Big Tent Ideas

TODD MYERS: This Earth Day, Don’t March — Innovate

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Todd Myers Contributor
Font Size:

In 2014, climate activists organized major marches and declared success was near. 

“The People’s Climate March in September last year was,” one giddy activist wrote, “without any doubt, a game-changer. Nearly 700,000 of us took to the streets, by far the largest climate mobilisation ever.” Two years later Donald Trump was elected. Nearly a decade after that march, most signatories to the Paris Climate Accord are not meeting their obligations.

So much for a game changer.

The problem is this: the fundamental message of political marches is that only politicians can truly make a difference. This assumption denigrates the power of individual action to directly solve environmental problems despite a solid record of success for new technologies as compared to the dismal record of grand political programs and gestures. (RELATED: MYERS: Liberals Are Kneecapping Environmental Efforts With Special Interest Politics)

Saying the world must “defuse the climate time bomb,” U.N. Secretary General Guterres claimed the latest report from the IPCC was a “survival guide for humanity,” language not too different from that of protestors who have been destroying historically and culturally significant works of art, claiming, “we are in a climate catastrophe.”

On Earth Day this year we are likely to see many thousands of people echo these fears as they march to pressure politicians to adopt aggressive, but ineffective, climate policies.

Fifty years ago, an Earth Day march for the planet made sense. There were few options for individual action to address the environmental problems of the time. That is not true today. Technology allows virtually anyone to address our most difficult environmental problems. And low barriers to innovation mean new solutions can be created quickly.

On Earth Day 2023, marching makes sense if your goal is exercise, but if you want to help the planet don’t march, innovate.

In fact, by focusing on political approaches, marches can make environmental solutions more difficult. They polarize climate policy, exacerbating the divisions between those who see themselves as climate saviors and those who oppose the poverty or intrusion they believe comes with green policies. 

The depth of this polarization was evidenced by a recent article in Nature. The authors noted their endorsement of Joe Biden – justified in part by his position on climate change – reduced their credibility among Trump supporters but had no effect on Biden supporters. Ultimately, the endorsement was a net loss for their credibility. Despite that, the authors said it would do it again. They were more influenced by their own politics than persuading with science.

Divisive rhetoric also makes politics the primary – if not only – avenue for efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. It focuses efforts into a narrow band of potential solutions, even as the rhetoric makes it unlikely that solutions will be adopted and sustained.

Ironically, climate activists and politicians admit political solutions aren’t working while simultaneously arguing that only political solutions can deal with the magnitude of the problem.

That message is completely backwards. Individuals, empowered by technology, are solving environmental problems where politicians fail. Rather than spending hours marching, those hours could be put to work immediately innovating new ways to cut CO2 emissions.

For example, on September 6, 2022, the state of California sent a text to residential customers asking them to conserve where they could in the face of blackouts. Within 15 minutes demand fell significantly – the equivalent of about half the state’s grid-scale battery power. With one simple text, they avoided the blackouts. One text. New technologies make that kind of impact available every day.

Smart thermostats allow consumers to automatically – and voluntarily – adjust the temperature in their house to respond to price signals, saving money when prices are high and helping reduce the risk of blackouts. 

In the U.K. one utility has gone even farther. Octopus Energy has created a “fan club,” rewarding members who use electricity when local wind turbines are turning. A decade ago, the ability to instantly respond to electricity prices was something only utilities could do. Now virtually anyone can.

Small innovations can also scale rapidly. I have a small box in my electrical panel called Sense that analyzes my electricity use, providing instantaneous feedback on my phone that tells me how much energy I am using and where I can conserve. The artificial intelligence at the heart of Sense is now available to all consumers with smart meters. 

Even if innovation only fills in the gaps where public policy is failing, it will play an important role in leaving the planet better than we found it while conserving the resources of people struggling with inflation and economic uncertainty.

The power of innovation and small technologies to solve difficult environmental problems is only beginning to be realized but is already doing something that politics cannot: bring people together. As politics become more divisive, technology allows people of all viewpoints to collaborate – helping the planet, saving money, and reducing pollution.

A decade from now as we look back on Earth Day 2023, the “game-changer” won’t have come from the streets. It will have come from those who decided not to march, but to innovate.

Todd Myers is the director of the Center for the Environment at Washington Policy Center. 

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel