Sustainable Liberty
by Tony Chavira
As Press Secretary Robert Gibbs essentially allowed former Special Advisor for Green Jobs Van Jones to take a quick fall for comments he had made in the past, several things come to mind:
First, change is absolutely and explicitly inevitable. In trying to hold onto the remnants of a past process that we all knew wouldn't last forever, you are essentially grasping at straws that lead further and further away from the reality of time itself. Time moves foward so change can happen. Newsweek has a perfect example of this type of inevitable change in an article titled “Taking a Dim View of Solar Energy:”
In some cases, utilities are actually taking direct steps to thwart rooftop solar. Two weeks ago in Colorado, the state's biggest utility, Xcel, tried passing a surcharge on homes and businesses using rooftop solar power. The public went ballistic, and with pressure from Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter, the proposal was eventually shelved. In early July, New Mexico's biggest utility, PNM, filed an official request to dramatically reduce incentives for businesses and homeowners to install solar panels, and is now fighting with state lawmakers over whether it has the right to exclusively own solar panels systems hooked up to its grid. During California's last legislative session, Southern California Edison, which serves 13 million residents, successfully lobbied against a bill that would have allowed the city of Palm Desert to pay solar users for the excess power they generate.
Editor's Note: After this story originally posted, Southern California Edison says it opposed the recent reimbursement bill because it was duplicative of a current statewide program and too localized in its effect. A SCE spokesperson says the utility is supportive of statewide efforts to assist homeowners in the sale of their solar power.
No matter what steps utility companies may take to prevent them, alternative energy sources (as they become increasingly more popular and cheap) will undoubtedly overtake them. It’s actually a very libertarian view toward sustainable liberty, although I’m not sure that conservative talking heads would agree based on the rhetorical definitions of liberty they’ve devised.
Second, the fact that a special council was placed in the White House to develop green jobs at all is testament to the state of the green industry a) starting to popularize and b) beginning to coordinate at a high federal level. I can’t deny that I had a fondness (and deep down a semi-envious reverence) for Van Jones and the work he was appointed to do at for President Obama, just as I have the same feelings for the work that Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis is able to do for workers and unions during times when Americans need jobs the most. Although it’s tragic that media commentators can find a way to bully Mr. Jones from a job using none of his technical (in this case green industry) qualifications as ammunition, he can and more than likely will be replaced with someone just as capable and one hundred times more passionate about developing a thriving green sector. How can I be so sure? Because there is more than enough psychological research available to explain interpersonal responses to rejection, with a clear understanding of rejection as a source of frustration and aggression as re-establishing a sense of control. In short, the position will not go away, and the frustration that any incoming appointee might feel will most definitely fuel a stronger and more precise push toward the ultimate goal of developing a true, coordinated green sector. It's the reaction anyone would naturally have in response to those circumstances, regardless of party affiliation, and the response many people have had over the ages in the face of blatant rejection and frustration.
As a not-so-unrelated sidenote, I’m posting these “Then and Now” images of European communities since WWII to stress the point that nothing terrible, frustrating or overbearing lasts forever. What seems like an impossibly dire or desperate situation now will fall first into memory and then back into the folds of time. We have more than enough reason to be optimistic now, so why not always try to live that way?
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