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Anyone watch the Climate Crisis Town Hall CNN hosted the other day for all the Democratic candidates? I admit, I did not. Seven long hours was more than I was up for. But while I did not watch it, I got the highlight reel.
It was fantastic that several candidates talked about the importance of climate justice. It’s important because the ones who are hurt the most in the climate crisis are the poorest. Climate justice is not just about jobs, it’s about making sure that people can survive in heatwaves, get the healthcare they need when heat and humidity makes it hard to breathe, have enough tree cover in their neighborhoods to keep them as cool as those in wealthier neighborhoods, receive fair compensation for their houses when they are forced to move out of flood plains or away from the coasts. And of course, when the fossil fuel jobs and the infrastructure that supports fossil fuels goes away, everyone affected by that should be given opportunities to learn new skills and take new jobs that compensate them with a livable wage.
Some of the candidates didn’t seem to have a sense of the urgency of the situation. A slow, moderate approach is not going to work. It would work if it were 1990, but it’s almost 2020 and we are long past the point when we have time to make a moderate transition. Cap and trade? Seriously? A carbon tax, maybe, but that can’t be the main course of action. Nor can relying on business and the market; they are precisely the things that got us into this mess to begin with. And let’s not count on technology that doesn’t even exist yet to save us; we can’t wait five or ten years for carbon capture to reach the scale and efficiency necessary for it to even start to make a difference.
And Joe Biden, he took the cake in my opinion when he whined that China is a bigger carbon emitter than the U.S. so they need to step up too. Well yes, China currently emits more carbon than the U.S., but, if you look at carbon emissions over a bigger time frame than a year, the U.S. is the biggest carbon polluter in the history of industrial civilization. And yeah, America might create “only” 15 percent of global emissions, but we make up a measly 4 percent of the world’s population. So the U.S. needs to stop blaming China for the very bad climate crisis situation in which we find ourselves.
Even Sanders and Warren, the two people who seem to grasp the situation the best, were disappointing. They, and all the other candidates, talk as if simply switching to 100 percent renewables is going to solve all our problems. They neglect to talk about how if we do not change our behaviors—consumerism, travel, diet, large houses—we will not have enough energy from renewables. Think about it. All the natural gas and oil that fuels factories, ginormous Google and Amazon and Facebook data centers, cars, trucks, tractors, office buildings, your home, all the things that need energy in one form or another, it is impossible to simply switch to renewables and continue to live, work and play as we do. Just spend some time browsing through the information at The Post Carbon Institute and, even better, listen to their Crazy Town podcast where they dive into the details of energy and economic policy as well as pull apart the technologies that are going to save us and why they won’t work.
I understand why politicians do not want to talk about how living a net zero life is going to mean a radical change for everyone; it’s scary and hard and no one wants to be a downer or tell Americans that they can’t eat steak every day or own a car that they drive all alone 60 minutes to and from work five days a week.
But someone needs to start telling the truth.
It’s not going to be politicians. It’s going to be the journalists and climate scientists, nonprofit groups like The Post Carbon Institute, and children. How sad is it that a sixteen-year-old girl from Sweden has a clearer understanding of what is truly at stake than the people who are running for President of the United States?
So while I appreciate that CNN devoted 7 hours to talking about the Climate Crisis, and while I appreciate that all the Democratic candidates running for president have plans and are talking about them, they need to do better. They need more aggressive plans, they need bigger vision, they need to convey urgency to everyone in this country and other industrialized nations, they need to act and not just say words that sound good, and they need to tell the truth.
Unfortunately I missed it but I actually didn’t realize it was 7 hours! Yikes. I am glad politicians are talking about this. We need some real action and solutions.
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LOL Iliana, yup, seven hours. The DNC refused to have a debate exclusively on the climate crisis and banned all the candidates from appearing together to talk about it. So CNN interviewed each candidate for about 45 minutes or so one after the other. A brilliant move on CNN’s part, but other than news outlets I don’t think many people managed to watch all of it.
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Well, a presidential candidate can’t say harsh truths to the nation and get elected; we’ve proved that (along with Brazil and England). It’s not politicians who should be saying this, although I hope we soon elect someone who will encourage them to listen. It’s people like you (go, you!) and me.
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Sadly you are right Jeanne, they cannot tell the truth, which is all kinds of messed up because now more than ever we need the truth.
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I agree with Jeanne. Sad to say, the truth isn’t gonna get them elected, and the pragmatist that I am, what matters most right now is getting a Democrat elected in 2020 if we have any hope at all of abating climate change in any way. But you’re right! This way of life is not going to be sustainable. It’s just not. My fear is that people in power, people with money, will say, Oh well, I’ll keep living in this unsustainable way and screw the masses.
Your blog gives me hope, though. And you are changing things just by writing. I think about you when I go to the grocery store and use my reusable bags (I’ve become really serious about this) and when I use my hand soap bar at the sink instead of the plastic pump bottle. I want to do more and I’m trying to get there. So thank you!
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Aw Laila, you are so kind! I am so happy to hear about your personal successes! I hope you find yourself, like me, caught up in the snowball effect where a few small changes to lead to still other changes 🙂
More and more I think that politicians on the federal level are not going to come through for us. Yes, things will happen, they have to, but it is not going to be enough to keep the worst from happening. It’s cities and community groups that are going to lead the charge. Systemic changes have to happen and they will whether the politicians talk about them or not, but the real solutions are going to be local since what works for me here in Minneapolis is going to be different than what will work for you because the climate changes are going to affect us differently. And that is also part of the problem, there is no single solution.
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Man, and another thing about constantly blaming China is that the US corporations offloads a fuckton of carbon-expensive processes to China (and other nations) so that we can get cheap goods manufactured in those countries to sell here in the US. And as long as the US lets companies get away with this, they can carry on blaming China for the crisis and not do anything and IT MAKES ME CRAZY FOR SO MANY REASONS. I feel such existential dread every time I think about the future we’re headed into, and I need Democrats to take it the hell seriously.
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Oh you are so right about that Jenny! I wonder how much longer we will be able to get away with making China a scapegoat? I am with you on the existential dread. The future is not looking very bright.
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I have a slightly different take on a carbon tax. I think it is the best first step, because it will provide an incentive for businesses and individuals to reduce their carbon footprint-and quickly, as long as the price starts high enough and raises steadily every year. I prefer the carbon fee and dividend model, which returns all the dividends to American households to offset the increase in prices. Consumer behavior studies show that when prices go up people look for less expensive alternatives. So people will opt for cheaper renewable sources and veer away from the more expensive carbon-based fuels and goods using them. Businesses will change their behaviors even more quickly. Unfortunately most people do not willingly change their behaviors until it crosses a threshold of discomfort, and with climate change when we reach that level, it will be too late! And regulations take years to get into place, and then as we’ve all too painfully seen can be decimated by future administrations. Carbon pricing has been demonstrated to be more effective than regulations in any case. Check out No Plan B: Putting a price on carbon on NPR, which compares various models.
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Thanks for your comment Sarah! You make a good point. As long as none of the fossil fuel companies can get out of the tax or somehow get a discount rate, then I am all for it. My main concern is that a carbon tax ends up being the only thing that happens, that it gets decided that the market will take care of everything. It needs to be only one of many approaches to solving the problem. While returning dividends from the tax to American households would definitely be nice, I think I would rather see the funds go toward mitigation efforts and helping those who don’t have the financial means to cope with the crisis. There are going to be a lot of American climate refugees that will need help.
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