The final climate crisis election
When it comes to the climate crisis, winning slowly is the same as losing. Although we are making progress on clean energy solutions, emissions have continued to rise. We are now almost out of time to reduce emissions fast enough for a chance at avoiding the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. This election could be our final opportunity to elect leaders who will take the action required.
Of course, there are other lasting consequences of the choices we make in this election, but none with the potential to impact all life on the entire planet for at least hundreds of years to come. For this reason, I am focusing on climate as the top issue, followed by every other issue that climate change impacts: the economy, health care, jobs, immigration, education, gun violence, racism, poverty … all elements of human civilization depend upon a habitable planet.
Quite simply, we must elect Democrats. The other party, if it can even be called the Republican Party anymore, has demonstrated a near total inability to acknowledge the reality of climate science, or indeed almost any kind of scienceor fact-based version of reality.
A political party that cannot even agree on the merits of wearing a mask during a pandemic, killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, has no business anywhere near a position of power. We must remove these dangerous people from office before first our democracy, and then our planet, is left in ruins.
Along with electing Democrats, in Boulder we will vote on another ballot measure related to climate change: a partnership with Xcel Energy. This partnership is the most effective and affordable path forward for our city to decarbonize as rapidly as possible.
Considering that climate change is such a time-sensitive issue, it is shameful that we have taken the last 10 years, not to mention around $30 million dollars, to only get as far as we have. Meanwhile, Xcel Energy has become the first investor-owned utility in the country to commit to 100 percent zero emissions electricity by 2050, a crisisrelevant time frame that climate science tells us is required.
Getting to 100 percent zero emissions electricity will involve significant technical expertise, as the integration of distributed renewable energy and battery storage is a complicated engineering challenge. Along with distributed renewables and batteries, the grid will need to support millions of electric vehicles and smart electric appliances, and even green hydrogen production as we aim to decarbonize all sectors of the economy, from mobility to buildings and industry.
As the electric utility industry goes through this dramatic evolution, having an experienced partner operating the grid and evaluating cost-effective clean energy solutions will be critical for maintaining reliable, safe, and affordable service. Working with such a partner, Boulder can continue pushing to go further faster.
We are fortunate that after all this time and money spent trying to take ownership of old poles and wires and gain local control of our emissions, Xcel Energy is still willing to offer us a partnership that meets most, if not all, of the criteria we requested. If we do not accept this offer, the city will be in the unenviable position of trying to buy those old poles and wires and operate a brand new utility, during a period of multiple challenges: not just an increasingly complex technical environment, but also a budgetary crisis caused by the pandemic.
The city frankly does not have the money now to undertake the formation of a municipal utility. I suppose it would be interesting to see what the City Council does if this ballot measure fails, but I also am a Boulder native who would prefer to see the city succeed in both not going bankrupt and reducing emissions.
If you are feeling more comfortable about voting for Democrats than voting for this partnership, I ask you to go back to the beginning of this column. The most important thing is reducing emissions, immediately.
Both electing Democrats and forming this partnership are critical to this effort. It is far less important if your energy bill comes from Xcel or the city. It is far less important if you think that companies are somehow inherently less trustworthy than governments. Going back to the earlier point about the importance of electing Democrats, there are many examples showing that governments can be untrustworthy.
If you care about the climate crisis, vote for Democrats, and vote for the partnership with Xcel Energy. This is our last chance.
Beth Hartman is a Boulder native who has focused on clean energy research and innovation for more than a decade.