As climate change continues to dry out continental interiors in places like the American Southwest, sub-Saharan Africa, and Australia, the mix of denial and predatory behavior becomes more disturbing.
In Texas, we see climate denier Governor Perry seeking a constitutional amendment to raid the state's "rainy day fund" (letting the irony pass) for emergency water supply projects. Meanwhile, the state Attorney General keeps pumping water on his lawn by drilling his own well, further depleting the acquifer on which his neighbors also depend.
It is disturbing indeed to see the privileged and the powerful react this way--by denying the root of the problem on the one hand, and using their money and their privilege to "get theirs," leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves. Water is just the leading example, the "canary in the coal mine," and will be followed by other crises as people compete for liveable lands, stressed food supplies, etc.
There are other ways to respond, if the human race is to survive this century without brutal new manifestations of Social Darwinism. First, the denial has got to stop. There is too much history, from the Vatican's silencing of Galileo to the chemical industry's attacks on Rachel Carson to the tobacco industry's generations of denial, to allow the fossil-industry-funded denialist fringe continue to block serious action on this central issue of our time. The media needs to stop giving equal time to these people: they represent a tiny minority with no institutional scientific backing. No scientific organization has supported the denialist views. Yet journalists, under pressure to provide "balance", are too often lazy enough to get one quote pro/one quote anti and call it a story. Activists also need to up the ante on outing these people, on showing their willful ignorance for what it is.
Once we get the denialist smoke cleared, there are plenty of economically sound policies that can bend the GHG emissions curve down. First and foremost--energy efficiency. Standards for appliance efficiency and vehicle fuel economy, tax incentives, utility efficiency programs, and the like are already flattening US energy demand, and letting cleaner fuels and power sources de-carbonize the energy system. We need to double down on this front, as the President's climate action plan is doing.
Developing countries are more challenging, but energy efficiency is still the "first fuel," and is also key to economic development. I've been in Tanzania and Bangladesh this year, and getting energy demand under control is key to their economic growth, because as things now stand, they can't expand their grids to take on new industry. The Chinese have thought this way for years---energy efficiency is a linchpin of their economic development strategy. This strategy works everywhere there is an industrial base, a building stock, or a vehicle fleet--in other words, everywhere. Then, developing clean fuels presents other challenges, but as they enter the market, their costs decline, and as fossil fuel depletion drives prices up, renewables will be better able to compete.
Corruption and bad policy must be avoided in developing and well as industrialized countries. Energy development gets away will corner-cutting, polluting practices in too many places, and uses its clout to stifle the kinds of environmental policies that would properly price fossil energy. Republicans in the U.S. complain that EPA policies are killing jobs, but employment in the energy industry has never been stronger. What's happening, and has been happening for over 40 years, is that environmental policies are properly pricing dirty energy and dirty industrial processes. The same parties argue that this can offshore jobs--point taken. But the correct path is for other countries to improve their policies, not for the U.S. to roll ours back. That would be a race to the bottom with disastrous consequences for us all. One reason so many people want to live in the USA is because it is clean--has mostly clean air, most rivers are cleaner than a generation ago, lots of wetlands and forests and wilderness areas have been protected.
We must build on this record, not destroy it. Teddy Roosevelt was the first President to take on conservation in a big way--and he was a Republican. The greatest leaders EPA ever had, Russell Train and Bill Reilly, were Republicans. The present GOP has abandoned one of its strongest legacies and further narrowed its base. If the party wants to become a ruling national party again, it must reach back to its roots and become the party of environmental conservation again.
.
In Texas, we see climate denier Governor Perry seeking a constitutional amendment to raid the state's "rainy day fund" (letting the irony pass) for emergency water supply projects. Meanwhile, the state Attorney General keeps pumping water on his lawn by drilling his own well, further depleting the acquifer on which his neighbors also depend.
It is disturbing indeed to see the privileged and the powerful react this way--by denying the root of the problem on the one hand, and using their money and their privilege to "get theirs," leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves. Water is just the leading example, the "canary in the coal mine," and will be followed by other crises as people compete for liveable lands, stressed food supplies, etc.
There are other ways to respond, if the human race is to survive this century without brutal new manifestations of Social Darwinism. First, the denial has got to stop. There is too much history, from the Vatican's silencing of Galileo to the chemical industry's attacks on Rachel Carson to the tobacco industry's generations of denial, to allow the fossil-industry-funded denialist fringe continue to block serious action on this central issue of our time. The media needs to stop giving equal time to these people: they represent a tiny minority with no institutional scientific backing. No scientific organization has supported the denialist views. Yet journalists, under pressure to provide "balance", are too often lazy enough to get one quote pro/one quote anti and call it a story. Activists also need to up the ante on outing these people, on showing their willful ignorance for what it is.
Once we get the denialist smoke cleared, there are plenty of economically sound policies that can bend the GHG emissions curve down. First and foremost--energy efficiency. Standards for appliance efficiency and vehicle fuel economy, tax incentives, utility efficiency programs, and the like are already flattening US energy demand, and letting cleaner fuels and power sources de-carbonize the energy system. We need to double down on this front, as the President's climate action plan is doing.
Developing countries are more challenging, but energy efficiency is still the "first fuel," and is also key to economic development. I've been in Tanzania and Bangladesh this year, and getting energy demand under control is key to their economic growth, because as things now stand, they can't expand their grids to take on new industry. The Chinese have thought this way for years---energy efficiency is a linchpin of their economic development strategy. This strategy works everywhere there is an industrial base, a building stock, or a vehicle fleet--in other words, everywhere. Then, developing clean fuels presents other challenges, but as they enter the market, their costs decline, and as fossil fuel depletion drives prices up, renewables will be better able to compete.
Corruption and bad policy must be avoided in developing and well as industrialized countries. Energy development gets away will corner-cutting, polluting practices in too many places, and uses its clout to stifle the kinds of environmental policies that would properly price fossil energy. Republicans in the U.S. complain that EPA policies are killing jobs, but employment in the energy industry has never been stronger. What's happening, and has been happening for over 40 years, is that environmental policies are properly pricing dirty energy and dirty industrial processes. The same parties argue that this can offshore jobs--point taken. But the correct path is for other countries to improve their policies, not for the U.S. to roll ours back. That would be a race to the bottom with disastrous consequences for us all. One reason so many people want to live in the USA is because it is clean--has mostly clean air, most rivers are cleaner than a generation ago, lots of wetlands and forests and wilderness areas have been protected.
We must build on this record, not destroy it. Teddy Roosevelt was the first President to take on conservation in a big way--and he was a Republican. The greatest leaders EPA ever had, Russell Train and Bill Reilly, were Republicans. The present GOP has abandoned one of its strongest legacies and further narrowed its base. If the party wants to become a ruling national party again, it must reach back to its roots and become the party of environmental conservation again.
.
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