President Obama, finally, took a get-involved get-tough approach to negotiations on health care legislation and the arms control treaty with Russia -- with success. Could this be the turn-around for what might still be a great presidency?
The predominant moral issue of the 21st century, almost surely, will be climate change, comparable to Nazism faced by Churchill in the 20th century and slavery faced by Lincoln in the 19th century. Our fossil fuel addiction, if unabated, threatens our children and grandchildren, and most species on the planet.
Yet the president, addressing climate in the State of the Union, was at his good-guy worst, leading with "I know that there are those who disagree..." with the scientific evidence. This weak entrée, almost legitimizing denialists, was predictably greeted by cheers and hoots from well-oiled coal-fired Congressmen. The president was embarrassed and his supporters cringed.
This is not the 17th century, when "beliefs" trumped science, forcing Galileo to recant his understanding of the solar system. The president should unequivocally support the climate science community, which is under politically orchestrated assault on the legitimacy of its scientific assessments. If he needs reassurance or cover, the president can ask for a prompt report from the National Academy of Sciences, established by Abraham Lincoln for advice on technical issues.
Why face the difficult truth presented by the climate science? Why not use the president's tack: just talk about the need for clean energy and energy independence? Because that approach leads to wrong policies, ineffectual legislation larded with giveaways to special interests, such as the Waxman-Markey bill in the House and the bills being considered now in the Senate.
The fundamental requirement for solving our fossil fuel addiction and moving to a clean energy future is a rising price on carbon emissions. Otherwise, if we refuse to make fossil fuels pay for their damage to human health, the environment, and our children's future, fossil fuels will remain the cheapest energy and we will squeeze every drop from tar sands, oil shale, pristine lands, and offshore areas. Read more...
The conclusion of the December 2009 Copenhagen climate talks--known as COP15 for the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change--is perhaps best summarized by the headline in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "President Obama salvaged a nonbinding agreement that sets neither a target for cutting emissions nor a deadline for one."
It is quite telling that what emerged as the Copenhagen Accords is seen as a meaningful deal by mainstream environmental organizations such as the League of Conservation Voters. Global warming is seen as little more than an impetus for what is being called clean energy reform, which is the continuation of economic growth powered by just about anything other than fossil fuels. So-called "clean" coal, nukes, and a handful of other techno fantasies that totally ignore the larger system they would have to exist within. Pretty much the entire two weeks in Copenhagen became an ongoing argument over the economics of how to best profit from cap and trade and carbon offsets.
Stella Semino from Grupo de Reflexion Rural (Argentina) stated: "If these new proposals are agreed upon we will see a massive boost for crop and tree plantations alike which, in the name of `climate change mitigation', will speed up the destruction of forests and other vital ecosystems, the spread of industrial agriculture, and land-grabbing against small-farmers, indigenous peoples and forest communities. Industrial monocultures are already a major cause of climate change and their expansion will make it worse."
Let’s play doctor. I’m sitting there in a white coat looking at my clipboard and I say: “Hmmm, your cholesterol is going up. If you keep eating this way, you’re going to have a heart attack some day.” You hear that, and you stop on the way home for a bacon double cheeseburger.
But now imagine I’m sitting there in my white coat looking at my clipboard and all of a sudden I whistle, and say: “Your cholesterol is off the charts, man. You’re in the zone where people have heart attacks all the time. You better hope you get it down before the stroke.” You hear that, and you stop on the way home for some Lipitor and a pair of running shoes.
We’ve known for a very long time now that, in some vague way, we were headed for trouble. Limits to Growth was published in 1972, and its assorted charts and graphs made remarkably clear that, as the authors of that seminal book put it at the time, “If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.”
But “the next hundred years” must have seemed a comfortingly long time, because — though Limits to Growth was the biggest-selling environmental book of all time, with 30 million copies sold — it wasn’t enough to divert our trajectory.
I thought of Limits to Growth last week, when Nature published a lead article by a large and illustrious team headed by the Stockholm scientist Johan Rockstrom. Titled “A Safe Operating Space for Humanity,” it set boundaries for nine interlinked planetary thresholds, arguing that if we crossed them we risked destroying the “unusual stability” that has marked the Holocene, which is the name scientists use for the last 10,000 years, the period when civilization arose.
There's an old joke about an economist who goes for a walk with his 8-year-old son. The boy sees a $20 bill on the ground, shrieks with joy, and bends over to pick it up. The economist stops him and says, "Son, that's not real money. If it were, someone would have taken it by now."
Likewise with our nation's energy policy. Decision-makers generally assume there's no way to mitigate global warming while simultaneously cutting energy prices. After all, if companies that generate power could somehow save money by being good to the planet, they would already be doing it, right?
Wrong. Our national energy system is actually highly inefficient. In fact, for every unit of energy that's produced, two units are thrown away — usually in the form of waste heat that power plants just vent into the atmosphere.
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