The Road to Energy Serfdom That Some Alaskans Seem Determined to Follow

Guest Post by Kassie Andrews at Master Resource.

Alaska has no shortage of recommendations from local environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) whose purpose is to implement global Malthusian degrowth.  These plans come at great cost to our future and way of life as free Alaskans.  

In March of 2022, “Alaska’s Renewable Energy Future – New Jobs, Affordable Energy” was released, a report on behalf of the Regenerative Economies Working Group – Alaska Climate Alliance / Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition. Imagining themselves as Alaska’s overlords, the study examined

the potential for 100% clean renewable energy to replace fossil fuels energy in Alaska by 2050 and its attendant benefits including more jobs, lower energy prices, higher energy security and the potential for renewable resources to support the equitable transition to hydrogen-based fuels for the aviation and maritime industry.

Studies, studies…. Competitive energies need freedom; uncompetitive energies need studies and government.

Seen on the Alaskan road to energy serfdom

Alaska’s Renewable Energy Future and Global Agenda Align

This plan highlights key strategies for the state to “accelerate the transition to a clean, renewable energy future,” including:

• Undertaking a comprehensive statewide strategic policy and planning effort, an explicit goal of transitioning to 100% clean renewable energy by 2050, using the Integrated Resource Plan required by legislation that established the Electric Reliability Organization (ERO)

• Enact legislation to require electric utilities to achieve 100% clean renewable energy by 2050 and to regularly measure and report progress toward that goal, including the adoption of reasonable Renewable Portfolio Standards, e.g., 80% by 2040

• Seek Alaska Permanent Fund support for publication of environmental disclosures of its investments to ensure portfolio investments are assessing and addressing climate risks.

• Green Bank – A Green Bank is a capital management program that leverages limited public dollars to attract greater private investment in clean energy.

An underlying theme of the report is to finance the “Just Transition to a Regenerative Economy.”  But what does this mean?  Since the global pandemic, the idea to upend and replace capitalism has become normalized and accepted.  Chief among those calling to replace capitalism is the Trilateral Commission, which published a report in June of 2022 by the Task Force on Global Capitalism in Transition.  

The report references a 2020 survey wherein 56% agreed “capitalism does more harm than good.”  The survey contacted over thirty-four thousand people in twenty-eight countries, including Russia and communist China.  The Trilateral Commission report goes on to state the growing concerns about whether market-based economies can handle major challenges, with the first on their list being climate change, stating climate change is the “greatest issue facing humanity in the 21st century” and the “climate crisis is primarily caused by the rise of fossil-fueled economies.”

The executive summary for the Trilateral Commission report states: “The time was right for this effort.  Despite capitalism’s manifest positive impact on prosperity and well-being, many people are frustrated by its inability to handle some of the greatest challenges facing society. In particular, there are growing concerns about whether market-based economies will be able to adequately address climate change, the disruptions triggered by the digital revolution, and rising inequalities. Moving toward a more sustainable and inclusive capitalism is thus a defining challenge of our age.”

The up-front costs as listed in Alaska’s Renewable Energy Future are “on the order of $128B over 30 years, can be mitigated by federal and state co-investment.”  Contrast this with the $3.5T additional annual capital investment required between now and 2050 to build a net-zero global economy, with investment totaling only $1.8 trillion in 2023, the inflation yet to be seen with exponential increased costs is unfathomable, with no expected real returns or metrics of success. 

Faced with extraordinary costs to implement their experiment, our masters must throw away traditional capitalism and replace it with Marxism repackaged as the “regenerative economy.” Other terms for the rebranded theft include inclusive capitalism, stakeholder capitalism and sustainable capitalism.

The only way to get this much money into the system to pay for something that no one wants would be to steal it from unsuspecting citizens.  Our economy, resources, supply chains, energy infrastructure, food production and agriculture must be stolen and fed back to us under their new terms and control.  The Trilateral Commission’s recommendations to achieve net zero include “Establish new rules of the road” by “Accelerating green finance” and by use of the government where “Central banks should establish as standard practice regular and universal climate stress tests to assess climate risks across financial systems.”  

Additionally, they state:

Establishing a price on carbon is an obvious path toward solving the green transition challenge from an economics perspective.  Setting a price incentivizes firms, entrepreneurs, and researchers to innovate.

We already see this in the way that activist investors used Governor Mike Dunleavy by subjecting the state to carbon extortion in exchange for resource development.

There is a huge disconnect in what environmental activists see as an existential threat to humanity versus how everyday Americans are polling.  In the latest Gallup Poll on the “Most Important Problem,” almost half of Americans at 44% list economic issues as the most important problem where Environment/Pollution/Climate change no longer even registers on the poll <0.5% in September, down from a consistent 2% in the 6 months prior.  Their plans very clearly stated are to exacerbate the very issue most Americans are concerned about (economy), to try to solve the issue that doesn’t concern Americans in the least (climate).

A “Regenerative” Economy?

According to the World Economic Forum, “Only a regenerative economy can build sustainable, inclusive prosperity.”  As covered previously, sustainability is a degrowth construct, and inclusive means equal outcomes for everyone.  According to the Climate Justice Alliance “A People’s Orientation to a Regenerative Economy: “We have long advocated for climate justice through a Just Transition. The emerging Green New Deal (GND) has created an opportunity to deepen this work.” 

The Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition states

If our current economy is producing climate change, pollution, and inequality, what kind of economy can provide good livelihoods that work both for people and the planet? This working group is focused on finding answers to that question that make sense for Alaska—we seek to redefine the goals of the economy away from maximizing income for the wealthy few towards achieving broad-based equity, community health, and ecological sustainability.

According to APlanet, a regenerative economy is “the economic model that represents an alternative to the current economic system in response to its environmental, social and economic shortcomings.”  They go on: “To ensure environmental conservation and promote a universal improvement in quality of life, it is necessary to reduce both GHG emissions and the material footprint” and under “other relevant concepts to consider,” they list degrowth or degrowth theory, doughnut economics and a circular economy.

Enabling the Plan

It is interesting that they use the word “regenerative” while calling for net zero.  There is nothing regenerative or environmentally friendly about the materials required for the so-called transition.  To my oil and gas industry friends who believe we need to buy into carbon capture/sequestration, and that CO2 is something that we need to control, know that degrowthers mean zero. 

Alaska Climate Alliance, ENGOs et al. have made great progress in getting laws passed to enable this plan. In 2020, SB 123 was signed into law creating the unelected regional Electric Reliability Organization.  According to Renewable Energy Alaska Project

The new ERO will establish and oversee region-wide reliability standards as well as non-discriminatory interconnection standards that will make it easier for independent power producers to access the transmission system to sell renewable energy.

This legislation passed with only one Republican voting nay.

In May of 2024, HB 273 was passed establishing a state green bank as a subsidiary of the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation (AHFC) by way of amendment.  Green Bank legislation was originally introduced by Governor Mike Dunleavy in 2021.  While eleven house members voted no to the Green Bank amendment, final bill passage included only 3 nays in the house and 2 in the senate.

Who Is Behind Alaska Climate Alliance?

The primary authors of the report are from the Pacific Environment and Native Movement.  Native Movement is a member of Climate Justice Alliance.  Senator Shelley Moore Capito’s office R-WV reported that in December of 2023, Climate Justice Alliance was granted $50M in Inflation Reduction Act funds by the EPA.  In a statement by Climate Justice Alliance on receiving the funds “Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) was selected to receive a $50 million grant for its UNITE-EJ (United Network for Impact, Transformation, & Equity in Environmental Justice Communities) application and to serve as a National Grantmaker for EJ TCCGM to provide support to the Western United States (EPA Regions 8-10).”  Alaska is in EPA region 10.

According to the Native Movement website:

Native Movement is a proud partner within the Alaska Just Transition Collective, a growing collective of Alaska based organizations with a spectrum of focuses working to support Alaska along a path toward a post-oil economy, an Indigenized Regenerative Economy. 

The Native Movement website states:

The Alaska Climate Alliance is a group of 50+ organizations and more than 120 participants united by our desire to align Alaska’s climate action community with Just Transition principles, addressing the climate crisis head-on at all levels of society and shifting our state towards a joyful, interdependent and Indigenous-led future.  And “Our alliance grew out of Alaska’s Just Transition movement, and is steered by a coordinating team including staff from Native Movement, The Alaska Center, Native Peoples Action, Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition, and the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council. The Alliance’s first statewide virtual gathering was in October 2020, and has happened monthly since that time.” 

In a Q&A with Native Movement, on “What are 3 projects you are working on with your community?”  They state:

This is a hard question to answer because of the breadth of our work. We are a statewide organization that supports multiple grassroots efforts across the state spanning issues of LGBTQ+ rights, missing and murdered indigenous women and girls (MMIWG), climate justice, environmental justice, and energy justice. We are supporting communities fighting multiple extractive projects across the state, including the Ambler mine, the Donlin mine, and the Willow oil and gas project.

We also support communities in their regenerative visions, including land back, food sovereignty, clean energy, and expanding broadband access. We hold trainings on decolonizing gender and untangling colonialism, among other things, and are fostering a cohort of community educators across the state.

Along with Pacific Environment, two of the non-profits listed under the Just Transition Collective, Alaska Community Action on Toxics and Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition make up half of the petitioners listed to dismantle the Trans Alaska Pipeline, which through the evil and oppressive extractive economy (capitalism) provides almost half of the revenue to fund our state.

Next Steps to Energy Serfdom

Alaska’s capitalism-in-transition requires one final piece of legislation before reaching, arguably, the point of no return: a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), which would require our co-ops to achieve an increasing percentage of energy by renewable resources by a certain date.

First introduced in 2022 by Governor Dunleavy and introduced again by others in 2023, we were spared as the legislation died in committee this year.  The Alaska Climate Alliance is clamoring for the mandate to require increasing percentage of energy to come from unreliable sources of energy, their plan is dead without the heavy hand of statist mandates.  Due to the terrible business decision to adopt decarbonization goals, electric co-ops have adopted resolutions supporting an RPS. 

Is it a fair question for Alaskans to ask – who are these self-proclaimed manipulators of Alaska’s economy?  This upcoming election, it is critical to know where candidates stand on this issue.  When they come to your door this fall, be sure to ask them. 

Kassie Andrews is a Principal at MasterResource who regularly comments on Alaska energy policy.

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