In October 2023, Pope Francis released a statement saying, “The world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point.”
“The signs of climate change are here and increasingly evident. No one can ignore the fact that in recent years we have witnessed extreme weather phenomena, frequent periods of unusual heat, drought and other cries of protest.”
“Our responses have not been adequate.”
And like other powerful men before him, the Pope complained about climate change while doing nothing to help solve the problem.
The world’s most famous climate change scold is Al Gore. In Rhode Island, Sheldon Whitehouse is our most prominent grumbler. Like the Pope, Gore and Whitehouse have all the facts about how climate change will burn and drown the world but no solutions to get us out of this mess. Fussing seems to be the limit of what they’re willing to do.
But their attempts at talking the world into action are having no effect, and that’s why we’re taking a different approach. We’re Noble Owl, and we want to create a plan that will start to fix our climate change problems.
When we look at climate change, we see the costly natural events happening here in Rhode Island that are overpowering us and threatening to crush us as they grow worse.
Heavy rains are repeatedly flooding our streets, homes, and businesses. Tornados are suddenly skipping across the state. Neighborhoods next to rivers, the ocean, and Narragansett Bay are seeing the water come closer and closer every time there’s a storm, and soon, the tides will take over and flood our coastline and low-lying roads like Route 114 in Barrington every day.
As a result, we’re spending more and more money on cleanup, repairs, and rebuilding our infrastructure to handle the worsening weather. When we add in future costs like rising insurance premiums, higher mortgage rates, real estate that won’t be able to get a mortgage, and a shrinking tax base as property becomes unusable and is abandoned, we won’t have enough money to keep up, and our economy will break.
Thanks to climate change, we’re on a path of increasing financial pain and eventual economic disaster, and that’s what we need to fix.
A Solution
Everyone knows that clean energy is the solution to climate change because clean energy doesn’t release the carbon dioxide (CO2) that’s warming the Earth, but what no one seems to be thinking about is how clean energy can also help fix the economic damage that climate change is causing.
And it can.
If we power ourselves with a new, statewide, state-of-the-art energy system, we can pull out of this economic death spiral by growing our economy, generating more revenue, creating an emergency reserve, and stopping climate change from becoming worse and costing us more and more. On top of that, we can lower energy prices and keep the power on when storms hit, too.
Here’s how it works:
Grow Our Economy
Our economy shrinks every year when we send $3 billion out-of-state to buy electricity and gas. We have no alternative because we don’t make our own power, but if we change that, we’ll keep that $3 billion in Rhode Island and instantly grow our economy. Plus, if we make more energy than we need and sell it to other states, we can push our economy even higher.
Generate More Revenue
The Batesville School District in Arkansas built up a $1.8 million surplus in three years by installing solar panels and making their schools energy-efficient. The district was running out of money until it hired an energy services company to find ways to increase revenue. If a school district can take in that kind of money, how much could an entire state make?
Create an Emergency Reserve
Alaska has a $72.5 billion nest egg, and Alaskans get a dividend check every year. Income from energy sales and mining is invested in the Alaska Permanent Fund, and interest from the fund is distributed to every adult and child in the state. The dividend system was designed to protect the fund from being drained because if everyone is expecting a check, it can’t be touched. What kind of surplus can Rhode Island build if it follows Alaska’s example?
Lower Energy Prices
In Nebraska, people and businesses pay some of the lowest electric rates in the country because electricity is distributed by publicly-owned utilities. Private companies charge extra to pay their investors, but public utilities don’t have investors so their rates are fair. Nebraska utilities care about their customers. Utility jobs are good jobs, and taxes are lower because the utilities pay their share. How low can our rates and taxes go if we supply our own power?
Keep the Power On
In 2022, when Hurricane Ian knocked out power for nearly 3 million people in Florida, the houses at Medley at Southshore Bay never went dark. A network of solar panels and batteries connected by microgrid kept the neighborhood running while the grid was down. The 5,000 homes in Babcock Ranch, which are powered exclusively by solar energy, were also untouched. Imagine if your electricity stayed on like that.
Stop Climate Change from Becoming Costlier
Based on the best evidence we have, global warming will stop when CO2 emissions hit zero. The temperatures we experience will remain steady for centuries after we stop releasing CO2, but the damage that climate change causes won’t get any worse.
But to hit zero, the whole world has to join in, and that’s not going to happen until someone takes the first step. Everyone knows that clean energy is a solution, but until a metropolis, state, or country is fully powered by clean energy, it’s just a concept—and very few people want to invest in a concept. Most people want to see what they’re buying, touch it, and watch it work, but we don’t have a working model of a clean energy system.
There’s work being done, but it’s piecemeal. The U.S. Federal Government is handing out billions of dollars for heat pumps, electric cars, solar and wind, and upgrades to the grid without an example of how to put it all together. Rhode Island’s Act on Climate is looking at how to reduce emissions, increase resilience, and create social justice without considering how a Rhode Island clean energy system could further their goals. Noble Owl can point to stand-alone successes in Arkansas, Alaska, Florida, and Nebraska, but we can’t show you a state where everything is happening at once.
That’s why we’re working to get a blueprint that puts it all together and creates a clear picture of how it will work and what it will do. And when we have that plan, Rhode Island can build it, and the world will have the proof of concept and the model it needs to move forward.
To get a blueprint, we’ll need to go outside of Rhode Island. Our energy bureaucracy has the expertise to manage our current energy system, but they don’t have the technological and economic knowhow to design a new one. Luckily, Boston area firms like Cadmus and The Brattle Group do, and they’ve worked for Rhode Island before.
Leaders like the Pope, Al Gore, and Sheldon Whitehouse are failing us because they’re selling a concept without making the effort to prove it. They’re rightly pointing out the disastrous future we’re making for ourselves, but they’re sitting on their hands, too, by not using all of their power to fix it.
We may not have the fame and fortune of the Vatican, but Noble Owl has a solid and desperately needed idea that we’re fighting to make real.