Renewable Energy Needs a Level Playing Field That Can Only Come from a True Democracy

The word "democracy" seems to be on everyone’s lips nowadays, given the events unfolding in Northern Africa. This seems the perfect time to remind us Americans to get our own house in order, making us the beacon of democratic purity that can light the rest of the world.

In particular, I point out that our system of campaign finance is so badly broken that we’re rapidly becoming a democracy in name only. Until we can enact meaningful campaign finance reform and we can effectively separate the interests of Big Money from our law makers, we're essentially powerless to move forward with ideas and technologies that would challenge those interests.  Especially after the infamous Citizens United vs. the FEC ruling by the US Supreme Court a year ago which granted the rights of free speech to fictitious persons (corporations), we now live in a system of government (call it what you will – "corporatocracy?") in which corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money to influence any election in any direction they choose.

That, my friends, results in a democracy in a severely limited sense of the word. The framers of our Constitution would roll over in their graves if they could see what we have done to their precious document, written, as it was, to preserve the rights of the governed.

I bring this up only to tie it back to renewable energy. The costs of renewables is falling every day – as the cost of oil (and ultimately, coal and gas) continues its inexorable rise. All the developers of clean energy solutions ask is a level playing field—one that is uncorrupted by the huge subsidies given the oil companies. But the only way that will happen is in a true democracy – a government whose leaders act according to the will and well-being of the people, not a few moneyed interests.

- Craig Shields is editor of 2GreenEnergy.com, and author of Renewable Energy -- Facts and Fantasies, (published by Clean Energy Press, 2010)