For my last and final blog post on domestic and global investment on renewable energy (for now, at least) I am going to explain what I have learned through my research and some proposals to make energy efficiency and sustainability the norm in the United States and abroad.

I began this blog series on renewable energy by discussing the history of energy use and various pieces of legislation the United States enacted to combat our dependence on fossil fuels and our dangerously high carbon emissions. I started with the Industrial Revolution to explain our shift from ancient sunlight as a sufficient energy source to fossil fuels. Similar to today’s energy dilemma, Germany led the way in the nineteenth century to clean energy. In 1899, the German government taxed petroleum imports and subsidized domestic ethanol. During this time, gasoline was extremely cheap, and ethanol was taxed a high level so American automobiles were designed to run on gasoline from the very beginning. Henry Ford’s first car, the Quadracycle ran on gasoline but Ford was aware of experiments of ethanol in Germany and supported lifting the tax on industrial uses of ethanol in the United States. In 1908, the Ford Model T was introduced and early models were able to run on ethanol. Ford told the New York Times in 1926 that “ethyl alcohol is the fuel of the future….There’s enough alcohol in one year’s yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years.”

Why did we not listen to him? One word: Marketing.

When Prohibition ended with the Twenty-first Amendment in December 1933, a renewed interest in ethanol fuel emerged. However, it didn’t last long. The American Petroleum Institute began a campaign against ethanol, claiming it would harm the petroleum industry, the automobile industry, as well as state and national economies by reducing oil consumption. They also falsely claimed alcohol fuel was inferior to gasoline. It was at this time when the oil industry began to control the daily lives of the American people as well as the fate of our planet.

We have tried to overcome this oligarchy of fuel through various political leaders and pieces of legislation, however. The President-turned-humanitarian Jimmy Carter, created a federal tax incentive for ethanol production in 1979, but it barely nudged the climate change crisis. Between 1979 and 2000, federal and state subsidies for ethanol amounted to about $11 billion as compared to about $150 billion in tax credits for the oil industry during the same period. There are some beneficial recent advancements in renewable energy, but they came at a high cost. After the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Americans realized our true dependence on foreign oil and more people started to learn about climate change so alternative energies like biofuel, solar, and wind expanded by at least 20% yearly. As I said in my presentation, the percent change of investments in renewable energy from 2002 to 2011 in the United States was 304%. That may sound like a lot, but when compared to other countries, it’s barely anything: China at 2688%; South Korea at 12775%; Canada at 1195%; and France at 1820%, all have invested more as a percentage of their GDP in that time-span.

Almost every president since Truman has mentioned the importance of alternative sources of energy in one way or another. President Bush said, “Let us reduce gasoline usage in the United States by 20 percent in the next ten years” in his State of the Union Address in 2007. President Obama said, “By 2035, 80 percent of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources” in his 2011 State of the Union Address. President Obama also allocated $27.2 billion to energy efficiency and renewable energy research and development in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 which included bio-fuel research, electric vehicle technologies, and solar power technologies.

This week as a matter of fact, the day before Earth Day, the House of Representatives passed the Energy Efficiency Improvement Act which mandates energy efficiency improvements through stronger residential and commercial building codes. The Senate passed this bill last month and now we are waiting for the President’s signature to turn it into law. This was a bipartisan effort which a promising sign for the future of American politics, but it should symbolize a congressional shift to focusing on clean energy and creating green jobs. Economists are saying renewable energy will be one of the most dynamic and profitable sectors of the global economy. We saw in class how European countries, especially Germany, Denmark, and Sweden are moving to a more sustainable future and once the United States, the largest economy in the world shifts in that direction, the global economy will have to follow suit.

According to a survey graph we saw in class, a majority of Americans believe climate change poses a threat to our livelihood, for the first time. The demand is there to change to a more sustainable nation, but in order to be effective, we must have government support. History shows when there are federal investments in new technologies, there are huge dividends. Congress enacted policies and appropriated money to oil, gas, and coal entrepreneurs a hundred years ago to sustain energy production and make these resources affordable to the average consumer and the revenues have skyrocketed ever since.

Solar power capacity more than doubled between 2008 and 2012, the average price of a solar panel has dropped over 60% since five years ago, creating over 175,000 jobs thanks in large part to tax policies for clean energy producers. Not to mention the dividends in wind power and bio-fuels, it’s clear to see renewable energy is and will continue to be the best investment of our lifetime. We have led the world in the energy field since the birth of our nation, and it’s time to continue our legacy with clean, renewable energy that reduces carbon dioxide emissions and creates hundreds of thousands of jobs.

I would not be happy with myself if I ended this blog series and did not offer other ways to help create a more sustainable future for ourselves and for future generations, besides investing in renewable energy.

Global agreements are certainly helpful and can invoke change but without appropriate enforcement, they are useless. For example, President Bush did not sign the Kyoto Protocol because he thought China should have been involved (even though they have cut their carbon emissions more than the United States), and that it would have hurt the global economy. But there were no repercussions for his actions, or lack thereof.

Instead I offer the following solutions to fight climate change: targeted, short-term individual (state) commitments, commitments to work together, putting the proper people responsible for action, and provisions for monitoring and reporting.

If we have more descriptive, localized commitments and goals that are short-term then real change might happen. For example, countries could commit to annual checkups on carbon emissions and demand gradual but effective data such as a reduction of 10% annually of carbon emissions. All of the developed countries must follow this too, especially the United States. We have to work together, meaning sharing new technologies at a low cost, group like-minded countries to work on research and development together, and listen to NGOs that might have more effective means of communicating to alternative energy distributors and lobbyists. We need to tax oil companies. Not only to invest in renewable energy with the revenue but because they are the biggest polluters of our air and water. Taxing oil companies on pollution discourages the act and creates a negative externality. Consumers might have to bite the bullet somewhere since oil companies will drive up the retail price of energy but we can balance the costs through reforms in our regulation system which now guarantees dividends of 10%+ of utility stocks. Stockholders and consumers will both pay the price but the environmental costs would outweigh the financial costs. Through provisions for monitoring and reporting, we can effectively check to make sure commitments are delivered on the ground. Specific timelines and detailed metrics for success should be outlined and enforced on every level of government worldwide.