of the possible climate consequences from more extreme greenhouse gas emissions, or the probable export of large portions of the extracted fossil fuel products to countries where they'll fetch higher prices. However, what if, instead of following the Congressman's short-sighted advice, we now move aggressively in the direction of safe, renewable forms of energy? Where will we be in 30 years? Or, if we follow his advice, in 30 years, what then?

If we build the solar and wind farms now, in 30 years we'll still have the solar and wind farms, as will the generations to follow. If we build the Keystone XL and thousands of gas and oil wells, rather than focusing on solar and wind farms, in 30 years we'll have much more polluted air and water, and not enough solar and wind farms. Is that really how the congressman from my district wants to secure an energy future? Perhaps he doesn't plan on being around that long, and doesn't care about what happens after he's gone. Personally, I'm grateful that at least some of the statesmen (and women) of previous generations took a longer view than that.