McKibben on global warming

THROTTLING OUR THIRST FOR POISON (11/30)

Bill McKibben is the world’s most significant voice in confronting the crisis generated by global warming. So says TIME magazine, backed up by a solid collection of eminent scientists. Last month McKibben spoke to over two thousand turned-on activists in the prelude to a conference on the subject sponsored by Progressive Christians Uniting and held at the Presbyterian Church in Claremont, California. Several hundred religious activists from around the area met for two days to hear world authorities on the subject, to plan specific actions and to engage in services of worship. McKibben is an active Methodist layman and teaches a Sunday School class at his local Vermont congregation. He also preached Sunday morning at Claremont’s largest protestant church.

James Hansen, a NASA scientist, recently wrote, “If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adopted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggests that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.” In response, McKibben has generated a worldwide movement centered around the “350” focus, believing that the currently verified 410 ppm.. is deadly. The movement’s short-term goal is the reduction of the use of fossil fuels, while forcing the producers to pay for the environmental degradation they generate. These atmospheric insults are simply part of the cost of doing business. There is now all but a unanimous conclusion by the scientific community that the carbon spewed into the air has already raised the earth’s temperature by more than a degree. While warmer air holds more moisture than cooler air, it falls to the ground unevenly. This means floods more severe than have ever been recorded, and droughts that disable entire nations. Vermont and Thailand have been inundated, while Texas and Sub-Saharan Africa are increasingly parched.

One wonders why saving the planet from the inevitable destruction caused by global warming is not at the top of everyone’s agenda. Yet there is a sturdy resistance to taking any of the steps necessary to halt our rush to the precipice. Among the several states, California has generated the greatest concern leading to legislative action. The State has its own version of “cap and trade.” But there is opposition even to the small steps taken. What is the contrary argument? “It’s bad for business.”

The lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal of October 31 makes the negative case. It cites, among other things, that the Western States Petroleum Association calculates these new laws will cost its members—that’s stockholders--$540 million in the first two years. In that period Conoco-Phillips alone will earn 14 billion! While there is obviously a trade-off between climate change policies and economic competitiveness—that translates “profits”—the increasing corporate control of every aspect of American society makes it difficult to deal with what may be the most critical issue facing this planet. Most American politicians are now indebted to corporate money. That means keeping the cash coming trumps the need to reduce atmospheric pollution. One wonders if both corporations, and the politicians in their pockets, would rather have us go off the cliff into environmental oblivion, than to take the simplest steps in controlling global warming.

Of course saving the planet will come at a cost. We will have to develop new sources of energy, which means, in the interim, some jobs will go out of style. We will be paying higher costs for the fuels we now consume. We may need a tax on all carbon generation to cover the costs involved in dealing with the destruction now caused in the air we breathe and the atmosphere which controls our weather. These costs are already build into our economy.

The Wall Street Journal complains that even these simple steps now on California’s books, are futile since the rest of the world is not taking similar measures. So California should do nothing at all. I am hardly compelled by the argument that I should continue to drink poison because everybody else is gulping it down. Paying $6 a gallon for gasoline would be a bitter pill, but that is probably what it would take to throttle our thirst.

And coming up from the summer foliage annual low.

http://co2now.org/

he's a hero

Joe Romm at Climate Progress has written quite a bit: