As Congress comes closer to passing national climate and energy legislation, there will be groups calling on us to support specific proposals and leverage our entire grassroots force towards lobbying for their passage. While this is an important role to play, it is not the entirety of our role as young people.
Let’s take a step back: in order to avoid the worst effects of global warming, emissions will need to be cut massively. Exactly how massively is the subject of debate, but the real target should be zero emissions by as soon as possible. At the recent Copenhagen Climate Congress this week, Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the widely acclaimed Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, said he had underestimated the risks of global warming:
“The reason is that emissions are growing faster than we thought, the absorption capacity of the planet is less than we thought, the probability of high temperatures is likely higher than we thought, and some of the effects are coming faster than we thought.”
Joining Stern at the Copenhagen Climate Congress, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC, said that the focus of international action to fight climate change should be on sustainable global development and clean technology transfer, not simply emissions cuts.
How we put our first few steps forward is more critical than where we go in 2050. Just imagine trying to predict what the world would look like in 2009 in 1959! So what do we do?
To state what should be obvious, we need to simultaneously reduce emissions, transform the way we consume our energy and material resources and improve the quality of life for the billions living in poverty right now. Our nation has had over 30 years to solve these problems and has done virtually nothing meaningful. Why?
The difficulty, my friends, is that initially global warming solutions were framed in terms of regulating pollution, but for the most part greenhouse gases are invisible so the public does not have direct interaction with them. So while people may be concerned about global warming, the clamor for action simply falls flat in light of the economic crisis (interesting results from a recent Gallup poll about this). The climate movement has shifted its messaging to using this economic crisis as an opportunity to transform our energy system, create new green jobs and improve the health and quality of life for all Americans. This is a major step in the right direction.
But there is a lot of national inertia to overcome to make this vision a reality. So what needs to happen?
- Pass national climate, energy, and economic development policies to move the entire country forward, this year.
- To do this, we need to build the public support large enough and loud enough that Congress listens.
- To build public support, we need to engage the members of our community in open and honest discussions about what this transformation will look like and actually begin to implement local solutions.
but above all,
- We need to sustain the public involvement to make sure that support does not simply fade after this year.
One possible outcome to passing national climate legislation is that, if we have not built the public support behind it, in 2010 or 2012 we could see a backlash against these policies. Our traditional opposition is not going to go away after we pass climate legislation, and will likely do everything in their power to undermine the strength of these bills. And unless we build the public support to point where this does not become a liability for the next election cycle, climate legislation might be a flash in the pan, so to speak.
So this means we, the climate movement, must reach out to our communities, engage all parts of the political spectrum in dialogue about how we can turn our economy around through sustainable development. As Saul Alinsky taught, we must meet people where they are at. With the public most concerned about the economy, we must address those concerns in a meaningful way. The task is to develop a sense of hope to complement the current sense urgency.
We must be in it for the long haul. Our role is not only to pass climate legislation this year or stop all the coal plants possible; it is also to build the demand and action towards sustainable development into a lasting and popular movement.
Individuals CAN prevent Global Warming
I am not completely convinced CO2 has anything to do with Global Warming. That notwithstanding, I am certain that reducing our reliance on fossil fuels is both a good idea and necessary, for a large number of obvious reasons.
The good news is that we can all make a difference. It goes way beyond buying a few (polluting) low energy light bulbs, and will have a real impact if even half of those concerned about Global Warming follow the proposals. The beauty is that even if only half do this, it makes no difference what the rest do! Renewable energy will become cheaper than fossil fuels with enough investment in the technology, and everyone will move over naturally!
Firstly, buy renewable energy.
As far as I am aware, you have the choice to buy renewable electricity in all developed countries. If you cannot now, you should campaign for that inalienable right immediately. Currently our own household buys 25% of our electricity as renewable, costing us about US$33 extra per year. 100% would cost US$183)*.
Some argue that if millions of householders (and industries, I would hope) buy renewable energy, there will not be enough. If you do not buy it, there will NEVER be enough. If you do, the money will be used to INVEST in infrastructure for future renewable energy, so making the expense just as effective.
Merely by choosing to buy this, you are immediately and directly investing in the renewable energy industry, and sending a powerful and undeniable message to those who matter, the people who actually generate electricity, not environmentalists or politicians who may have different agenda.
Secondly, stop investing in ‘Big Oil’ and ‘Big Coal’.
It comes as a shock to many ordinary citizens to be told that the huge greedy corporations actually make money for THEM, not for some faceless consortium. Sure, corporate flunkies may make millions of dollars, but WE, as investors, make billions, and even trillions. Their huge payouts and massive junkets are insignificant compared to the profits the companies make for their investors.
You may well think that you do not invest in these companies, but if you have a pension or investment fund, you almost certainly do. These funds will, quite obviously, be invested in the very companies that make the most profits and returns for their investors. All these corporations are doing is actually acting effectively YOUR instruction, ie to get the best possible return. If WE stop investing in them, they fail, and will be forced to change their practices to survive in a capitalist environment.
The answer is to choose ethical investments (there may be different names). Talk to your financial adviser and make the switch now. ONLY YOU control your investments. Make the choice and stop letting others do it for you.
You control the future, not governments or environmentalists.
The message is that YOU control the future of energy production with your wallets. The bad news is that it will cost, but nothing the environmentalists or governments will ever do about this issue will cost you less than this, and most of what they want to do will take control away from you and waste most of your expenditure in bureaucratic bungling and misguided foolishness, in my opinion. This simple two-step approach has all the potential to work and with no complex side effects that I can see immediately. It has a direct and immediate effect.
It is so rare that we are able to do something so straightforward in this complex world. If Global Warming concerns you, I urge you to put your money where your mouth is, and make an immediate difference TODAY, before the power is taken away from you.
* Based on a usage of 5,000 kWh of electricity.
Source: http://www.originenergy.com.au/1142/Green-energy-FAQs#extracost
http://www.carbonclimate.info/2009/03/individuals-can-prevent-global-warming.html
Wow… talk about the ecomony taking over people’s priorities… From a poll conducted recently:
“The poll also indicates the economy remains the most important issue facing the country today. Sixty-three percent said the economy is their top concern, with health care a distant second at 9 percent. The federal budget deficit follows at 8 percent, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at 6 percent, education and terrorism tied at 5 percent, and energy policy at 2 percent.”
Excellent post Julianna. Well said.
It’s particularly important that we listen hard to the economic concerns of constituents and their representatives in Congress from heavily industrialized communities reliant on coal for their electricity generation (places throughout the American “rust belt” and Midwest, for example). These communities will be most impacted by carbon pricing proposals, and their representatives (including a group of about 15 Democratic Senators we MUST convince to pass legislation) are the most concerned about current climate policy proposals.
We need to listen hard to their concerns, do what we can to address them via organizing and dialog, and do even more to address them with policy design. You identify a significant and critical shift in rhetoric, to a focus on economic opportunity and green jobs. We’ve yet to see a similar shift completed in the policy arena, where the focus is still on carbon regulations modeled after pollution control regimes of the past (acid rain, ozone, etc.), rather than on an active government engagement in spurring new sustainable economic development paths and accelerating clean and efficient energy technology development and deployment.
To win, we have to find the intersection between good politics and good policy. There are plenty of proposals out there that fit one of those criteria (corn ethanol is good politics but terrible policy; unconstrained carbon prices may be good policy, but are terrible politics). We won’t win until we can find the intersection between the two, and we should work at that goal from both directions: building the political case (which involved organizing, dialog and public messaging) as well as the policy case (which still needs work to find the right point – I’d contend that not a single policy proposal on the table today to address climate change can secure enough political support to pass… and that’s obviously a BIG problem that must still be addressed).
Great thoughts Julianna. Glad to have you posting more frequently again. Cheers,
Jesse