There’s a lot to do and we need a lot of people to do it. Most of all, at the least we need people active in the electoral process and candidates who are worth voting for when it comes to democracy and climate action.

We’ve run out of time for climate action and are now at the stage of now-or-never. We’ve not yet managed to reduce carbon emissions. We have slowed the rate of emissions, but more carbon is still being added into the atmosphere and temperatures keep climbing. I sure as hell hope that the recent studies suggesting the rate of temperature rise is faster than previously thought turns out to be wrong, although science has grown more sophisticated in its understanding of large Earth systems, and with more understanding comes, typically, more accuracy. With higher temperatures comes the greater likelihood of various tipping points happening sooner rather than later, and that’s another piece of bad news.

The good news is that we have economically viable technological developments in solar/wind/batteries and digital grid and demand management to meet not only the growing demand for electricity but replace some of the existing fossil fuel-based electricity generation and much of the gasoline-driven transport so dear to the American culture. If we keep from adding new gas-fired gas plants and retire existing coal plants and gas plants, we can cut back on greenhouse gas emissions that stem from the electricity generation we need.

We can win.

There’s a great EMBER report I covered in “The Electrotech Manifesto,” posted last June that does a great job spelling it all out. If you need a pick-me-up in the face of all the dirty tricks Big Oil has been pulling, check it out. 

Cutting back on carbon emissions instead of adding to emissions must be our goal for the next few years, never mind any decades time scales. We need to manifest this reduction of emissions as soon as possible. 2030 is right around the corner and even if we do manage to reduce emissions from the electricity generation sector, we’ll still be dealing with a world at least 1.5 Celsius hotter, in annual global average, and it looks likely that 2.0 Celsius is now the new minimum rise. I’ll take 2.0 Celsius by 2100 over 3.0, 4.0, or even higher Celsius increases, but whatever the actual number of Celsius warmer annual global average temperature, the lower the number, the better for one and all.

So, chop chop, people.

First, Restore Democracy

The first objective in the fight for faster clean energy transition, at least here in America, is to revive our democracy. While polls strongly suggest there will be a Republican rout in the midterms, the polls assume there will be midterms that aren’t abused by the Trump Administration to its advantage. And what is the basis for Trump’s advantage? Basically, to stay in power and out of jail.

Trump’s corruption is historic, and that’s keeping in mind that there have been periods in American history where corruption was strife. Still, when it comes to corruption and self-dealing, Trump truly deserves the gold medal in that event. A crucial aspect of this corruption is the favors bought by Big Oil that has President Big Oil Stooge leaning the economy heavily toward fossil fuels, despite clean power technology being more costly both in direct cost and, of course, in health and environmental impact.

For the 2026 midterms, the fight will be on two fronts. The first is to make sure the elections take place in fair and legal conditions. The second is to vote for the right candidates in record numbers.

Second, Stress the Positive

We have the means to transition our energy systems toward clean energy, including solar, wind, battery storage, geothermal, and nuclear. Solar and wind and batteries are cheapest and fastest to implement, while also freeing countries from having to continuously spend and spend on more fossil fuels to replace that which has been burned.

The reduction in carbon emissions from the clean energy transition can slow down carbon emissions and even start to reverse the high levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The net effect will be to keep climate change from worsening, and thus reduce the amount of money, time, and effort to build resilience for the warming climate and decrease the adaptation efforts that higher temperatures will demand. We must diminish the threat of economic and societal collapse posited by many should we experience 2 Celsius or higher global average temperature rises.

Sounds like a bargain, right?

How about cheaper and cleaner electricity fairly shared, and not just among Americans, but to address the Global South’s energy poverty? Here, in many countries, clean energy is countering the fossil fuel-based systems that contribute to overall poverty, including high mortality, hunger, famine, disease, and whatever other horsemen of the apocalypse you can think of. Oppressive living standards occur by keeping such countries’ own energy and economic development hostage to the costs of fossil fuel energy generation.

Third, Go Big on Clean Energy Build Out Nationally, State-wide, and Locally

The United States faces big energy infrastructure build out regardless of energy source. There’s the need for more electricity, not only for the panicked requirements of AI and data centers, and clean electricity is far more efficient an energy source than fossil fuels, whether in terms of generation itself, or for the heating and cooling of the built environment, or transportation. Electrical grids need better digital management for load balancing, efficient use of distributed energy resources such as virtual power plants, and controlling demand load capacity and distribution. Overall power capacity needs expansion and old distribution lines require repair and updating.

This may seem overwhelming, but keep in mind that America has undertaken this sort of infrastructure work before–think the Federal Rural Electrification program or Tennessee Valley Authority, or for that matter, the Interstate Highways buildout. Keep in mind that just one administration back, two major bills for big energy infrastructure passed, only to be illegally curtailed by the Trump Administration’s violations of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.

The clean energy transition may seem too expensive, but longer-term considerations prove out that the clean energy transition to be the less expensive path. Why are large clean energy infrastructure programs less expensive, especially if one doesn’t get caught up in the “next-quarter” thinking? First, solar/wind/and battery systems are cost comparable to fossil fuel-based generators, but the cost of operation for fossil fuel-based generation is never-ending with ongoing purchases of price-volatile fossil fuels. This contrasts to clean energy generation that has only its upfront cost but very low cost of operations that does not include any ongoing fuel purchases for thirty or forty years. There’s an old argument still being made that the levelized cost of energy (LCOE, or the overall costs over the life of the energy generation) is lower with natural gas than with renewables. Yes, once upon a time this was true, but only by cherry picking old data from back when solar, for example, was costly, do the numbers work out that way. In reality, costs for solar, wind, and battery storage have fallen so low that renewable energy’s LCOE is cheaper than fossil fuels and that that’s not even counting the negative externalities of health and climate cost inseparable from fossil fuels.  Another way to look at this issue is as energy return on investment (EROI), and if you want more on this, check out my post “My Report About EROI, Written by AI,” published last April.

Today, the thumb on the scale for fossil fuels is even worse, with 100-plus year old tax code advantages and $billions in direct subsidies still being handed to the fossil fuel corporations each and every year, including several $billion extra added in by Trump through the OBBBA. Big Oil has been gaming the system for its own business benefit, cost, inefficiencies, and damages from the business of fossil fuels be damned. We need to act at every level, from federal, to state, to local.

Fourth, Take a Breath

The energy transition may look better and be moving forward faster in many other parts of the world outside the U.S. China has been full steam ahead (old metaphors never die, they just become ironic), and while China’s large economy and huge population make carbon emissions reduction difficult, that country is on its way toward becoming the first “Electrotech” country. Usually, advantage goes to first place winners, but as an American considering this advantage, I’ll merely sigh.

There are good signs that many Global South countries are leapfrogging older energy systems and often this may mean that the expensive infrastructure outlays that the West’s traditional energy grid systems represent can be ignored for a more quickly built and less expensive micro-grids and local energy capacity based on renewables. One of the great fears has long been that the developing countries, as they approach parity in energy wealth to the developed countries, would contribute to huge further spikes in carbon emissions. What we’re seeing instead are countries putting in place clean energy systems early on. This trend has the potential for a significant win/win, where countries develop energy wealth parity while no further carbon emissions are added.

Fifth, Eat the Billionaires

Any neutral economic assessment of the past forty or fifty years shows a staggeringly huge shift in wealth to the top 10%, and even worse, the top fraction of one percent. By most analyses, our wealth inequality today exceeds the excess of the late nineteenth century Gilded Age, and any reader of history knows that the Gilded Age was an awful time of corruption, worker oppression, and wide-scale poverty. Today, America is captured by oligarchs. Billionaires avoid taxes in myriad ways. The accretion of power to the top one-percent is so significant as to be nearly incomprehensive. Dé·jà vu, all over again.

Shifts in distributed wealth have many examples in American history. Within our lifetimes—well, decreasingly few of us still living these days—the Depression era New Deal corrections provided economic support to desperate citizens. The post WWII American productivity growth created a growing middle class because productivity gains were shared more equitably. The top income tax bracket was 92 percent during Eisenhower’s administration, and while the top bracket fluctuated, the 1960 and 1970s saw top rates at 70 percent or higher. Only with the election of Ronald Reagan did the top rate crash down to 50 percent in 1982 and fell further to 28% in 1988. Further tax cuts in the George W. Bush administration happened and then the Trump tax cuts in his first term went into law, then were extended again in 2025 with OBBBA.

The current level of wealth inequality is absurd and absurdly dangerous: The top 1% (approx. $55 trillion in assets) holds roughly as much wealth as the entire bottom 90% of Americans. As of early 2026, the top three richest Americans are Elon Musk (approx. $839B), Larry Page ($257B), and Sergey Brin ($237B). Together, they represent a significant portion of the roughly 31.7% of U.S. wealth held by the top 1% of households.

Let’s tax the rich and get the wealth distribution back into fair territory. Let’s have a more fairly shared burden contribute to the crucial work on the energy transition ahead of us.

By the way, should billionaires even exist?

Sixth, Shift America’s Money to the Real Conflict

In 2026, the budget for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) was $839.2 billion in discretionary funding, but The FY2026 DOD budget request also contains approximately $113.3 billion in mandatory (non-discretionary) funding, including the following:

• Resources designated for the Navy’s shipbuilding plan and to revitalize the nation’s shipbuilding industrial base
• Over $5 billion is allocated specifically for the submarine industrial base
• Investments include $321.9 million for DPA purchases and $2.6 billion for Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment (IBAS) programs
• Strategic capital to the tune of $300 million directed toward the Office of Strategic Capital for loans and loan guarantees
• The Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) budget, which is part of the broader, non-discretionary personnel-related costs, accounting for 84% ($1,216.8 million) of the specific budget request
• While not mandatory funding, the enacted NDAA/appropriations provided significant budget additions in specific, targeted “non-discretionary” areas (items that Congress authorizes) such as $1.5 billion for the maritime industrial base and various, targeted, weapon systems enhancements

Well, what’s another $113 billion, right?

And then, of course, there are the additional costs associated with specific military adventures in 2026, including:

• Iran-related operations incurring roughly $10.35 billion in costs in just the first 10 days of the conflict, with the initial 100 hours of operations costing an estimated $3.3 billion, with costs rising rapidly due to munitions, flight hours, and damaged equipment. A two-month engagement is estimated to cost between $40 billion and $95 billion
• Venezuela adventure/Caribbean operations will incur costs above the initial FY2026 budget, including increased personnel benefits (e.g., family separation allowances) and higher operational tempo (e.g., more flying/steaming hours). These are estimated to cost an extra $3 million per day
• The FY2026 defense budget includes expanded missions for the DoD to support the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which includes deploying U.S. forces to border areas

Due to the high intensity of operations, the Pentagon has informed Congress they need an additional $50 billion beyond the original budget request. Additionally, the administration has anticipated at least $150 billion in further, separate, or reconciliation funding for defense activities.

Well, what’s another $150 billion, right?

So, yeah, well over $1trillion is going to the DOD. One core factor in the current war efforts is fossil fuels, whether to address the threats against oil markets or for “strategic” geo-political considerations. And then there are the costs stemming for the protection of maritime shipping and the negative production capacity among both U.S. allies and enemies.

Keep in mind that the Pentagon has never passed a clean financial audit since they began audits in 2018, failing its eighth consecutive annual audit in late 2025. Despite conducting yearly audits, the Department of Defense (DOD) remains the only federal agency unable to achieve an unmodified, or “clean,” audit opinion. That 1960 warning by Eisenhower about a military-industrial complex? It turns out, I Like Ike.

Keep in mind, too, the negative revenue consequences of OBBBA. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is estimated to reduce federal tax revenue by approximately $4.5 trillion to $5.5 trillion over the ten-year period from 2025–2034. These revenue losses primarily stem from extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) policies, implementing new business tax reforms, and raising the SALT deduction cap to $40,000.

You’ve heard this before, but the U.S. military budget in 2026 is $839.2 billion (but actually over $1 trillion). China (People’s Republic of) is in second place, at $303 billion, well less than a third of the U.S. military budget. Here are the next top eight military budgets, in $billions: Russia, $212.6; Germany, $127.4; India, $88.4; Saudi Arabia, $67.2; United Kingdom, $64; France, $57.4; Japan, $57.4; South Korea, $45.8.

So, yeah, what you’ve heard is right: the budget for the U.S. military is as much as the next nine nations’ military budgets combined. Half of these are allies.

The money for the clean energy transition is there, but it is being spent on the wrong things.

Let’s fund the Electrotech Revolution, save most people money, and save the planet’s hospitable climate. That’s the battle we need to join.

The post How to Win the Electrotech Revolution first appeared on David Guenette.