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FACING THE HEAT:
The Hard Truth About Solving Climate Change
By Daniel Solnit
Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” has finally put climate change in the center of US public debate. The film powerfully conveys the seriousness and urgency of the problem, but doesn’t explain the societal causes of climate change, nor the scale of effort required to solve it. Here are a few hard truths the film did not address.
Climate change is not a result of overpopulation; we’re not all equally responsible. The US, which is less than 5% of world population, produces 25% of all greenhouse gases. Americans cause 2-3 times as much climate change as Europeans, 10 times that of Chinese, and 30 times that of most Africans. Americans need to reduce our emissions far more than residents of poor nations, by as much as 80% or 90%.
That will take more than changing lightbulbs and putting on sweaters. Adopting a greener lifestyle is important, but it won’t change the larger infrastructure problems which cause most climate change. Driving a hybrid won’t build a clean mass transit system; conserving energy won’t shift utility companies toward renewable energy. We need a mass movement to redefine public policy and redirect our entire culture toward sustainability. So change your bulbs, but get active politically too.
There are no techno-fixes. New technologies are essential, but they cannot change the basic fact that we have exceeded the earth’s carrying capacity, and must dramatically reduce our consumption of natural resources. Sorry, but you can’t have a hydrogen-powered SUV or a solar eco-mansion. Folks in the affluent nations have been on a spending binge for the last century, driven by cheap fossil fuels and delayed environmental consequences, and financed by sticking the world’s poor and future generations with the bill. A sustainable way of life is possible (and ultimately more rewarding), but it requires a complete redesign of our economy and infrastructure along ecological principles, and profound shifts in our cultural values - not just windmills and hybrids.
We cannot wait for government to lead us out of this crisis. The Bush administration operates like a PR firm for Exxon-Mobil. Unfortunately, the Democratic Congress feeds from the same corporate trough, and is unlikely to take meaningful action unless forced by massive public pressure. Ratifying the Kyoto treaty would be a good first step, but its reduction levels are not nearly enough to stabilize the atmospheric CO2 below catastrophic levels. It’s up to ordinary folks like you and me to lead the way; that’s how democracy works.
This is more than an ecological crisis; it’s an economic one. Katrina’s cost, estimated at $200-300 billion (as much as the Iraq war), impacts the entire US economy. Even in a best case scenario, we are facing more storms, floods, fires, droughts, famines, and extinctions. If we don’t act quickly, trigger events may cause more severe consequences. For example, melting of the Greenland ice sheet could stop the North Atlantic current, causing a rapid ice age in Europe with major crop failures and energy blackouts, and drowning coastal cities worldwide. At best, climate change will cause lasting economic recessions; at worst, a full-scale economic crash, bringing far more suffering and social disruption than any storm.
Time is short; what we do in the next decade will determine the earth’s carrying capacity for centuries to come. Climate change is an inevitable result of our current economic system, which doesn’t recognize the planet’s ecological limits. Working together, we can not only solve global warming, but build a healthy, just and sustainable culture, with a green local economy based on life, not just profit.
(A slightly shorter version of this editorial first appeared in the SOnoma West Times and News)
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