Breaking the Chains: The Lust for Power vs. the Light of Energy

More Than Enough LightWhat is more addictive than fentanyl, cocaine, or heroin? Evan Jaqua’s answer is power. And once people have it, they will do almost anything to keep it.This is a solo episode, a short essay built around the ideas of Evan Jaqua and the Solutions Party, the political reform organization he founded. The interview tape didn’t meet the bar for broadcast, so I took his thinking and ran it through my own. I hope to have Evan back for a clean recording. For now, it’s just you and me.The throughline is power, and the strange double life the word leads. In physics, power is the flow of energy, the capacity to do work. In politics, it is the capacity to influence, coerce, and control. Jaqua’s argument is that nearly all of our social dysfunction, from energy policy to corruption, runs downstream of one addiction: the lust for that second kind of power.Energy is where the two meanings meet. Fossil fuels are scarce, contested, and easy to hoard, which is exactly why they translate so cleanly into political control. Sunlight asks no one’s permission. As Bill McKibben puts it, none of the ninety-three million miles light travels to reach us passes through the Strait of Hormuz.The Solutions Party’s first move is disarmingly simple: eliminate re-election, and sever the link between holding power and seeking more of it. Abundant, decentralized energy severs that link everywhere else.We have the means. We are standing in them. What we lack is the will to stop guarding the old fire.Links and ResourcesThe Solutions Party: https://www.solutionsparty.org/Bill McKibben, Third Act / writing on renewable energy: https://billmckibben.com/Listener survey: earthboundpodcast.com/surveyRate and review Earthbound: https://www.earthboundpodcast.com/rate/Support the show: https://www.earthboundpodcast.com/support/Thanks to these sonic contributorsEnvironment War 4 by mensageirocs -- https://freesound.org/s/232644/ -- License: Attribution NonCommercial 3.0winter forest 125 PM 240125_0644 by klankbeeld -- https://freesound.org/s/726466/ -- License: Attribution 4.0