The U.S.-Israeli War on Iran Underscores The Urgency of Quickly Shifting to 100% Clean Renewable Energy
Society's use of fossil fuels is endangering national security, wasting trillions of dollars, harming human health, undermining our Democracy, and destroying the earth's habitability.
6 Minute Read
In addition to killing innocent children and thousands of others, the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran has disrupted the supply of oil and fossil fuel (aka natural) gas and increased their cost worldwide. It is unclear what the ultimate effects will be or how long they will last. But no matter how things unfold, one decisive outcome should be the realization that the U.S.--and every other nation worldwide--should swiftly abandon fossil fuels and switch to 100% clean renewable energy.
One of the leading researchers in this field is Dr. Mark Z. Jacobson, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University. I recently had the pleasure of speaking with him.
One of my questions was if the world can switch to 100% wind, water, and solar power (WWS) if U.S. President Trump and his fossil fuel buddies continually work to prevent it. Jacobson said they might slow the changeover, but the benefits provided by 100% WWS are far too great to stop it.
Research completed by Jacobson and his team concluded that by 2030 or soon thereafter 80% of the energy used worldwide can be generated by WWS. They further projected that somewhere between 2035 and 2050 the world can produce 100% of its energy with WWS.
Over 95% of the commercial technologies needed to make a complete shift to WWS already exist, and the rest are in development. And 12 nations have already made a complete transition to clean renewables.
This is why Jacobson thinks that, as the title of his recent book states, no miracles are needed to make the change. He told me “The main obstacles now to getting off fossil fuels and using 100% clean renewables are primarily social and political.”
The social obstacles relate to the resistance some people have to anything new like renewable energy, and the NIMBYISM--not in my backyard-- reactions some have to solar panels and wind turbines. The political obstacles are almost all related to the fossil fuel industry’s decades old efforts to stop the shift to WWS in order to protect their profits, wealth, and control over society.
Switching to 100% Clean Renewable WWS Will Benefit Humanity in Multiple Ways
It Will Significantly Increase Energy Security
Jacobson and his team determined that shifting to 100% wind, water, and solar power will greatly reduce energy insecurity in the U.S. and in many other nations by generating all the power needed in every sector of the economy through domestically produced WWS.
People will no longer need to worry about political disruptions, or damage to fossil fuel supplies, caused by wars, terrorism, or natural disasters. Here in the U.S., politicians will also no longer need to fabricate falsehoods to justify attacking other nations to capture their fossil fuels, as President George W. Bush did in Iraq in 2003, and Trump recently did when he attacked Venezuela.
Moving to 100% WWS will allow the U.S., and many of the states and communities within it, to become completely energy self-sufficient, which will greatly reduce the risk of energy disruptive events. Many other nations will also experience much greater energy security.
It Will Appreciably Reduce the Costs of Energy
Using electricity produced by 100% WWS for power, heat, cooling, lighting, transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, fishing, forestry, and all other uses will be substantially more energy efficient that using coal, oil, and fossil gas. Jacobson and his team projected that the overall demand for energy will be reduce by more than 50% overall compare to the energy used by burning fossil fuels.
My wife and I experienced this over twenty years ago after we installed solar PV (photovoltaic) and solar thermal (hot water) panels on our home. Our entire house is now powered by electricity. We do not use any fossil gas. The PV produces about 70% of the electricity we use annually, and we purchase 100% green power from our utility for rest. The thermal hot water system enables us to turn off the electric hot water tank for 6-7 months of the year. We also use highly energy efficient lighting and appliances. These actions have significantly slashed the amount of energy we use, and what we pay our utility for electricity, even as we charge our new all-electric vehicle at home.
The technologies that produce wind, solar, and water power also do not require continually extracting, processing, or transporting fossil fuels. This will eliminate the ongoing costs of providing oil, coal, and fossil gas.
Even though there will be substantial initial infrastructure costs, Jacobson’s team projected that the investments will be paid back within 6-years, after which the use of 100% WWS will provide everyone with much cheaper power. They also concluded that by electrifying everything using WWS, residents in the U.S. will ultimately see a 63% reduction in energy costs, which is approximately $260 per person per year. Globally they project the costs of energy will drop from $17 trillion under a business-as-usual scenario, to $7 trillion per year.
It Will Greatly Reduce Physical and Mental Health Problems
In addition to reducing the annual per-person cost of energy, shifting to 100% WWS will significantly reduce many health problems. One reason is that burning fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and mercury. When you breath this type of polluted air, it passes through your lungs into your bloodstream. From there, it can reach your heart, brain, and other organs.
Fossil fuel air pollution can cause illnesses such as heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, and COPD, as well as mortality. In addition, burning the benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene additives found in gasoline produces cancer-causing ultra-fine particles and aromatic hydrocarbons that cause lung cancer and other forms of carcinoma.
It should therefore be no surprise that air pollution is the 2nd-leading cause of death globally after heart disease. In the U.S. approximately 62,000 air pollution-related deaths occur every year. Worldwide between 6 and 8 million people die annually from air pollution.
Fossil fuel carbon pollution also causes mental health issues. A study of people in the U.S. and Denmark found that exposure to air pollution was closely associated with increased risk of psychiatric disorders such as depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and personality disorder. A meta study of research on the effects of exposure to higher-than-normal levels of outdoor air pollution found that 73% of the studies found higher mental health issues.
Both the physical and mental health impacts of fossil fuel carbon pollution will be dramatically reduced and eventually eliminated with the switch to 100% WWS. All told, Jacobson and his group projected that shifting to 100% WWS will save the U.S. between $530 to $600 billion annually in health costs. Globally, the switch could save about $30 trillion per year by 2050.
It Will Conserve the Natural Environment
The use of coal, oil, and fossil gas severely impacts the ecological systems and species. Mining coal severely degrades land, destroys habitats, and creates surface and groundwater pollution. Drilling for oil pollutes the soil and creates surface and groundwater pollution. Shipping oil can lead to pipeline leaks and transport incidents that destroy aquatic and terrestrial habitats and species.
Similarly, fracking for fossil gas degrades the land, destroys species habitats, and releases methane--which is a powerful climate disrupting greenhouse gas--during both extraction and transportation. Each fracking well uses between 1.5 million to 16 million gallons of water, and the wastewater that results is often filled with toxic substances like arsenic, lead, chlorine, and mercury that can contaminate both groundwater and drinking water.
Further, fossil fuel air pollution can cause acid rain, and produce excessive nutrients that harm aquatic ecosystems (a process called eutrophication) that can damage agricultural crops and forests, and harm wildlife.
All of these impacts can be significantly reduced and, over time, eliminated by shifting to 100% WWS.
It Will Create Millions of Long-Term Jobs
Jacobson’s team determined that the transition to 100% WWS in the U.S. will create about 2 million more full-time long-term jobs by 2050 than are lost in the fossil fuel industry. They also found that globally the transition will create approximately 24–28 million more full-time, long-term jobs than are lost in the fossil fuel industry. This indicates that roughly 52 million jobs will be created, while 28 million are lost, resulting in a significant net gain in well-paying long-term jobs.
The majority of the new jobs will be in the construction and installation of WWS facilities. Other jobs will be in the manufacture, service, and maintenance of wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles, and other technologies. Although some regions that rely heavily on fossil fuel extraction and production will likely experience job losses, there will be substantial net increases in jobs both here in the U.S. and globally.
Most Importantly Shifting to 100% WWS Will…
Save Our Democracy
Swiftly converting to 100% clean renewables will also help save Democracy in the U.S. by freeing our system from the political control imposed by the fossil fuel industry and their billionaire owners.
In the 1980s scientists working for Shell and Exxon told their bosses that the continual use of coal, oil, and fossil gas will have dire consequences for the planet and society. However, to ensure continued profit, wealth, and socio-economic power, industry executives decided to ignored the warnings. Instead, they launched a well-funded campaign to prevent change by relentlessly promoting misinformation, confusion, and lies about carbon emissions, rising temperatures, and the climate crisis
The industry’s efforts ultimately led them to play a pivotal role in pushing the U.S. toward a fascist authoritarian state. The fossil fuel industry and their uber rich owners spent massive amounts of money to help Trump get re-elected. They were also major financial supporters of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 far-right manifesto that calls for gutting climate research, eviscerating environmental policies, blocking the expansion of renewable energy, and aggressively promoting fossil fuels. Their directives are now being implementing almost line-by-line by the Trump Administration.
The industry also continues to fund “shadow groups,” and pay bloggers, right-wing media outlets, and many others to promote propaganda such as claiming a shift to renewables threatens “individual liberty and choice.” Further, they have given millions to groups that promote voter suppression to ensure that right-wing Republicans continue to control Congress, as well as many state and local legislative bodies.
Rapidly switching to 100% WWS will release the fossil fuel industry’s control over our political system and allow our Democracy to be restored.
Increase the Chance of Preventing Catastrophic Climate Change
In addition, quickly abandoning fossil fuels and switching to 100% clean renewable energy will dramatically reduce carbon emissions and give humanity a chance to prevent the worse effects of the climate crisis.
The World Meteorological Organization recently stated that the amount of heat on Earth trapped by human-generated carbon dioxide reached record levels in 2025. The rate at which the Earth is warming is consequently speeding up, with the 11 hottest years ever recorded all occurred between 2015 and 2025.
Global average surface temperatures have now risen by 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels for three consecutive years. Keeping temperatures to 1.5 C was the goal agreed to by 195 nations at the 2015 Paris COP 21 climate conference. It is now moot.
As seen here in the U.S. and around the world, the consequences of the 1.5 C rise in temperatures include more frequent, prolonged, extreme, and surprising heat waves, wind, rain, and snow storms, wildfires, droughts, floods, and other disasters. The resulting impacts to society seen on-the-ground include rising human injuries and deaths, damage and loss of residences, communities, and infrastructure, food and water shortages, new illnesses and diseases, displacement and forced migration, and numerous other blows.
Our goal now must be to do everything possible to keep global temperatures from rising by or exceeding 2C (3.6F), as this will be disastrous for humanity. Electrifying everything and switching to 100% WWS is the only way to achieve this. Jacobson and his partners are very clear that carbon capture and storage, an expansion of nuclear power, and other methods promoted by the fossil fuel industry have no chance of solving the problem, and instead will merely allow them to continue business-as-usual.
How To Make The Switch to 100% WWS
Aggressive pressure from the public and strong policies will be needed to swiftly convert every economic sector, and every household, community, civic and non-profit organization, business, and government to 100% WWS. Below are just a few examples of how Jacobson and his team say different sectors can make the switch. All of these changes are already underway, particularly outside the U.S., which shows that making the conversion is not technically difficult. Our challenge is to overcome the social and political obstacles.
· Cars and small trucks will need to completely shift to battery-powered electric vehicles. Long distance transport will need to switch to hydrogen fuel cells for ships, aircraft, and heavy-duty trucks. Trains and busses will need to become fully electric.
· Residential and commercial buildings will need to discard fossil gas for heating, cooling, power, and cooking, and become completely electrified. Heating and cooling will be provided by heat pumps and local and grid-tied solar PV, wind, or hydro power. The use of high efficiency LED lighting, appliances and other equipment, and improved insulation will become the norm.
· Industrial processes must switch to electric or hydrogen-based technologies such as the use of electric arc furnaces, induction furnaces, and electric resistance heating. Machinery and mining operations should all be electrified, and fire bricks or other materials will need to be used for high-temperature heat storage from intermittent WWS sources.
· Agriculture and food production will need to electrify all farm equipment and machinery by shifting to battery electric and possibly hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles. The sector will also need to use high efficiency technologies, and farms can use solar PV and wind turbines to generate their own power, reducing reliance on the electrical grid.
Much more detail about how these sectors, and all others, can make the switch to 100% WWS can be found in Jacobson’s book Still No Miracles Needed, in this video, and in the many publications found here.
We have the technologies and know how to make the switch. So let’s use the disruptions caused by the reckless U.S.-Israeli war on Iran as a catalyst to make the urgently needed and long overdue switch to 100% safe, cheap, reliable, clean, and ecologically regenerative renewable energy. Everyone on the planet, now and in the future, will benefit.