CLIMATE WAR BONDS
AN OLD IDEA FOR A NEW WAR
We know what we have to do, and we know how to do it. The technology that can get us off fossil fuels has been around for over a half century and it’s only gotten better and cheaper. The road is open, but can’t even make it to the entrance ramp.
We hold international conferences where we make goals and set dates. The dates pass. The goalposts move. We hold more conferences and make new commitments that we know we won’t keep. Meanwhile, carbon emissions and global temperature continue to rise, while wildfires, floods, droughts and storms that once occurred ever century now come every few years.
There are many reasons for this slide towards catastrophe — greed, corruption, political paralysis — but lack of money is right up there at the top. We’re going to need an estimated $8 to $14 trillion over the next thirty years to get the U.S. economy to carbon zero, Without funding, nothing can be done. While financial institutions are finally beginning to invest in solar and wind, these investments are dwarfed by the trillions they continue to pour into fossil fuels. Government has the resources but not the will. 72% of Americans now believe they’ll be harmed by climate change in their lifetime, but no administration has allocated a dime to protect its citizens.
There’s one resource we haven’t yet considered — 330 million Americans. There’s a proven way to tap into that resource — the war bond.
Ordinary bonds were marketed to wealthy investors and large institutions and bought as an investment. War bonds were cheap and sold to the entire population. They were bought not to make money but to help the country in a moment of peril. From 1941 to 1945, 84 million people — well over half the U.S. population — purchased war bonds. Total sales were nearly $3 trillion in today’s dollars, almost six times what President Biden asked for, and has yet to receive, to jump start the fight against climate change.
It’s impossible to know if climate war bonds would bring in as much as the World War 2 version, but a multi-trillion dollar sale is not an unreasonable goal. Our population is almost two and a half times than that of the war years. We also live in a far more prosperous country than an America coming out of the Great Depression.
The sales campaign would bring benefits beyond money. Climate war bond rallies and concerts, viral social media campaigns, Superbowl commercials, sales at school fairs and church suppers, highway billboards and subway posters, the war bond as the ubiquitous wedding, christening and Bar Mitzvah gift — all will put the climate crisis front and center every day, instead only when there’s a disaster or a UN climate report.
Unlike all the tired wars policy makers have inflicted on us over the years — the war against inflation, crime, drunk driving, drugs — climate war rings true. In fact, war is the only proper metaphor for the danger we face. Climate war bonds will be an acknowledgement that we are in fight for survival, one that requires national unity, a sense of purpose and sustained action.
Turning an idea into a massive, complex program is well above my pay grade. I don’t even have a pay grade. I’m a climate foot soldier, an activist who’s helped organize demonstrations, carried signs, passed out flyers, marched, chanted, and sometimes got arrested. But being on the ground gives me a certain perspective, as well as a sense of urgency.
Invading the lobby of JP Morgan Chase’s headquarters to protest the hundreds of billions the bank pours into fossil fuels, I come face to face with giant screen filled with images of green fields, wind turbines, solar farms, and a Chase logo. I stand on the steps of the State Capitol in Albany, where a much ballyhooed 2019 bill committed New York to cut emissions by 40% in eleven years. Three years later that bill remains unfunded. In this year’s budget the Governor is asking for just 3% of the $15 Billion needed to begin the funding.
The clock ticks.
