The Climate Change Cure
by Dr. Doug Cardell
Can free-market capitalism fix climate change? Absolutely! The public would like to see the problems associated with climate change solved, but they don't want their lives negatively impacted by the solutions. An unhampered free market is the only practical answer. Let's look at an example. Electric lighting uses about one-fourth of all the electricity consumed in the US. A few years ago, the US mandated a change to compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs), and climate change activists cheered. The free-market capitalists took a couple of years longer to respond with LEDs, but let's take a peek at the results.
It's plain to see that both the government's solution (which, of course, was created by free-market capitalists), as well as the free market's choice, performed far better than the filament-based bulbs; yet the CFLs used 40% more electricity than the LEDs. Switching from incandescent to CFLs would reduce US electrical consumption, but switching to LEDs would reduce total US electrical consumption by 21%. So, changing all US lighting to LEDs would lower the current 1.7 billion tons of CO2 produced by electric power plants to 1.35 billion tons. The free market wins again. As an extra bonus, LEDs have dozens of color temperatures and millions of color choices, while CFLs have one. Here's why free-market capitalism works so well. The US has about 330 million people, and about 260 million are adults. They all would like to have more money, so 260 million people are trying to find a way to strike it rich. They see that solutions to climate change would make them rich, so they look for answers. The US energy department has about 15000 employees; if they come up with a solution, they may get a raise or a bonus, but they don't get rich. So, the free market offers 17000 times the number of potential entrepreneurs who might want to solve the problem than the government does, and since their potential for economic gain is far greater, they are far more motivated. These highly motivated people are already discovering solutions that could be deployed in as little as five years. One of the most promising is carbon sequestration. Carbon sequestration involves capturing CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it somewhere safe. There are several possible techniques: growing crops to capture carbon and preserving and burying crops is one way. Another method is injecting the CO2 into rocks or water surrounded by rock. This process dissolves minerals that re-form with the CO2 into new rocks that will last virtually forever. In addition to removing already present CO2, scientists and entrepreneurs are finding amazing new ways to generate and store electricity. Among these is one presented recently in the journal Advanced Materials, entitled "Generic Air-Gen Effect in Nanoporous Materials for Sustainable Energy Harvesting from Air Humidity," which describes a process that uses nanopores in materials to generate electricity from the air. Lightning is evidence of the vast energy stores in the air, and this discovery describes a method of extracting it. Look around your home for a moment. How much of what you see was created by capitalists, entrepreneurs, and free markets, and how much was created by the government? That's how free-market capitalism works. The solutions to climate change are coming soon as long as the government does not interfere the way it tried to with CFLs. If you are worried about climate change, the only way to truly become a climate restoration warrior is to fight to keep free-market capitalism doing what it does best—letting people get rich by solving challenging problems for the benefit of all. Addendum: The US Dept of Energy's new rule, effective August 1, 2023, the manufacture and sale of all lightbulbs producing less than 45 lumens per watt is prohibited. This is a further example of government attempting to take credit for the efforts of free-market capitalists. This, despite the fact that, in less than a decade, more than half the country has already switched to LEDs with no government intervention because the free market provided consumers with what they wanted: better, cheaper, more eco-friendly lighting. The next phase proposes to raise the standard to 120 lumens per watt, effectively banning the CFLs that the government tried to force us to buy starting in 2007. Government is always a slow, lumbering beast compared to the speed and agility of the free market. The government should not get any credit for the energy savings delivered by LEDs; free-market capitalism did that! Addendum: Fusion power may come sooner than you think; maybe within five years. Sam Altman, ChatGPT’s founder, has invested $375,000,000 in fusion research. Microsoft is investing heavily as well. Power by nuclear fusion is clean, safe, and has the potential to supply limitless energy with no nuclear waste and no danger of radiation leakage. The capitalists investing in this and other potential solutions will be the ones to save the world, again, not the ones destroying it.
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