First, let me be clear: Bill McKibben is terrific, with a capital “T” and the following critique of a recent David Robert’s Volts Substack podcast is not changing this positive view of Bill McKibben. I don’t want to go all googly-eyed about David Roberts, either, but I must: Volts is one of the most useful climate action Substacks in the known universe.

This podcast covers a lot of ground, but much of the conversation revolved around the matter of effective communication about climate change and the renewable energy transition, or, really, the lack of effective communication. None of the speakers doubt the positives about the renewable energy transition, and as you might guess from Bill McKibben’s upcoming book’s title, Here Comes the Sun, Bill is excited about solar power as a big part of the climate change solution. As well he should be, considering the cost advantages and time-to-buildout benefits of solar, wind, and batteries.

 

David Roberts did poke and pry about the endemic shortfalls in communication for the renewable energy transition. There was a lot of talk about the need to win the fight in the infosphere, (which, by the way, is Jamie Henn’s forte, at least if you take the tagline for his company seriously “Fossil Free Media is a nonprofit media lab dedicated to supporting the movement to end fossil fuels”). But gosh, a lot of the talk was about the need to get YouTubers posting for clean energy, and Instagrammers and other social media users seeing more and more captivating and supportive content. Some of the talk was how the far right is good at this, and that there’s prevalence of climate denialism not well countered. As much as I’d love to write here about the absurdities of social media, and this category’s inherent ineffectiveness for information dissemination due to commercialism and ephemerality, my main complaint is that the pressing need for a category of information wasn’t even mentioned, at least directly. I’m speaking about information that alerts and guides participation in governing processes where the mobilization of a dozen or a hundred people may be the difference between a renewable energy project’s victory or defeat.

There was talk about the need for people to mobilize for public utility commission hearings and at building code variance or other municipal meetings regarding solar farm or wind projects (including as a bar to NIMBY) or governmental hearings on proposed bills and regulation changes that can often make or break progress in renewable energy efforts. But what wasn’t ever mentioned is how specific meetings and hearings may be made known to renewable energy-positive citizens. This is a crucial need, since too often even hearing about a hearing is hard and at best catch-as-catch can, and this means that only those with high motivation (e.g., lobbyists) or with means (well-off retired people, otherwise known as leaders of NIMBY) are the ones to show up at such hearings.

What we need is a clearinghouse service that tracks and updates all relevant open-to-the-public events related to renewable energy-related governance issues (e.g., laws, regulations, specific project approval/denial hearings, utility rate proposals, etc.). This would be an important element to support the public’s ability to advance renewable energy projects and to steer power utilities away from fossil fuels. Yes, all this information is public in some way, but most often people don’t hear about such meetings and have neither the time nor expertise to suss such governmental and board sessions out, and, anyway, asking every individual to take this on is extremely inefficient, to the point where it remains the major barrier to public participation it is today.

On the other hand, a national clearinghouse is an efficient way to bring these events to the public’s attention. A central staff, supported by information technology, special training, and optimized systems, can track every such event and disseminate the schedule and scope information to the relevant targets based on location or interest.

This isn’t a simple or tiny task, but it also isn’t a grand project. There are approximately 19,500 incorporated cities, towns, and villages in the United States, plus the individual states and territories and legislatures therein, plus various federal agencies. Directories of many such entities already exist, even including PUCs, or are otherwise easy enough to build (hey, AI application, anyone?). Keep in mind that by law such meetings and hearings must provide public notice, so this information isn’t hidden, just too often hard to find. Instead of the renewable energy infosphere adding dozens more whitepapers seemingly on a daily basis, let’s provide real people with real tools to make a real difference at the actual hearings and meetings that define renewable energy projects on a daily basis.

That was the infosphere point I was disappointed not to hear in this podcast.