WillAffleckUW's Journal: How To Adapt To Climate Change

I keep seeing people, mostly out of fear of change, deep in climate denial.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

Is it hard to become energy efficient and reduce emissions while growing the GDP at twice the national rate? Sure. But we in the West have already done that. Just ask WA OR ID CA NV.

How? It's pretty simple. End fossil fuel subsidies. Not just the obvious ones, but end all the grandfather exemptions that allow old power plants to keep operating when they should either be retrofitted or retired.

Require 20-50 percent of all new energy built in a state to be non-fossil-fuel renewables. Currently, the cheapest are solar and wind. But look at a mix of energy, even for the West. It shows solar a small fraction compared to wind.

Why? Because we don't require solar as part of new building construction. Wait, Will, are you saying we have to put solar panels on every building? No. I'm saying use the most cost effective solar there is. Passive solar. Triple pane windows, curtains or blinds or polarized screens so you don't use energy cooling in the summer, but use solar in the day in the winter (and then close blinds). Using LED lights that turn off after an hour of no motion on a floor.

But no solar panels? No. Build new construction so it can support the weight of solar panels where it makes sense (south facing walls, or in valleys east or west walls) and be easily maintained. Cut regulations that drive solar panel costs to $7000 per panel (residential installation) so that it runs $300 per panel on NEW construction, so that the grid is designed to handle it. Make an earthquake interrupt switch so the solar kicks in to power critical systems if the grid drops for more than an hour. Wire in electric cars for storage.

It's not hard. We just have to think 21st Century, not 18th Century.