Reducing our energy use and transitioning to renewable
energy is a major issue we face today and will play a key role in our ability
to live sustainably as well as combat global climate change. The topic covers
micro-scale all the way to the global scale. To solve these issues many
different institutions and actors are needed. One such actor is the
Environmental Protection Agency. As a governmental agency it is a form of hierarchal
mode of governance. Through giving
grants for research and development, sponsoring partnerships, environmental
research, educational outreach and policy development and enforcement, the EPA
has wide reaching arms. The EPA was a key actor is developing the Clean Power Plan
which has been passed by President Obama, giving the EPA the task of enforcing
its regulations. It seeks to regulate fossil fuel emissions with incentives to
leave behind dirty nonrenewable fuel sources for cleaner more sustainable
renewable energy.
In looking at the “State” as an actor there are a few
hypothesis J.P Evans talks about in which I think are key for reducing energy
and transitioning towards renewable energy.
First “Government Matters”
mentions how the scale and speed of change necessary to combat global climate
change needs to be faster in order to make an impact. I believe that the State
must take strong direct action. Right now the policies in my opinion on not
strong enough. They allow for mitigating emissions or buying the ability to
emit more. This just prolongs the use of dirty fuel sources. The energy
companies want to milk what they have for every cent they can get. The slow and
small steps towards less emissions is nothing compared strong policy and
incentives for the transition to renewable energy sources. Rather than spending
money and resources to mitigate our use, it could be better spent developing
and implementing renewable energy on both small and large scales. Another hypothesis that stood out for me was
that of “Getting a mix of approaches
right is critical”. Each mode lends different strengths and weaknesses, so
finding a concoction of modes would greatly increase the effectiveness for
tackling environmental problems. A multi-prong approach would be much more
effective as well as heard by many more people with attempts to reduce energy. While market governance can help innovate
energy or green technology, and reduce our energy use, I do not think it is the
best approach for transitioning to renewable energy. It can help with more
efficient appliances, houses and electric cars, but as far as the energy grid
goes, I am a strong believer in strong hierarchal governance and policies to
not only steer in the right direction, but a little push as well. For reducing energy consumption and
transitioning to alternative forms of energy, I think J.P. Evan’s eight
hypothesis are spot on. It takes into account real world applications and
externalities that arise while trying to tackle wicked problems. While I do
agree with the statement “Governance is about evolution, not revolution”, I do
think some environmental problems, and in this case transitioning to
alternative energy need a bit of a revolution to hasten the evolution.
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