Google News fed me an interesting article last week, a Sunday op-ed in the Philly Inquirer by Jim Geraghty (Climate change offers us an opportunity, 8/28/2011).  The author accepts that climate change is real, but argues that we should welcome it because it will only harm those he does not care about (“those in the poorer, developing world”), while bringing only good to the United States.  Even setting aside, for now, advocacy of more famine in the developing world, that analysis was simply too one-sided and ignorant for me to ignore.  Worse, for someone who takes Geraghty’s claims at face value and isn’t familiar with the real research, he makes a potentially compelling argument and raises an important question: why do we care about climate change?  I decided to take advantage of my hurricane day and draft a response, which the Inquirer promptly ignored.    However, because it’s important to think about why climate matters, I’m posting a version of my response here.

The most obvious problem with Geraghty’s op-ed is that completely ignores the threats posed to America by climate change.  Would climate change swallow America in a giant fireball?  Of course not – we will survive and the Earth will survive – but climate change would cause a heck of a lot of avoidable damage, suffering, and economic losses along the way.  Perhaps more importantly for the short term, even while Geraghty invents an economic opportunity from climate change, his analysis overlooks the true opportunity for American prosperity this century.

Geraghty’s first argument is that America would see increased crop yields.  While it may be true that some crops grow better with more CO₂, crops and livestock are generally not fans of extreme heat and droughts.  Just ask Texas, which has lost $5.2 billion to heat and drought so far this year, making 2011 the fourth time in six years that the state’s farmers and ranchers lost $1 billion or more.  The more greenhouse gases we emit, the hotter and drier the Western U.S. will become.  This is not a good thing in states already struggling to find enough water.

Climate change doesn’t just make America warmer, it shifts rainfall around the country.  As the West dries, northern states will see more rain.  Unfortunately, precipitation will shift in intensity as well as in space, with fewer light rains and more heavy downpours or intense snowstorms.  That means more record floods like those that recently devastated Americans living along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.

It’s not just the nation’s heartland that would suffer from climate change.  Since Hurricane Irene is the news of the day, consider that her storm surge of around 3 feet could be considered a normal tide by the end of the century.  That would mean large-scale losses of coastal property.  We would have to move entire neighborhoods of coastal cities to higher ground, at huge expense.  In cities, hotter summers would mean even worse air quality, causing more asthma, lung disease, and heart attacks.

Returning now to the claim that climate impacts might be worse in other countries, let’s remember that we live in an interconnected world.  Crop failures elsewhere drive up food prices here too.  And given the spread of nuclear weapons and terrorist proselytizers, do we really want to foster global instability?  The Pentagon doesn’t think so.  Besides, if the rest of the world is flooding and starving, who are we going to sell our products to?

In my opinion though, the truly scary danger from climate change is in the unknowns.  A look back at the climate over the past million years shows a history of huge fluctuations and inhospitable conditions over much of the globe.  Over the past several thousand years, coincidentally just when human civilization arose, the climate has been unusually stable and human-friendly.  So at the moment, the climate system is a sleeping dragon.  Do we really want to keep poking it in the eye and see what happens?

Fortunately, America does have a huge opportunity this century, if we have the will to seize it.  No, that doesn’t mean waiting a decade or three until “the harmful effects … force the hands of governments, NGOs, and businesses” into the last-ditch crapshoot of geo-engineering, so we can sell cloud-sprayers or giant orbiting mirrors as Geraghty suggests.  Our real opportunity is here and now.  We can take the lead in developing clean, safe energy that poses no threats and is immune to price fluctuations.  We can use American innovation and entrepreneurship to create jobs developing and installing real solutions that will prevent the harmful effects of climate change, and export these to the rest of the world.

All we need is for our leaders to create energy policies that provide long-term support to help renewables make their final push to prices cheaper than fossil energy.  And don’t believe renewables aren’t close – why else would fossil energy be protesting so loudly?  This doesn’t mean we all have to drive Priuses and turn off our heat and A.C.  This just means ensuring stable markets and credits for renewable energy, and providing appropriate market signals to help the innovation happen.  American ingenuity created the light bulb, let’s help American ingenuity come up with the next way to power it.

Would you be willing to risk jail time to fight climate change? That’s what Tim De Christopher, an economics student at the University of Utah did. When public lands in Utah were being auctioned for oil and natural gas drilling during the last months of the Bush Presidency, Christopher decided to disrupt the auction by entering it and outbidding everyone despite not being able to pay. He says he did so with the full knowledge he would probably face jail time, and sure enough, last Thursday a federal jury convicted him. Depending on the judge’s ruling, De Christopher may now face a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

Says De Christopher, in the grist.org interview posted above,

“The climate movement has been really creative in trying a lot of different methods for how we can create this radical shift that we need without anybody really making any sacrifices or taking any personal risks and none of that’s really worked. And I think now it’s time we tried the path of actually putting ourselves on the line… I think it could take far fewer people than we think to do that.”

SURGE doesn’t advocate breaking the law, but I consider this blog to also be an open forum to discuss the climate movement. So, readers, what do you think? Do there need to be more acts of civil disobedience to solve the climate crisis? And if so, who should be on the line? I encourage you to watch the full video of De Christopher and leave your thoughts in the comments section.

Last week I blogged about the House of Representatives attack on the EPA. You can sign this petition from the 1Sky Campaign to support the agency that keeps our country safe from polluters.

Other Eco-News

Bill Mckibben takes on the US Chamber of Commerce; announces “The U.S. Chamber Doesn’t Speak for Me” campaign.
A writer from the Kentucky coal fields explains why he’s fighting to save his community.

Use Facebook? Tell them to get off coal.

Imagine living in an America where the rivers are so polluted they catch fire. Imagine an America where the smog in New York City is so bad that hundreds of people die in a single incident. Imagine an America where companies can dump as much toxic waste into the Hudson as they please.

All these things happened in America before the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. Prior to then, there was no single agency tasked with keeping America safe from environmental disasters. But today, the Republican house is trying to declaw the EPA, voting 249-177 to stop the agency from regulating carbon dioxide emissions.

In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA was obligated to take action on climate change. In 2009, the EPA found that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gasses present a danger to the American public, which the agency has the authority to regulate under the Clean Air Act. With this bill, the House is telling one of the most important agencies of the federal government that it is not allowed to do its job.

The House is stripping funding away from the EPA until it is unable to act not only on climate change, but also on other health and safety problems. Progressive magazine Mother Jones has compiled a list of measures in the House bill that will prevent the EPA and other environmental agencies from carrying out their duties:

• Prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating toxic air pollutants, including mercury (No. 201, Rep. Raul Labrador, R-ID)
• Cut EPA funds for curbing greenhouse gas emissions including carbon dioxide, methane, and hydrofluorocarbons (No. 466, Rep. Ted Poe, R-TX)
• Interfere with the EPA’s ability to limit toxic pollution from coal-fired power plants (No. 407, Rep. Ralph Hall, D-TX)
• Bar the EPA from setting new health standards limiting coarse air particles (No. 563, Rep. Kristi Noem, R-SD)
• Reduce the budgets of the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service (No. 556, Rep. Steve Pearce, R-NM)
• Defund the Council on Environmental Quality, which coordinates environmental policy among all federal agencies (No. 202, Rep. Labrador)
• Prohibit the Environmental Appeals board from reviewing or rejecting permits for off-shore drilling (No. 533, Rep. Don Young, R-AK)
• Ban any contribution by the United States to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (No. 574, Rep. Pearce)

I am not sure the House even maintains a sense of what the word “cost” means. Even if these measures shrink the deficit more than slightly (And as Princeton economist Paul Krugman points out in his latest column, they won’t), they will take a huge toll on the livability of this country as well as the rest of the planet.

The EPA does more than any other agency to protect Americans’ rights to clean air, clean water, and a safe climate, and if we don’t fight to keep those rights we will lose them. You can start by signing these petitions from the Sierra Club and Environmental Defense Fund. Follow us on this blog and on Twitter, and we’ll also keep you updated on what else you can do as the story develops. It’s time to defend America, and the world.

On a Sunday afternoon in Princeton, most students are busy worrying
about some of the most important aspects of their lives – their
academic and social needs. I wasn’t sure if I could tear myself from
those things to make it to the Awakening the Dreamer symposium this
Sunday, but I’m definitely glad that I did.

As one of three Princeton students who attended the entire event, I
definitely felt like an integral part of the experience, and I now
feel awakened to really do something.

The WakeUp was organized by Generation Waking Up, an organization
based in California which seeks to “awaken” young people to the
challenges of our generation in creating a sustainable, just future.
Princeton’s WakeUp was coordinated by Princeton freshman Leland
Baldwin and included several members of Generation Waking Up (in fact,
they outnumbered us Princeton students nearly two to one).

The symposium alternated between videos and discussion about our
reactions, educating us while allowing us to engage and share. If
focused on four main questions: Who are we? Where are we? How did we
get here? And What’s possible for the future?

The event started with everyone introducing themselves as individuals,
followed by a group effort to define our generation. We then watched a
video about our generation, which highlighted our passiveness in
taking action to bring necessary change, contrasting our belief that
we can’t bring change with the activism of the 60s against war,
segregation, and gender equality, among other things.

Next, we focused on where we are now in terms of the issues we face
today. Most of the information we learned wasn’t entirely new to us –
I’m pretty sure most Princeton students know about the huge disparity
between the rich and the poor as a tiny fraction of the population
owns a majority of its wealth and the majority of the world does not
have access to everyday conveniences most of us don’t even think twice
about. Animals are disappearing at an alarming rate, and the
incredible amounts of waste and pollution we produce each day are
anything but sustainable. However, as we discussed after the video,
most of had forgotten about or unconsciously ignored these global
problems in favor of the comparatively inconsequential matters that
fill our lives.

In particular, my partner and I shared how the video reminded us of
the almost superficial nature of almost all our immediate concerns.
The video showed us how many people today are obsessed with stuff as a
means of satisfaction, without realizing that material possessions are
not bringing happiness. We both reflected on how easy it is to get
distracted by stuff so that one forgets about larger issues.

The next video and discussion focused on the challenges we face today
in bringing the change we want to see. We discussed some underlying
assumptions (many of them untrue) that prevent people from taking
action, including the ideas that individuals cannot do anything,
technology will solve all our problems, and some people just don’t
care and cannot be convinced to care. Video clips featuring Van Jones
and other activists discussed the idea that from a rationalist
standpoint, an individual really can’t do anything, but it takes an
individual to get anything done. He provided the example of the
standing ovation in a crowd of people – one person has to stand up
first, and then the crowd follows. Similarly, young people today need
to realize that nothing will happen until one person takes action.

Finally, we discussed the possible actions we can take for the future.
By intersecting things we love with things we want to see in the
world, we found actions each of us could take. We also wrote plans for
individual and group-based actions we planned to take and when we
planned to act.

Altogether, the experience really reminded me of what I already knew
but had pushed behind my own selfish, superficial worries. The
awakening really reminded me to care and take action for something
bigger than myself.

“We left—onto the freeway shoulders—

Short-Term

In a lecture at Princeton this past September, Van Jones noted that if Congress will not take action on climate change, the Supreme Court has ruled that the EPA has the authority to do so. I am quite aware that, taking a conciliatory tone with the new Republican House, the Obama Administration might be reluctant to have the EPA begin regulating carbon. But if we want to start tackling the pressing issue of climate change, something’s going to have to happen. If it comes to a fight between the president and congress over the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon, the climate movement needs to be ready to vocally support the EPA, and prepared to drown out the tea party din.

There are also a number of state and regional initiatives we should continue to support, including the Western Climate Initiative, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.

Long Term

If we want to stop changing the climate, we need to change the political climate. Why did Joe Manchin see it as politically expedient to appear in an ad shooting the cap-and-trade bill? Why were climate-friendly politicians and initiatives triumphant in California but not in West Virginia?

This article at Worldchanging provides many  useful links on the boom of green jobs in California, even back in 2006. Meanwhile, West Virginia is the second largest producer of coal in the nation, and produces nearly all of its own power with coal-fired plants. And people tend to vote along their percieved self-interest.

In those parts of the country that have not yet seen the emerging green economy, we need to work on it from the ground up. Everyone can work on this in some way at the community level. Those of us with a mind for entrepreneurship can work on starting green businesses, from wind power installation to sustainable food. Those of us who are good at politics and policy can run for office starting at the local level, as was suggested in a recent series of posts on It’s Getting Hot in Here. Those of us who are good at environmental education should do environmental education. We need 350.org‘s successful “Get to Work Day” to become a sustained effort to build a sustainable future for our communities.

That also includes continued organizing and action. I highly recommend this “Open Letter to 1Sky from the Grassroots” in response to 1Sky’s initial open letter to all groups fighting climate change (also highly recommended). The letter from the grassroots highlights how many of the most successful  campaigns against coal plants and other dirty fuel sources have been led by grassroots coalitions centered around environmental justice.

In short, when the political climate doesn’t favor the best policies, we need to change it. Because I for one much rather change the political climate than the actual one.

Just when you had your Halloween party mess taken care of, a tea party comes along.

You can go pretty much anywhere on the Internet to find the endless nattering about whether the  Democrats went to far to the left, didn’t communicate well enough, whether Obama is having his Bill Clinton 1994 moment or his Reagan early 1980′s moment or his first term FDR moment or his afternoon tea moment. Frankly, I find it mostly boring, so I won’t spend much time on it. I will say this though- I do hope that, amidst all the talk about what Obama needs to do to win in 2012, we don’t forget the actual policies involved and the need to do what’s right. Because the tea kettle may  be steaming, but the glaciers are still melting.

Okay, now we’ve got that taken care of, let’s survey the wreckage:

The Good

In all the talk about tea party victories, it’s easy to overlook some wins for the climate movement on Tuesday. First, the Koch-industries-supported ballot initiative Proposition 23 has been defeated. (Though some of my friends in Terrace may be mourning the defeat of another California ballot initiative) Prop 23 would have made California’s landmark clean energy legislation contingent on keeping unemployment below 5%.

Still in California, Jerry Brown won his race to once again become Governor of California. Governor-elect Brown was instrumental in promoting green energy growth in California in the 1970′s. Creating jobs in California through green energy is a major plank of his campaign in 2010. If you want a sense of whether it will work, just ask his defeated opponent, Princeton alum Meg Whitman ’77:

Meanwhile, it’s not just California voters who have chosen the green development path: Denver mayor and sustainable transport advocate John Hickenlooper won the governorship of Colorado, New York’s Andrew Cuomo hasn’t campaigned on green jobs but includes it in his platform, and Texas secessionist Rick Perry doesn’t believe in man-made climate change but still wants to develop wind energy in Texas.

The Bad

If the Democrats couldn’t pass a national climate change policy with majorities in both houses, they sure aren’t going to do it now. The Republicans have a majority in the House, and have eroded Democrats’ control of the Senate. All of the new Republican Senators deny the science of man-made climate change, as do many of the new House Republicans including the new speaker, Congressman John Boehner (R-OH).

The Ugly

While tea party candidates Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell, and Carl Paladino all lost their races, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Nikki Haley won theirs, and the tea party is widely seen as a new power player. This is Rand Paul, accused President Obama of supporting “Robert Mugabe, Hugo Chavez, and others- Evo Morales” by attending the Copenhagen climate talks last December. The LA Times reports that senior Republicans in congress are planning a series of house investigations of climate scientists and the EPA, including the revival of the “climategate” non-scandal, for which the scientists involved have already been investigated and exonerated several times.

And in case things weren’t looking bad enough on the tea party side, you have Joe Manchin, new Democratic Senator from West Virginia, appearing in political ads shooting the cap-and-trade bill:

So on the federal front, brace yourselves for little action on climate change and a lot of circus theatrics.  But that’s just the short term. I will address where the climate movement goes next in Part II.

If you are reading our blog for the first time, chances are it’s because you saw our “climate freeze” today in Frist.

While the planet warms, government action on climate change is still frozen.

A Democrat-controlled congress with a Democrat president failed to pass climate legislation. And while one party fails to take action to solve the climate crisis, the other is in active denial: Out of all the Republicans running for the Senate this year, only one accepts the scientific consensus that climate change is caused by human activity.

Meanwhile, our atmosphere’s carbon dioxide levels continue to rise closer to the 45o parts per million many climate scientists consider a “tipping point” for dangerous climate change. In the past months we have seen Russia on fire and Pakistan under water.

It is time to melt our frozen political system the way a glacier melts, from underneath. In California, that means defeating the out-of-state oil company funded Proposition 23, which would effectively kill California’s clean energy policies. In New Jersey, that means rallying  support around the state’s Energy Master Plan. When Governor Corzine released the plan in 2008, the environmental group Union of Concerned Scientists praised New Jersey as “one of the states leading the nation in addressing global warming.” The Energy Master Plan calls for New Jersey  to reduce energy use twenty percent by 2020 through increased efficiency, while also investing in clean energy innovation.

Upon taking office, Governor Chris Christie commissioned a review of the plan to adapt it to the current economic crisis. Knowing Governor Christie’s record so far, that most likely means massive cuts. The results of the review are set to come out over the next two months.

Please call or email Governor Christie with the following message:

Governor Christie, I am concerned for the clean energy future of New Jersey. While it is important to adapt our state’s Energy Master Plan to current economic realities, we also need to look ahead. The future we need is one with a strong green economy and without disastrous climate change. That is why we need to keep the Energy Master Plan’s clean energy and efficiency goals.

Phone: 609-292-6000

Email: http://www.state.nj.us/governor/contact/

Here are our pictures from the Princeton event for 10/10/10, an international day of action  on climate change organized by 350.org and the 10:10 campaign. Students redecorated recycle t-shirts with environmental messages, repaired old bikes, and prepared the Forbes Organic Garden Project for the winter. There were over 7,000 10/10/10 events worldwide. Organizers held “work days” to demonstrate what sustainability looks like. You can see the pictures from events around the world at 350.org.