Cheaper, Faster, Better. Tom Steyer. Spiegel & Grau (ISBN: 9781954118645) 2024.

Summary: A climate activist and investor argues we can win the climate war through clean tech and free market capitalism.

Tom Steyer walked away from a highly successful investment fund he managed to focus on climate issues. Since then, he has advocated for clean-energy ballot measures and invested in clean technology firms. He even pursued a brief run for president on a climate platform. Reading Steyer is metaphorically, and perhaps literally, a breath of fresh air. Steyer moves past the standard binary of either climate action that is costly and government regulated and the fossil fuel industry arguments that we need to keep digging and drilling. From his work, he is convinced that mobilizing capital to invest in clean energy can be profitable, create jobs, and can be ramped up to reach climate goals. And we can do this without climate-shaming people.

He begins by describing his personal pivot to climate activism and investing. He became convinced of the real threat to life on our planet from climate change. And he discovered that the fossil fuel industry is also convinced of this. It has orchestrated campaigns to protect their industry, including the huge government handouts they receive each year. As a capitalist, he argues that this just doesn’t make sense, comparing it to the whaling industry, that tried to hang on as oil discoveries threatened to supplant them. Doesn’t it make more sense to shift our investment to new sources of energy, especially as these become cheaper to implement and scale up? Rather than get into the weeds of all the fossil fuel industry arguments, he applies “the Jane Austen test.” He asks “Are these guys trustworthy?”

He outlines the major areas where technology innovation is needed: electricity generation, transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, and building. The point is for each of us to assess to understand our choices and what we can do in each area. He argues against climate doomsayers and urges people to stop rooting for the end of the world, contending that we’ve just scratched the surface of what we can do. Instead, he argues for embracing a “walk-on” mentality. You accept you are an outsider, enjoy the game you can play as a JV and don’t relinquish your judgement to the insiders. It means doing what needs to be done even if you are not on “the first team.” This includes refusing to accept conventional wisdom and thinking smart. An example is the cattlemen who figured out you could grow beef and sequester carbon.

He argues against carbon-footprint shaming. Of course we should do what we can personally. But it can be more important to join collective actions like ballot initiatives that have the potential to be carbon-negative on a large scale. Steyer also believes it is time to take calculated risks to “go big.” We can timidly ask “what is right?” when we need to think about whether we are doing enough. This means winning in the marketplace by doing things that are not only cleaner but better and cheaper. And he offer examples of clean technologies that are doing just that.

Steyer believes the rules need to change so that fossil fuels don’t have an unfair advantage. He believes the best way to do this is to set standards but give lots of flexibility to industries as to how they meet them. He also proposes that getting better at measurements helps us better target interventions. Finally, messaging is more important than being right. What we call things is important.

Steyer compares this generation to the Greatest Generation of World War Two. Just as it was common to ask someone “what did you do during the war?” in an effort to which everyone was all in. He argues that we have this opportunity once again. One way or another, our children and grand-children will ask, “what did you do?”

I write this review on the night a president who opposes what Steyer advocates has taken office. I suspect this is especially a time for that “walk-on” mentality. It doesn’t look like the “rules” are going to favor clean tech. It’s going to take scrappy entrepreneurs who succeed because they are doing something better and cheaper. It would be great if they do this in America. But they might be more successful in other places more open to clean tech. The world needs this, even if the U.S. falls behind.

I like Steyer’s approach which argues that we can both walk and chew gum. We can be clean and profitable. We can invent in ways good for both people and the planet. Steyer impresses me because he has put his money and his life where his mouth is. The question is, will we jump in, or give over to despair? Will we believe lies that even those telling them don’t believe, or will we act on what we know is true while there is time?

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book for review from the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer Program.