The Greentech Revolution: A New Strike! Series

 

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Unexpected breakthroughs are making energy produced from sun, wind, and water cheaper, safer, and more efficient than energy produced from fossil fuels. This is already transforming the way the world produces and uses energy and it will further transform economics, politics, and society. This is the first in a series of Strike! commentaries that explore this “Greentech revolution,” and ask what it will mean for Americans.

 

 

Energy runs the world, and how energy is produced and used is undergoing a historic transformation. As UN secretary general António Guterres put it, “We are on the cusp of a new era. Fossil fuels are running out of road. The sun is rising on a clean energy age.”

Last July I prepared the report “How to Make the Fossil Fuel Powers “Stranded Assets”

looking at this transformation from a global perspective. The Greentech Revolution and Trump’s attempted counter-revolution have been frequently analyzed in terms of their effects on US-China geopolitical rivalry, the prospects for fossil fuel corporations, the wealth of investors, and their implications for Wall Street. This Strike! Commentary examines this new reality in terms of its impact on the American people – and what we can do about it.

If we get on the right side of the Greentech revolution we will be in a position to solve many of the most serious problems we face – not only climate destruction and environmental degradation, but also racial injustice, insecurity, economic inequality, job degradation, healthcare collapse, international conflict, militarization, and many others. This series of commentaries will lay out how.

But right now, our country is on the wrong side of this transformation, and if we stay there, we face a future of economic, social, and environmental doom. Currently the US government is doubling down on fossil fuels and doing everything it can to roll back the energy revolution, not only at home, but worldwide. This is manifested in defunding of renewable energy, astronomical tariffs on climate-protecting technologies, demands that other countries buy fossil fuels, payoffs to fossil fuel companies, and many other actions. The American people will pay a heavy price for being on the losing side of the energy revolution.

You may ask, is the Greentech revolution just hyperbole? This series will give you the facts to answer that question. It will start by reviewing the cascading transformation of the system of energy production and consumption. This is a global revolution, but it has so far been largely driven by China’s huge advances and investments in “Greentech” (sometimes also called “Cleantech”) – technology that reduces or repairs harm to the environment. Greentech includes ways of producing energy like solar and wind power; ways of distributing it in time and space like energy storage and energy grids; and ways of using it like EVs and heat pumps.

This series will then look at the implications for Americans of their government’s attempt to promote fossil fuels and forestall the Greentech revolution. The rising price of energy in the US, the growing uncompetitiveness of the American economy, and the devaluing of our entire fossil fuel-dependent infrastructure are the unavoidable results – and they are already under way.

There is an obvious alternative – adopt Greentech as rapidly as possible and do so in a way that also addresses our burgeoning social and economic problems. This may sound familiar as the strategy of the “Green New Deal” and indeed it is. But this “Greentech New Deal” can be driven forward by an entirely different economic environment – one in which the transition to fossil free energy is not a costly and painful duty, but rather a “free lunch” that the American people can use to make a happier, healthier, and more just society and world.

 

 

This will necessarily be a phased development. We are currently enmeshed in a country and world being transformed by MAGA. We are undergoing attacks not only on Greentech energy, but on everything that is good for people, from healthcare and economic security to peace and justice. And this destruction of the things we rely on for a good life is occurring in the context of the global polycrisis, marked by war, arms buildup, and great power rivalry; economic disorder and increasing inequality; the rise of para-fascist movements, parties, and governments; and destruction of the climate and environment. Nonetheless we can start building the Greentech New Deal right now – from below. This series will explore how and present many examples of progress that is happening even in the midst of the Trump autocracy.

After getting rid of MAGA and its drive for fossil fuel domination, Americans will face a very difficult situation, somewhat akin to Russia in the “Yeltsin Era” after the fall of the Soviet Union, when major social systems such as healthcare, industry, agriculture, urban infrastructure, the energy system, the legal system, finance, and many other systems were in severe disarray. In addition, we will face the accelerated degradation of the global climate. The post-MAGA transition will require a rapid expansion of the Greentech New Deal from Below, a national Greentech New Deal, and a global Greentech New Deal that replaces polycrisis with global cooperation.

Transition to what? Restoring the past but with renewable energy replacing fossil fuels would be a monumental achievement, but it would still leave most of our most serious problems intact. The Greentech revolution gives us the opportunity to make that transition be a transformation to the world we need and want. MAGA has made it difficult even to think about another, better future. But as we push it toward the exit, we can also start envisioning the future we want and how we might get there from here.

The era of Trump and the polycrisis is wildly unpredictable. Daily gyrations make it impossible to know, let alone understand, what is happening day by day. It is essential to counter the daily abuses of an authoritarian regime – to implement what I have called “Social Self-Defense” against it. But that does not preclude identifying longer-term forces and trends that persist through the insanity of the day, and ways to use them to make another world possible. In this series of commentaries I call attention to some of those persisting forces and trends and consider how to utilize them.

Bill McKibben in his new book Here Comes the Sun has done a great service in calling attention to the revolution in solar energy. But the Greentech revolution goes far beyond solar energy to include literally hundreds of micro-transformations in energy production and use and their impacts.

There have been various ways of interpreting the causes of the Greentech revolution. The British thinktank Ember says it is primarily about electro tech replacing fossil fuels. The American thinktank RMI sees it as the convergence of three factors: renewables, electrification, and efficiency. Economist Paul Krugman argues that, in contrast to earlier technological revolutions like the computer revolution, it is the result of an almost accidental confluence, since “from a technological point of view solar, wind and batteries don’t seem to have much in common.”

Two interrelated non-technological factors are essential for understanding the rise of Greentech. First, the urgent need to address the climate crisis — a “social need” that was not reflected in market demand – has led to massive research, experimentation, and investment from people and institutions ranging from giant corporations to basement tinkerers. Second, industrial policy decisions favoring Greentech have been made in many places, but above all in China.

 

 

California National Guard in front of protestors. Photo credit: U.S. Northern Command, Wikipedia Commons, Public Domain.

The Greentech Revolution is global, but its dynamic driver is China. Nearly 64 per cent of the new renewable electricity generated in 2024 was generated in China, according to a report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). China added almost 374 billion watts of renewable power – three-quarters of it from solar panels – in 2024. That’s more than eight times as much as the United States and five times as much as Europe.

Technological advancement in itself has never dictated the form or speed of economic and social change. To use Marxist jargon, production relations and social relations are inescapably intertwined. It would be foolish to interpret the original Industrial Revolution exclusively in terms of the spinning jenny and new uses for steam power or alternatively in terms of land clearances and the Poor Law. It would be equally foolish to ignore the realities of the Greentech revolution or to believe it will somehow inevitably solve our problems all by itself.

Indeed, fossil fuel use keeps rising, so does the emission of greenhouse gases, and therefore so does global warming. Greentech must replace, not just add to, fossil fuel burning. But cheaper Greentech makes any new fossil fuel investment a cost not a benefit. Limiting climate catastrophe requires massive campaigns to install Greentech – and to shut down fossil fuel infrastructure and burning.

This series of Strike! commentaries will start by reviewing the renewable energy production that is the vanguard of the Greentech revolution. It will then survey the Greentech transformation of consumption, including energy storage and distribution, transportation, agriculture, and buildings. All of these sectors are being transformed – and being made more efficient, cheaper, and more climate-safe – by the Greentech Revolution. Those transformations affect almost all aspects of our life and society. The rest of this series will explore how we can ensure that those transformations are for the good.