Thinking and writing about all of the looming climate-related crises headed our way can get depressing. As part of an effort to pull myself out of the muck, I want to start focusing some attention on things that are being done to prevent or adapt to climate change. Both will have to be engaged with increasing resources in the future. As with all planning, it’s best to start with where we are today. To that end, I want to present some work I found and get other folks thinking and writing about it.
A Dr. Boyd Cohen has put together a top-10 list: “Top 10 Climate-Ready Cities in the U.S.“. Now, I hate most top-10 lists, especially those dealing with pop culture topics. That’s mostly because I seem to disagree with the specific placement of entries to the list. Most of the time, nobody knows how a top-10 list was assembled. What criteria were utilized to generate the list? Well, in this case, the criteria are at least presented by Dr. Cohen. Whether you and I agree with the inclusion of the criteria doesn’t matter, mostly because it’s not our list.
It won’t solve the global warming crisis by itself, but it’s encouraging to see the White House do something tangible to reduce their impact on the climate.
[Update]: I didn’t want to slam the President on this relatively good piece of news, but after giving the overall situation more thought, I think Paul Rosenberg has a good point. Obama’s White House refused to put up 350.org’s solar panel just a short time before making this announcement. Why the sudden change of heart? Is it because Obama thinks this is all a big game?
But the larger reason we’re ignoring climate change is that Al Gore was right: This truth is just too inconvenient. Responding to climate change with the vigor that the threat deserves would not, contrary to legend, be devastating for the economy as a whole. But it would shuffle the economic deck, hurting some powerful vested interests even as it created new economic opportunities. And the industries of the past have armies of lobbyists in place right now; the industries of the future don’t.
Indeed. The G20 summit meeting that just ended failed to come up with any kind of viable plan or steps toward establishing a plan wherein developed nations would pay for the low-carbon development and emissions reductions their actions necessitate. The result is the continuation of an immoral failure of the U.S. and other nations. We are not the greatest nations on Earth. We are countries of unsustainable resource consumers hell-bent on leaving future generations a severely depleted planet.
A super-majority of Americans support the regulation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) by the federal government, while recognizing that doing so might increase energy costs in the short-term. In other words, the lies perpetrated on the American people by climate change denying Cons and their allies are falling on deaf ears. Their false messaging is no longer working – Americans are beginning to realize the dangers involved with continuing along the path we’ve been on and are supporting efforts to change to a better path.
To complete the picture, this is all happening despite a profound lack of interaction between even President Obama and Americans, but in a larger sense, climate change realists and Americans. Very little effort has been made thus far to generate large-scale communication to Americans about the Waxman-Markey climate action plan, for instance. The wonks are doing their thing in their little bubble and the American people are being left to fend off Con talking points coming from every corporate media source out there. I know Al Gore and Van Jones and many other individuals are doing their best to educate Americans about the dangers of climate change, but I would feel much more confident about climate change legislation if more large-scale messaging was being conducted.
Back to the primary subject of this post, ABC and the Washington Post conducted a telephone poll from April 21-24 of 1,072 adults. They were looking for hot-button issues and GHG regulation made the list (I recommend taking a peek at some of the other questions – their wording is absolutely horrible). The first question and the response breakdown were as follows:
Do you think the federal government should or should not regulate the release of greenhouse gases from sources like power plants, cars and factories in an effort to reduce global warming? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?
Should: 75% (strongly: 54%, somewhat: 21%)
Should not: 21% (strongly: 12%, somewhat: 9%)
No opinion: 4%
Those are pretty strong results considering the amount of money fossil-fuel corporations have blown on full-page newspaper and television advertising. I would say that as of now, thankfully, they’re not getting their money’s worth. 75% of those polled think GHGs should be regulated. That’s actually quite amazing taking the entire set of current events into account.
I wanted to collect some information I’ve seen about climate change action costs. Some of it is right-wing propaganda, some of it is reality-based facts from large-scale studies that have been done. The short answer is what I’ve been writing for a while: it is far cheaper to act than not to act.
Beginning with the right-wing, extremist, denier propaganda:
On the subject of a still-in-the-works cap-and-trade plan, Con-servatives are running around screaming about a $3,128 tax that would befall the American people. As usual, they’re trying to work up their base over … nothing. As usual, they’re misquoting a scientific study by MIT that examined what a potential cap-and-trade plan would do to the “average American”. As usual, they’re promoting a three-word catch-phrase designed to fool people into buying into their b.s. They’re calling the cap-and-trade plan a light-switch tax. What is the true number from the MIT study? $79 per family (based on 2.56 people, just as the Con-servatives did) in 2015. The long-term cost to a household? $215.05. That’s 6.9% of what the Cons are talking about. They’ve boosted the number over 14 times its true cost – purposefully lying to generate fear and anger. As usual, that’s disgusting behavior from the “family-values” crowd.
