The Climate Threat to Centuries of Tradition

Today on TAP: It’s here, right now, even with the best policies—and we are far from pursuing those.

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SANCERRE, FRANCE – For the past few days, I’ve been fortunate to spend an extended weekend in this lovely, historic hilltop town. Looking out to the north, your eyes see two sights. One is the endless miles of vineyards that produce the world-famous Sancerre wines, for which the climate here in the Loire Valley is perfectly suited. The other distinctive sight are the plumes from two neighboring nuclear power plants. And the two sights are related.

For eons, the two-week grape harvest in Sancerre has started in early October. As recently as 2013, a relatively cool year, the harvest began on October 2.

This year, the Sancerre wine harvest started the first week in September. At this rate of accelerated warming from global climate disruption, the magnificent wine production of the Loire Valley will be gone in another few decades.

Walk around Sancerre and nothing has changed. The annual harvest festival is in full swing. But everything has changed.

More from Robert Kuttner

Yesterday, the Times reported that Spain’s largest olive oil producing province, Jaén, accounting for one-fifth of the world’s output, is almost out of business because of extreme drought, another casualty of global climate change. The climate crisis is on us, right now.

What does this have to do with those nearby nuclear towers? Decades ago, when the near-catastrophic accident at Three Mile Island happened, followed by the meltdown at Chernobyl and then Fukushima, most environmentalists were firmly in the no-nukes camp. But the French went in another direction.

The socialized national power company, Électricité de France, made a big bet on safe nuclear power plants as the best transitional fuel to an all-renewable future. As a result, French electricity today is 71 percent nuclear, 21 percent renewables, and just 8 percent fossil fuels. It generates almost zero carbon. Germany, meanwhile, closed all but three of its nuclear power plants and built 31 new coal-fired plants. Its electric power sector is 24 percent run on coal.

In a world where the best is the enemy of the good, the French got it right. But climate change is accelerating at such a pace that even if all nations do everything right, we may have missed the rendezvous to a sustainable future.

One other observation, perhaps influenced by some fine local wine and observations of French trains, farming, markets, planning, and public systems: Much of Europe, despite political turmoil, works.

So much of what is destroying the planet originates in the toxic policies, whether financial or environmental, of the good old USA. France can do a lot right, but if the U.S. does so much that is wrong, we still share the same planet. Biden’s steps toward better climate policy are a bare beginning of what’s needed.

I wish I had an uplifting punch line other than “Pass the Sancerre.”

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