Dana Blankenhorn

Stop Trumpism by Ending the Gerrymander

I don’t want this to become a political blog again. I have little faith in politics.

But there is a political issue that isn’t being discussed regarding the next two years. It needs to be discussed. It can change the future trajectory of the country.

The issue is redistricting, and gerrymandering.

The word “gerrymandering” refers to Elbridge Gerry (right, from Wikipedia). He signed the Declaration of Independence. He was at the Constitutional Convention. It was years after that, after becoming Massachusetts governor, that he signed the law which made his name, redrawing legislative districts for partisan advantage.  An opposition newspaper published a cartoon showing one district as a strange animal with claws, calling it a “Gerry-mander.”

The point is that gerrymandering is legal. But modern technology has made it scientific. It now takes enormous statewide majorities to overcome a legislative gerrymander.

The Downside of Energy Abundance

The first half of the last decade was marked by an energy gold rush.

Fracking made the USA energy independent for the first time in decades. Outside its impact on the environment, the boom was short-lived.

By 2014 demand was beating supply, and the boom has now turned to dust.

It wasn’t solar and wind power that killed the boom. It was efficiency and technology. LEDs require a lot less power than fluorescent bulbs. Intelligence added to warehouses and stores reduces the need still further. Insulation means you need less electricity for heating. New appliances are more energy efficient. The cloud is super-efficient, and the excess energy can be recycled. Laptop technology means this took less power to write than it would have then.

The oilpatch did its bit to kill the boom, too. There are now huge oilfields off South America and Africa that we didn’t know about before. The eastern Mediterranean gas fields have made Israel independent of Arab energy. Things like fracking and boiling the Alberta tar sands aren’t just environmentally destructive. They’re economically worthless.

All these things have put a thumb down on energy prices. That thumb is getting bigger over time. As I predicted in 2010 (based on Department of Energy research) we have now achieved “crossover,” the point where renewable energy costs less to exploit than fossil fuels. It’s hard today to justify a new natural gas plant. Soon, solar will cost less than gas fired in an existing burner.

The result is going to be another energy boom, this time a renewable energy boom.

But this one, too, has a sell-by date.