Tag Archives: energy

Energy Affordability+, Not Energy Dominance

November 23, 2025Future Hopeclimate-change, energy, environment, ferc, politicstedglick

Two of the most significant dates in my life as a progressive activist and organizer are April 4, 1968 and August of 2003. The 1968 date is the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed. His killing pushed me to finally do something about racial injustice and the Vietnam War rather than just reading and thinking about them.

August of 2003 was when there was a brutal heat wave in western Europe which led to 70,000 deaths, primarily of elders. This was my wakeup call as far as the climate crisis, leading to several months of book-reading to understand how bad things were, which led to a decision later that year to begin working on this issue. Ever since it has been at the top of my list as far as where I put my energies and time as an organizer: locally, statewide, regionally and nationally.

My primary focus on all those levels, since 2013, has been working and taking action to obstruct the buildout of fracked gas pipelines, gas compressor stations and Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) export terminals. That work quickly led me to learn about FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the most important federal agency that most US Americans have never heard of.

FERC is primarily the regulator of the US electrical grid. In 1977 when it was created by Congress, replacing the Federal Power Commission, it was also given the responsibility of regulating the methane gas industry, which in the 21^st century has become primarily a fracked gas industry.

How have they “regulated” it? By giving the gas industry over 99% of the permits that they apply for to build new pipelines, compressor stations to push the gas along and import (in the past) and export (now) LNG terminals along US coastlines, primarily in Texas and Louisiana.

In 2020 a study done by the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, chaired by Representative Jamie Raskin, looked at FERC’s record between 2000 and 2020 and found that of the 1,027 applications to them by industry for permits, only six were denied. This is why the movement which has been fighting FERC and calling for it to be reformed, or replaced by a Federal Renewable Energy Commission, describes it as a rubber stamp agency.

For over 11 years a national organization, Beyond Extreme Energy, has been refusing to quit in its efforts to change this outrageous situation. For a while, from 2021 to 2023, under the leadership of then-FERC chairperson Richard Glick (no relation), actions were taken to make this happen. But when dirty-coal owner and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairperson Joe Manchin ratcheted up his support for coal, oil and gas in March of 2022 and, in collaboration with Republicans and a few other Democratic Senators, attacked Glick very openly, these efforts were seriously undercut.

Now comes Trump. On his first day as President, January 20^th, he issued two Executive Orders to “streamline the permitting process for [fossil fuel] infrastructure projects” and declare a “national energy emergency.” The purpose: to set back the shift to solar and wind and accelerate new coal, oil and methane gas projects. FERC is central to this destructive plan.

Last month, on October 7^th, FERC issued a “final rule” to severely reduce the ability of affected landowners, communities and environmental organizations to legally challenge methane gas infrastructure projects FERC approves. The reason given for doing so was to “encourage the orderly development of plentiful supplies of natural gas. . . particularly the development of data centers to advance artificial intelligence.”

But there’s more. Three weeks ago former Republican Senator Rick Santorum called for the DC Circuit Federal Court of Appeals to be removed as the place where court challenges to FERC permits are heard and decided. The headline blared, “DC Circuit Court is blocking America’s energy dominance.”

Why this extreme call to action?

Over the last five years this court has made a number of decisions upholding the need for FERC to take seriously the rights of landowners fighting eminent domain for corporate gain, environmental justice (ej) and other communities opposing proposed new polluting gas pipelines and infrastructure projects, and those groups defending the earth’s ecosystems challenged by global heating.

Over the last 11 years climate justice activists have demonstrated at a big majority of the monthly meetings of the five FERC commissioners who are the decision-makers. 200 or more people have been physically removed from the meetings for speaking out—there is no public comment period—and permanently banned from ever going to this meeting again. For the last year and a half, led by Beyond Extreme Energy, every single meeting has been met with action outside and some kind of inside action.

The latest was this past week when a small group of us dressed up in black judges robes to underline the importance of continuing court oversight of this now-Trump-dominated agency. We will do so again at their next meeting on December 18 and keep taking action to shine as bright a spotlight as we can on this increasingly more well known but still dangerous, extremely dangerous, threat to ej communities and the world’s ecosystems. It is one important front of the battle to prevent climate catastrophe and shift rapidly off fossil fuels to the wind, solar, battery storage and energy conservation that our children and grandchildren desperately need.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21^st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

The Trump Death Cult, Part 2

August 6, 2025Future Hopeclimate-change, energy, environment, renewable-energy, sustainabilitytedglick

Six weeks ago I wrote a column entitled, Fighting Climate Meltdown and the Death Cult. In it I said, “This would-be fascist government wants to roll back hundreds of billions of dollars approved in 2022 for wind and solar energy, electric cars, buses and trains and other clean and jobs-producing energy. This is the kind of energy we must shift to as rapidly as possible if we are to avoid the breakdown of ecosystems and human societies worldwide. It’s as if Trump and the MAGA’s were a death cult, truly, and not just when it comes to energy policy.”

I wrote this before the vote, one week later, on the Big Billionaires Bill that passed in the House and the Senate by the narrowest of margins. Millions of US Americans, predominantly low-income working people, will be hurt because of this bill’s passage.

At the very last minute of the months-long work of putting together this legislation there was an effort to insert language to make its energy provisions even worse by adding a new tax on wind, solar, batteries and other clean energy technologies. This tax would be levied if companies cannot prove that their products are made without Chinese parts. This provision, if passed, would have made the bill much worse. Fortunately, there were enough Republican Senators who refused to support it so that it was taken out before the final vote.

Interestingly, as far as I can tell, no one has come forward to take credit for this diabolical effort to decimate these rapidly-growing and world-critical technologies. I’d put my bet on Trump and/or Steven Miller being behind it, almost certainly.

One week ago this Trumpist campaign in support of fossil fuel industry dominance of US energy took another huge step when Lee Zeldin, head of the EPA, announced that it will move to overturn the 2009 Supreme Court “Endangerment Finding” which determined that there are six greenhouse gases (GHG’s) that are air pollutants which endanger public health and welfare.

If this 16-year-old finding is ultimately overturned by the current Supreme Court, it would be a huge dagger, a knife to the chest, of US efforts going on since 2009 and before to reduce those GHG’s and shift, instead, to a 21^st Century clean energy economy that cleans up air, water and land, particularly in environmental justice communities, and gives humankind a fighting chance to prevent worldwide ecosystem and societal breakdown as this century progresses.

Then there is the recently revealed Trump Administration policy linking lower tariffs for other countries to their agreeing to buy US-produced, climate-destroying methane gas exports. Was this from the beginning a major purpose of the tariff campaign?

Truly, maddeningly, Trump, Miller, Zeldin, Vance, the whole cabal, can best be described given all of these actions, and more, as no less than a death cult. Their actions prove that they literally don’t care about anything other than the amassing of as much wealth and power for themselves and their billionaire backers as they can. They are climate criminals.

Fortunately, the US movement for climate justice is very much alive and kicking. There is organizing going on in every state and numerous localities in support of the urgently needed shift away from fossil fuels and to clean renewables, battery storage, electric vehicles and electric heating/cooling systems. These clean energy technologies are advancing worldwide and, still, if now more slowly, in the US.

Support for renewables among the US population continues to be high. A recent Pew Research poll in June reported that 68% continue to support wind power and 77% support solar power.

Our job today is to expose the deadly implications of the Trump/MAGA policies, activate the clear majority which supports making the clean energy transition, fight in every way we can against the planned dramatic expansion of fossil fuel, especially methane gas, pipelines, export terminals and infrastructure, and groundswell a visible, in the streets, mass climate justice movement that refuses to quit.

Down with the Trump death cult.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21^st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

Fighting Climate Meltdown and the Death Cult

June 28, 2025Future Hopeclimate-change, energy, environment, renewable-energy, sustainabilitytedglick

“This is a fight for life. And like all fights, you need a tremendous amount of bravery to take it on. Before I started working on climate change, I didn’t think of myself as a fighter, but I became one because I felt I have a responsibility to preserve the world for my son and children everywhere. That kind of fierce protectiveness is part of the way that I love. We can draw on that to have more strength than our enemies because I don’t think they’re motivated by love. I believe love is an infinite resource and the power of it is greater than that of greed or hate. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t be here.”

-Dr. Genevieve Guenther, The Guardian, June 24

On June 14^th I spoke at one of the 2,200 or so “No Kings!’ actions around the country, this one in Newark, NJ. In part I said, “This would-be fascist government wants to roll back hundreds of billions of dollars approved in 2022 for wind and solar energy, electric cars, buses and trains and other clean and jobs-producing energy. This is the kind of energy we must shift to as rapidly as possible if we are to avoid the breakdown of ecosystems and human societies worldwide. It’s as if Trump and the MAGA’s were a death cult, truly, and not just when it comes to energy policy.”

I’ve thought about this characterization that I made since I did so publicly. I’ve wondered if it was too over the top, too rhetorical. I’ve thought about all of the many other people down through history, Hitler and the Nazis as exhibit number one, who clearly fit this description.

There’s no question Trump would like to rule the world and that he cares little about the lives of Black, Brown and Indigenous people, low-income people, women and lgbtq people. He’s a racist and sexist through and through. He’s OK with genocide in Gaza, doesn’t even feign to be concerned, instead dreaming about turning Gaza into another luxury resort on the Mediterranean Sea. He wants to drastically increase the already obscene US military budget, etc., etc., etc.

But what I think makes the “death cult” phrase unquestionably accurate is his and his billionaire buddies’ very explicit efforts to stop and reverse the growing worldwide, and US, shift from fossil fuels to renewables and a truly clean and green economy.

We are already far down the road as far as climate disruption and danger. Climate scientists are telling us that there is a very real possibility of soon passing environmental tipping points that could destabilize the climate for generations, centuries. Those who are doing all they can to set back renewable energy and achieve “energy dominance” via coal, nukes, oil and methane gas; these people, Trump and his government appointees, the fossil fuel industry and the banks and billionaires who support them, are absolutely a death cult.

Fortunately, a big majority of the US population supports the shift to wind, solar, electric vehicles and heat pumps and other truly renewable energy sources. This is crucial, and a reason not to lose hope.

What is the evidence for this assertion? Here is one source: a poll released in late January this year by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication:

Registered voters across the political spectrum support many policies designed to reduce carbon pollution and fossil fuel dependence and promote clean energy, including:

88% support providing federal funding to help farmers improve practices to protect and restore the soil, so it absorbs and stores more carbon.
77% support funding more research into renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power.
74% support setting strict limits on methane emissions from oil and gas production.
73% support regulating carbon dioxide (the primary greenhouse gas) as a pollutant.
69% support providing tax credits or rebates to encourage people to buy electric appliances, such as heat pumps and induction stoves, that run on electricity instead of oil or gas.
69% support funding more research on global warming and climate change by Federal agencies such as NASA, NOAA, and the EPA.
67% support requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a carbon tax and use the money to reduce other taxes (such as income tax) by an equal amount.
63% support transitioning the U.S. economy (including electric utilities, transportation, buildings, and industry) from fossil fuels to 100% clean energy by 2050.
58% support providing tax rebates for people who purchase electric vehicles.

Note that these percentages could not be what they are unless more than a few Trump voters had these views. There is widespread, tri-partisan support on this huge issue.

So is there hope? Yes, there is. There’s hope not just because of the results of this, and other, polls but because of the massive local demonstration turnouts in every state since Trump took office, over 5 million people the most recent time on June 14. There is hope when climate and social justice state assemblyman Zohran Mandani decisively wins the New York City primary on June 10. And there are so many more examples, so many of us rising up on issue after issue and continuing to resist.

There is absolutely no question that the national progressive movement in the United States is in the ring, landing punches and fighting hard in this existential and urgent battle for the future.

The End of the World?

May 9, 2024Future Hopeclimate, climate-change, energy, fossil-fuels, newstedglick

A sobering article published in The Guardian yesterday has gotten me thinking, not for the first time, about why, despite difficult odds and repeated disappointments, I and many others keep plugging away, doing all we can to drastically reduce the power of the fossil fuel industry and rapidly shift the world’s energy sources from fossil fuels to truly clean renewable energy like solar and wind.

The article “surveyed hundreds of the world’s leading climate experts and reported that

77% of respondents believe global temperatures will reach at least 2.5C above preindustrial levels, a devastating degree of heating;
almost half – 42% – think it will be more than 3C;
only 6% think the 1.5C limit will be achieved.

“The task climate researchers have dedicated themselves to is to paint a picture of the possible worlds ahead. From experts in the atmosphere and oceans, energy and agriculture, economics and politics, the mood of almost all those the Guardian heard from was grim. And the future many painted was harrowing: famines, mass migration, conflict. ‘I find it infuriating, distressing, overwhelming,’ said one expert, who chose not to be named. ‘I’m relieved that I do not have children, knowing what the future holds,’ said another.”

I first began having these kinds of thoughts and feelings about 20 years ago when I learned after study that the climate crisis was worse than I had known, which led to consciously taking steps to begin working on this issue. Ever since, it has been the primary issue that I have focused on, including for the last nine years since I retired from paid employment.

Often over those years I’ve been asked if I believe it is really possible that we can bring about the changes needed in enough time to prevent worldwide ecosystem and societal unraveling. Here’s what has become my answer to that question:

I don’t know if we are going to be able to avert climate catastrophe. The odds aren’t good. It is possible, maybe probable, that at least hundreds of millions, possibly billions of people will die prematurely in the 21^st century as the atmosphere and oceans overheat. Maybe by halfway through this century world population will be on a decided and unplanned major downturn. But even if that’s what the future holds, even if the fossil fuel industry and mega-corporate capitalism maintain their murderous grip over most of the world’s governments, it is necessary that we build the strongest possible resistance movement to fight them, for two main reasons:

–The faster the shift off of fossil fuels the less damage will be done to ecosystems and human societies and the more likely it is that, after a long and difficult transitional period, the societies which emerge on the other side of that wrenching transition will be larger in number and qualitatively better than would be the case if the climate emergency goes on for a longer period of time.

–If it turns out that the human race is just not up to the task right now, if the power of the fossil fuelers, mega-corporatists and the neo-fascists cannot be reduced or, much better, broken, it is important that those who come after us know about and draw strength from our example. Just as we draw strength from the heroes and heroines of the fight to abolish chattel slavery in the 1800’s and all of the many other movements down through history for justice and human decency, those coming after us can draw strength from our refusal to give up, from our building of a culture grounded in love, service to others and determined, fearless resistance to evil.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist, organizer and writer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21^st Century Revolution. More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.