Breakthrough Institute Quarterly Newsletter

Lessons from the Shale Revolution Conference What can the shale revolution teach us about innovation in the 21st century? In late January, Breakthrough will host a two-day conference, with support from the Pritzker Innovation Fund and the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, that aims to illuminate answers. Shale gas historians, analysts, and the founders of the shale revolution will gather to discuss the history and development of the shale revolution in order to gain an understanding of its key conditions and drivers. Confirmed guests include former Sandia executives Norm Warpinski and David Northrop, Dan Steward formerly of Mitchell Energy, and energy scholar Roger Fouquet of the London School of Economics. Breakthrough Dialogue 2015: "The Good Anthropocene" Announced Debate over whether we ought to embrace, mourn, or possibly reject the arrival of the Anthropocene has stirred critical responses from an array of environmentalists. The 5th annual Breakthrough Dialogue – themed “The Good Anthropocene" – will focus on how we can construct a positive vision of our environmental future. This year’s Dialogue is slated for June 21-23, 2015, at the picturesque Cavallo Point in Sausalito. Ruth DeFries, author of The Big Ratchet: How Humans Thrive in Face of Natural Disasters, is the recipient of the Breakthrough Paradigm Award, and will be interviewed at the opening night dinner by journalist Meera Subramanian. Panel topics such as “What is modern in ecomodernism?” and “Who cares about wild nature?” will feature speakers such as Bruno Latour, Jim Sterba, and Oliver Morton. We look forward to lively discussion and fantastic company! World Leaders Embrace Our High-Energy Planet From sub-Saharan Africa to China, leaders from developing and industrializing nations have made clear that greater access to cheap energy – whether clean or dirty – is a top priority. Breakthrough’s report Our High-Energy Planet, released in June, argued that the global poor would require far greater levels of energy to achieve their development goals, and that institutions ought to plan for a high-energy planet. Some environmental organizations continued to promote far too modest energy access levels: a Sierra Club report implied that the world’s poor would consume just 0.15 percent of the average Californian. Low-power and expensive renewables like solar may serve to only perpetuate energy poverty, wrote Fred Pearce in New Scientist, and, as evidenced by the US-African Leaders Summit, world leaders are under no such illusion. "If some people have taken a position where we say no coal, no nuclear, no hydro, then we're really not serious," said World Bank President Jim Kim.  The Obama Administration's Climate Pragmatism For nearly two decades, Breakthrough and allies have argued that bottom-up measures to make clean energy cheap and help societies become more resilient to climate change will have much higher traction than international agreements and treaties. In the past several months, the Obama administration has shown a commitment to “climate pragmatism” with strategies that align with the long-term trend toward using cleaner and more efficient technologies. In a major speech at the Utah Energy Summit in June, Breakthrough Chairman Ted Nordhaus showed how the EPA’s proposed pollution limits were largely enabled by the transition from dirty coal to cheap, cleaner natural gas. That transition would not have been possible without the US government’s crucial role in the shale revolution, which has appealed to conservatives. In the New York Times, Breakthrough cofounders Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus argued that a positive, pragmatic vision will unite and motivate the Left and Right on climate. 10 Years After "The Death of Environmentalism," Ecomodernism Flourishes In fall 2004, Breakthrough cofounders Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus set off a firestorm when they declared that environmentalism must die so that a new kind of environmentalism could live. Ten years later, Breakthrough Institute has cultivated a new environmental movement – called ecomodernism – that argues we can simultaneously address human development goals and the protection of our beautiful, wild planet. At the Breakthrough Dialogue, our Director of Research Linus Blomqvist outlined a positive vision for how humans can use more energy to shrink their footprint and leave more space for nature – called decoupling. Days before, about 20 environmental thinkers and leaders gathered to outline a framework for building an ecomodernist movement that embraces technology’s importance to saving nature. In September, Matthew Nisbet profiled how ecomodernists shape the public discourse differently than ‘ecological activists’ and ‘smart growth reformers.’  Environmental Moderates Voice Support for Nuclear In the past several months, more and more environmental moderates have come out in support of nuclear as a climate solution, countering the green argument that nuclear is unnecessary because we have renewables and energy efficiency. Last November, four leading climate scientists urged leaders to reconsider their opposition to nuclear on the grounds that “in the real world, there is no credible path to climate stabilization that does not include a substantial role for nuclear power.” Since then, key environmental moderates and liberals, including The Nature Conservancy's Mark Tercek, have also voiced support. “As climate change became a larger and larger issue, I realized I couldn’t continue to have my earlier position on nuclear,” said former EPA Administrator Carol Browner in an interview with Breakthrough. In May, the New York Times Editorial Board called nuclear “a vital source of clean energy in a warming world.”  Upcoming Speaking Engagements & Events Lewis & Clark College’s Annual Environmental Affairs Symposium “We the Anthropos,” co-hosted by the Breakthrough Institute, will take place October 14-16. Senior Fellow Paul Robbins will give the keynote speech. Events are free and open to the public. Jessica Lovering, Senior Energy Analyst, will speak on and moderate a panel at the 2014 Nuclear Science Week in Seattle, Washington on October 16-17. Click here to register for the event. News and Updates Breakthrough released its report Lighting, Electricity, Steel: Energy Efficiency Rebound in Emerging Economies on October 6. The report was authored by Breakthrough Generation Fellows Max Luke, Amy Meyer, and Alex Trembath, Senior Fellow Harry Saunders, Ted Nordhaus, and Michael Shellenberger.  Ruth DeFries, Denning Professor of Sustainable Development at Columbia University, was announced as the 2015 Paradigm Award Winner.  Seven Breakthrough Generation Fellows completed their 10-week research fellowships in August with a presentation to an audience of 33 friends and allies. Breakthrough welcomes 2014 Generation Fellows Seigi Karasaki and Arthur Yip as full-time analysts in the Research Department. Breakthrough also welcomed Cassie Brunelle, who is now Operations and Development Manager. Grace Emery, our new Administrative and Events Assistant, joined Breakthrough in early September. Breakthrough bid farewell to long-time staff member Ruchira Shah, who held multiple positions in the organization but was most recently Director of Development, Events, and Operations. Ruchira now works at Solar City. Breakthrough also said goodbye to Mark Caine, formerly the managing editor of Breakthrough Journal, who now works with the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office. Breakthrough redesigned part of its website – now called “Issues” – so that readers can navigate content by subject areas. We are continuing to build the new pages, but check out our progress here.