I’ve written that fossil fuel companies are the biggest obstacle when it comes to decarbonizing our economy. And I still think that’s true. But es

America’s Top Environmental Groups Have Lost the Plot on Climate Change

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2022-01-15 17:30:10

I’ve written that fossil fuel companies are the biggest obstacle when it comes to decarbonizing our economy. And I still think that’s true. But especially in the United States, there’s another big threat: NIMBYism. Solar and wind power requires a lot of land, and the U.S. has a lot of land, but we also have a whole lot of people who are committed to opposing essentially any projects that would develop that land in any way.

So I asked my friend Wally Nowinski, who follows this issue closely, to write a guest post about it. Wally is the former CMO of Collage.com (sold in 2021), and former democratic ads director for House and Senate Dem candidates. He tweets at @nowooski.

Over the last few years, the U.S. has finally started making real progress on combating climate change. Battery and solar prices are falling faster than anticipated, electric cars are moving from niche to mainstream, and there has been substantial federal investment in grid modernization and clean energy research.

But as the pace of electrification picks up, new clean energy projects are facing opposition from what seems like an unlikely source: large environmental organizations.