Friends & Fellow Citizens Podcast: Sowing Seeds of Sustainability in a Polarized Climate

As the American Conservation Coalition’s Vice President of Grassroots Strategy, Stephen Perkins manages the organization’s grassroots programming, strategy, and growth, while empowering the field team, staff, and local activists to grow as leaders in the environmental movement.

The fossil fuel divestment movement is spreading across college campuses. Most recently, students at the University of Washington staged a sit-in to urge the university administration to divest from its fossil fuel holdings. Last year, Harvard University – which has the largest fossil fuel endowment in the country – announced plans to divest from the industry after its student body protested. 

Divesting from fossil fuels sounds like a great idea for a young, climate-conscious activist to get behind. That is until you get into the details and consequences. 

The fossil field divestment movement, and those who support it, have no real plan for the aggressive clean energy transition they propose. Not only do fossil fuels still make up 60% of American energy, but a new report from the American Petroleum Institute shows that the industry supports nearly 11 million jobs and contributes more than 7% of the U.S. GDP.  

Advocating for the dissolution of the entire industry over the next few decades would also mean dissolving economic opportunity and quality of life for more than 330 million Americans. 

Even President Joe Biden acknowledged that fossil fuels aren’t going away anytime soon during his 2023 State of the Union address. Instead of pushing for unrealistic divestment that would deeply hurt local communities and our nation’s energy security, we should prioritize producing energy from fossil fuels in the cleanest, most environmentally responsible way possible while simultaneously ramping up renewable energy production. 

This is personal for me. My home state of Texas leads the nation in generating fossil fuel revenue, with more than $450 billion for the state’s economy. I grew up in Houston, where the energy industry is the lifeblood of the city and its citizens, regardless of whether they are directly employed by the industry or not. Widespread divestment from the fossil fuel industry would ruin Houston economically, as well as countless other communities across the country. 

More surprisingly, the second-largest oil and gas economy in the country is no other than California. The oil and gas industry generates $217.1 billion for the state’s economy, which would be hard to guess from the renewables-over-all attitude that California projects. This is just further proof that divesting from fossil fuels is a huge, unrealistic mistake – even for bright blue states. 

Perhaps even more importantly, shunning this industry here in the United States wouldn’t result in lower global greenhouse gas emissions. 

The American oil and gas industry produces energy with some of the highest environmental standards and close to the least carbon intensity in the world. If our major institutions divest from fossil fuels and handicap the industry, fossil fuels won’t go away. Other countries will simply produce fossil fuel energy in a dirtier way. 

This is not to say that clean energy – or an energy transition as a concept – is not important. We should be prioritizing clean energy sources, but we should be doing so with a realistic mindset. We need an all-of-the-above approach that balances reliability, affordability, abundance, and yes – cleanliness. 

The underlying conclusion here is that we cannot afford to sacrifice energy security and economic prosperity for climate activism without a follow-through plan. Clean energy should continue to be a priority in the coming years, but not at the expense of prosperity and American economic dominance.  

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Growing up in Texas, some of my richest memories include camping with my dad. Between hiking in the woods, fishing in the lakes, and watching the stars at night, I developed a strong pride for this state and all it has to offer. It’s a pride embedded in every Texan’s DNA. We’re a vast and unique land with nearly every kind of natural environment imaginable. More broadly, we lead the country on so many things, from commerce and politics to culture and energy.

While our history is steeped in identity as the oil and gas capital of the United States, our future is quickly becoming guided by a leadership role in clean energy and conservation. This is something we should highlight regularly, but especially on a day like Earth Day, when we celebrate our planet and reaffirm our commitment to protecting it.

We are facing some serious environmental challenges, many of which feel so monumental and divisive it can be hard to see a path toward solutions. What should give us hope, however, is remembering that all environmental challenges are local challenges. If we all stewarded our communities the best we can, we’d all be a lot better off.

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Co-written with Former Senator Cory Gardner (CO)

Hailed by many as the greatest land conservation legislation in a generation, the Great American Outdoors Act ushered in a new era of bipartisan conservation three years ago today. Thanks to the leadership of conservatives in Congress – including Senator Cory Gardner – President Trump signed the bipartisan bill into law on August 4, 2020.

Not only did this bill fully and permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund, it also provided $1.9 billion annually to address a growing maintenance backlog at national parks. In the senator’s home state of Colorado, for example, the beloved Rocky Mountain National Park was able to update and improve its campgrounds and utilities using GAOA funding. This is just one of many examples of how this funding helped expand and protect access to America’s best idea, our national parks and public lands.

We’re proud to say, though, that GAOA was just the beginning. Since its passage, several bipartisan energy and conservation bills have passed through Congress and were signed into law, including the Energy Act of 2020 and the VIP Act. Like GAOA, ACC’s membership of young people was instrumental in getting these historic reforms over the finish line. This grassroots momentum also helped lead to the creation of the Conservative Climate Caucus – now the fourth largest caucus in the House of Representatives Republican conference.

Harkening back to the land conservation of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, the conservative movement’s embrace of environmental issues isn’t new, but the legacy has been reignited in recent years. The conservative approach to climate change and conservation issues is one of balance between solving the issues at hand while also ensuring economic stability and opportunity. Young conservatives have pushed the Republican Party and its elected officials to not just talk about the conservative approach to conservation, but to act on it.

Polling done after the 2022 midterms by Frank Luntz shows young Republicans are “more likely” to vote for a candidate who supports immediate action on climate by a percentage nearly comparable to young voters at-large. Moreover, a plurality of respondents indicated they wanted more emphasis on climate change by Congress. Young conservatives are clear that they want to see climate action from their party’s elected officials. The question is, how will Republicans in Congress put conservative environmentalism into action and deliver on a cleaner and more prosperous future?

Today, we celebrate 3 years since the passage of the Great American Outdoors Act, but we also recognize that more must be done by Congress to help us better steward our lands and avoid the worst effects of climate change.

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The Biden administration last month paused all new liquefied natural gas export projects. This move was hailed as a win for environmentalists; not only is that a lie, but it’s also the latest example of the Biden administration attempting to pull a fast one on voters.

When you dig into the details, you’ll find that President Joe Biden’s LNG pause is only in effect until Nov. 5, which happens to be Election Day. After the election, operations will likely resume as usual. The move is purely political, ensuring that his campaign is in the good graces of voters — specifically young ones who care about climate change.

For nearly four years, progressive climate groups have demanded the Biden administration end American dependence on fossil fuels. Now, with 10 months until the presidential election, his administration has shamelessly attempted to pacify these groups through a temporary pause.

The Biden administration isn’t acting in good faith; instead, it is pulling the wool over young voters’ eyes. The reality is that exporting American natural gas has a number of environmental and national security benefits. Not only does America produce natural gas more cleanly than many other countries, but when the alternative for European countries is to rely on an aggressor such as Russia, the choice is clear. Environmentalists who want to feel good without doing good are shortsighted.

Biden’s move on LNG exports follows the same plotline as his empty promises on student debt. What was a key component of his 2020 campaign ended up resulting in no tangible action for countless young people who voted for him because of that promise. These diversions only serve to appease young voters long enough for electoral — not policy — results.

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In a confusing interview with Bloomberg, a U.S. Consumer Product Safety commissioner suggested the agency was considering a ban on natural gas stoves, a claim later backtracked by the chairman of the agency after an immediate outcry on social media. The one thing people seem to agree on is they won’t let go of their gas stoves so easily.

Advocates for banning gas hookups in new construction argue that electric stoves are safer and more environmentally friendly, but they ignore that making blanket bans the new normal for environmental policy sets a bad precedent and stifles innovation. Not to mention, a ban on gas stoves would disproportionately affect lower-income communities, including minority-owned mom and pop restaurants , throwing any inkling of environmental justice out the window. Furthermore, until we ramp up renewable energy production, electric stoves are still powered largely by fossil fuels, so our emissions-reduction focus is misplaced.

Regardless of whether we’re talking about banning gas stoves or gas-powered cars, this sort of abrupt, government-driven policy does more harm than good. There’s a reason that California now struggles with rolling blackouts and encourages residents not to charge their electric vehicles due to power shortages.

Too many people already see the environmental movement as one that seeks to take from them and change their way of life, but it doesn’t have to be this way. From promoting veganism and subsidizing electric vehicles in place of combustion engines to suggesting we give up our beloved pets , the environmental movement’s extremist factions have hurt its more fundamental purpose, to help the world prosper, by not meeting people where they are.

To be clear, natural gas is not our enemy. The United States reduced more emissions than any other country from 2005 to 2017 , not because of government edict but because natural gas production exploded during the shale boom. As natural gas is about 50% cleaner than coal , this contributed greatly to U.S. emissions reductions. In fact, emission reductions exceeded what was estimated to be the effect of the failed Obama-era Waxman-Markey Bill. As vice president at the time, President Joe Biden should now know, and inform his administration, that the heavy hand of government is not the effective or popular path forward on energy, the environment, or otherwise.

There’s a better way to protect our environment and the people in it. Environmentalism cannot be divorced from human beings. We should prioritize energy and environmental solutions that better our lives through expert-led innovation and harnessing local knowledge. That’s what the Climate Commitment , a road map for climate action created by Stephen’s organization, is all about: an optimistic approach to fighting for people and the planet.

The Climate Commitment is an approach that pushes back on the notion of government control in favor of harnessing the power of American ingenuity to create bigger and better solutions to the environmental challenges we face. Rather than advocating the outright banning of gas stoves, this brand of climate action would incentivize innovation to make this technology and others cleaner and safer for future generations.

Instead of igniting culture wars over gas stoves, the Biden administration should shift its focus to more productive conversations and solutions. There’s a better approach, and the mainstream environmental movement needs to embrace it.

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