November 3, 2021
For the first time, the 2020 census showed a shrinking non-Hispanic White population that identifies as a single race in 35 states. While 60% of White adults say the trend is neither good nor bad for society, 35% of Whites 65 and older believe it’s bad for society. In terms of partisan perception, White Republicans are three times as likely as White Democrats (35% vs. 12%) to say the change is bad. According to the Census Bureau, Hispanics, who now number 62.1 million (18.7 percent of the U.S. population) accounted for 51.1 percent of the country’s growth. The rate at which this change is taking place cannot be swept under the rug. Latinos are now the largest ethnic group in California. In Texas they currently comprise 39.3 percent of the state’s population and are expected to outnumber non-Hispanic Whites by the end of 2021 or early 2022. However, in terms of the distribution of wealth, there is no contest. Figures from the Census Bureau show that in 2019 the average Hispanic median household income was $55,658, and for non-Hispanic whites $71,644. In addition, 17.2 percent of Hispanics lived below the poverty level, compared to 9.0 percent of non-Hispanic whites. The disparity between Blacks, the third largest ethnic/racial group, and non-Hispanic Whites, is just as steep.
In terms of political allegiance and racial composition, Hispanics are not a monolithic group. Their culture, original language, and predominant physical appearance and religion differ from the northern European settlers that founded the United States. Unlike Blacks, who in terms of language, culture and religion, have been largely assimilated, Latinos continually renovate ties with the Hispanic world: if they so choose, they can literally walk past the Mexican border and watch and listen to Spanish TV and radio. More importantly, in the aggregate they tend to vote Democratic. The contrast between Democratic and Republican political rallies could hardly be more striking: Republicans are overwhelmingly white, richer and older, Democrats are largely multi-racial, poorer and younger; and the two groups, to put it mildly, are at odds.
The necrosis in Washington is directly attributable to the steep ideological divide afflicting the nation. Currently the Senate is split 50/50, and the Parties vehemently oppose each other’s ideology and agenda. As a result, to get any legislation through, the Vice President routinely casts tie-breaking votes. This razor thin majority can and does flip on a dime. When that happens, the first thing the new Administration does is attempt to reverse everything the previous Administration did. This bipolar behavior has severely impaired the nation’s credibility and leadership with friends and foes alike, a dangerous state of affairs pregnant with unpredictable consequences.
Individual nations cannot and should not be singled out for their dependence on coal to generate electricity, particularly China and India, the two most populous nations. After all, they’re following in our footsteps to industrialize and eradicate poverty. With respect to China, there are two fundamental reasons why it consumes so much coal: it is not self-sufficient in other types of energy, and it manufactures the products the rest of us consume. And the reason we do that is because our industrialists long ago elected to outsource factories to increase profits. Had they remained on American soil, we’d be emitting far more carbon in the atmosphere than we currently do, and China less. In other words, collectively we’re all equally responsible for the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Climate change is a global malady, and the cost to mitigate its most egregious symptoms on a planetary scale is likely to be in the tens of trillions of dollars. The United States Treasury has huge perennial deficits. Even if it did not, the current political gridlock and the government’s many other commitments renders it virtually impotent to raise such stratospheric sums. In addition, most if not all G-7 governments are in a similar situation. Accordingly, the money to redress climate change will have to come from the private sector, possibly as loans or bonds. This begs the question, if individual governments are going to be responsible for amortizing these hard currency loans, what would happen if –for whatever reason- they default?
Whatever solution(s) our esteemed leaders agree on, if any, will need to address several key issues:
1) The correct way to finance climate change is with loans from the private sector. They are not part of the federal budget, and as such, they’re unaffected by the political gridlock. However, any new credit extended to foreign governments should feature a built-in mechanism that allows them to generate enough revenue to amortize the debt without risking economic collapse. Otherwise they might default and, in so doing, threaten the entire international banking system.
2) Coordinated cooperation among the great powers, particularly the U.S., China, and Russia, is absolutely indispensable and fundamental. In effect, the presidents of the latter two boycotted COP26 likely because they feel such lockstep cooperation is not possible due to the unresolved dangerous tensions and animosities in the South China Sea (particularly Taiwan), the Ukraine, the Black Sea, and the northern boundary between NATO and Russia. Accordingly, these issues will need to be resolved to satisfy not just U.S. (and its allies) but Russian and Chinese concerns. Currently the U.S. is attempting, without much apparent success, to compartmentalize these issues.
3) Today China consumes roughly 50.5% of the coal used in the entire world, followed by India (11.0%), the U.S. (8.5%), Germany (3.0 %), Russia (2.7%), and Japan (2.5%), 78.2% total. They do this because the supply of coal is plentiful, relatively cheap, and can be easily and safely exported by rail or ship. However, the technology to extract hydrogen from the ocean using solar, wind, or geothermal energy already exists. If a premium is added to the cost of coal to reflect the damage it causes to the environment, the price of green hydrogen, which could potentially be exported by pipeline or ship, should be able to compete with coal advantageously. As a result, the world could potentially produce enough hydrogen to satisfy current and future demand without adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. The reason it is not happening is because the world hasn’t decided to make it a reality.
4) Whatever plan is proposed, it will have to have a mechanism that publicly analyzes and mitigates the inevitable demise of the petrodollar. How is that going to affect the chronic federal deficits? Will the U.S. retain its ability to print dollars at will without triggering hyperinflation? Will the government still be able to afford a defense budget larger than the next seven nations combined and simultaneously meet is entitlement obligations? How would it affect the IRAs on which so many millions of Americans depend for retirement?
5) Within the U.S., who exactly would be responsible for payment of these climate change mitigation loans? Would they require Congressional approval?
Here’s a viable suggestion to stop global warming in its tracks. Figure 1 shows a viable way to produce green hydrogen expressly to replace coal for purposes of generating electricity. It collects and condenses the byproduct (steam) to generate additional electricity intended to recover the energy expended in producing the hydrogen. No greenhouse gases emitted. In addition, a new source of water is created wherever necessary, even in remote deserts far from any shore. In contrast, desalination, which consumes prodigious amounts of (usually) fossil energy, is practical and cost effective only within a limited distance from the shoreline. This proposed scheme encourages using per capita production, exporting and consumption of hydrogen as the dominant criteria for creating a new reserve currency of the world. Its purpose would be to reduce or even eliminate the growing rivalry between China and the U.S., introduce some measure of discipline regarding deficit spending, and limit the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about. More crucially, these criteria would award purchasing power to all countries based on the same metric. In turn, that should promote trade and reduce poverty.
Figure 2 shows an alternate financing scheme that:
• Does not make foreign governments responsible for paying back the loans.
• Ensures loan recipients will have the revenue to pay back the loans.
• Creates a new mechanism to resolve the housing crisis, a widespread malady.
• Creates new revenue to help homeowners amortize their mortgages.
Exotic fuels such as a stable isotope of element one-fifteen and cold fusion may actually do more harm than good. The former would make war machines invulnerable, a pathway to world conquest; and the latter, which would convert hydrogen into helium, would gradually and irreversibly destroy water. In contrast, only hydrogen can make water.
