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What the Next American Leader Needs to do to Deal with Global Warming
The election campaign has (unofficially) lasted almost two years. It's featured endless discussions on health care, the housing crisis, and who should get blamed for something their minister said. But when we elect a new leader, among his very first jobs will be figuring out how to deal with global warming. He almost certainly won't want it to rise to the top of his to-do list, but it will. He who comes next is the Climate Change President.
Global warming is going to be the most important new foreign policy challenge of the Climate Change President's tenure, because, unlike the Bush administration, the rest of the world hasn't spent the last eight years ignoring the climate problem. In the other developed nations, it's been diplomatic question number one. What these governments have realized is that when the Northwest Passage opens for the first time in human history, it's clearly time to do something. For the last five years, ongoing gatherings on the issue have all been working toward the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December of 2009. This is when the world is supposed to conclude a follow-up treaty to the Kyoto Protocol and really put the planet on the path to dealing with climate change. The conference is just eleven months after Inauguration Day.
This could be an agreement as key as those struck at Yalta or Versailles. It could determine the economic architecture of the 21st century. And the rest of the world's leaders are not going to issue the new president a free pass. If America plans on getting back in the good graces of the international community, it's going to have to start leading on the issue.
So what's a president to do? First, to have any credibility at all, he's going to need to figure out how to cut American carbon emissions dramatically. Then he's going to have to help write a carbon version of the Marshall Plan, something that will allow China and India to develop their economies while forgoing the use of coal.
Luckily, he has some help. A year ago, David W Orr, the Oberlin professor and environmental leader, helped pull together a panel of scholars to write a hundred-day action plan on climate change that would get us moving in the right direction. The panel, headed by Clinton administration energy official Bill Becker, has come up with more than 300 recommendations (see climateactionproject.com) that cover everything from "better manure management" to moving federal offices closer to mass transit lines. The cornerstone, though, is a cap on carbon-which would steadily raise its price and just as steadily wean us off fossil fuel.
Orr and his colleagues have done the kind of congressional heavy lifting that can use up a new administration's political capital in short order. Now all the next president has to do is overcome some of the richest corporations in the country (those in the energy industry) during a perceived recession in which gasoline prices are higher than ever before. There's probably only one argument that can carry the day. In Becker's words it goes like this: "This is the drive to build a new American economy for the 21st century. We need to base that new economy on a whole new set of resources."
That is to say: Fighting climate change is only partly about cooperating with Europe, China, India, and Japan to save the ice caps and the forests. It's also about beating them in the next great economic shift. The sun, or so the argument will go, is about to set on the American empire-unless we can figure out how to capture its rays in a solar panel.
It's hard to be deeply optimistic. As Orr says, "Time is short; time is not our friend." But at least George Bush will be gone, and the era of his administration's denial with him. We'll see if the old can-do American spirit can reassert itself in time.
15 Comments so far
Show AllArticle didn't quite meet the expectations raised by the title.
Here's what he says generally and specifically in the article:
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'First... he's going to need to figure out how to cut American carbon emissions dramatically. Then he's going to have to help write a carbon version of the Marshall Plan, something that will allow China and India to develop their economies while forgoing the use of coal.'
'The cornerstone... is a cap on carbon - which would steadily raise its price and just as steadily wean us off fossil fuel.'
'Now all the next president has to do is overcome some of the richest corporations in the country (those in the energy industry) during a perceived recession in which gasoline prices are higher than ever before.'
'There's probably only one argument that can carry the day... "This is the drive to build a new American economy for the 21st century. We need to base that new economy on a whole new set of resources."'
'Fighting climate change is... about beating [Europe, China, India, and Japan] in the next great economic shift. The sun... is about to set on the American empire-unless we can figure out how to capture its rays in a solar panel.'
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[He also references the Orr report that makes 300 specific recommendations.]
There seems to be a contradiction here; the US must offer China and India a massive aid package to develop their economies ("carbon version of the Marshall Plan"), while at the same time we must beat them economically.
Perhaps there is some "realism" here, in the sense that the Marshall Plan was in the US interest in averting more European wars, while the "carbon version" would be in the US interest in trying to avert climate catastrophe...
And perhaps there is "realism" in the use of US nationalism as a powerful force for driving major changes in policy and practices...
Still, there are fundamental problems with the technological and industrial "use" of "resources" for human ends, and if 'the next great economic shift' succeeds in enabling continued economic 'growth', even if it succeeds in averting climate catastrophe by reducing atmospheric carbon, our impact on the living systems of the Earth will continue to send us hurtling toward a variety of catastrophic events.
There are fundamental problems with nationalism, and if 'the next great economic shift' succeeds in keeping the US "ahead" of the world, with our military-industrial hegemonic lust for supremacy intact, then our solar-powered empire will continue to hold a gun to the head of human survival.
Certainly if we want to imagine human cultures continuing, we need to stop pumping carbon out of the Earth into the atmosphere. But just as certainly, without writing a laundry list of looming catastrophic disruptions of the living systems of the Earth, it seems clear that we also need to stop doing lots of other things.
Beyond changing our uses of carbon, human societies need to comprehensively change our entire relationship to the living systems of the Earth, and our relationship among each other, digging into our beliefs about what it means to be humans here.
i know McKibben is trying to be "realistic" here in thinking specifically about the policy options and leadership ability of the next US President. McKibben knows more than i do about the myriad disruptions of the living systems of the Earth. And i appreciate his note that facing corporate power is among the challenges to addressing climate catastrophe. But we also need more comprehensive programs for addressing the overall human impact on the Earth, and the consciousness that underlies our assumptions and our actions.
Recognition that its the economic system that is driving climate problems and finding the way to connect the dots with manifestations like genocide and the Food Crisis:
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5611
The World Food Crisis: Whats behind it and What We Can Do About it
Posted Oct 21 - a series by the Americas Policy Program, Center for International Policy
Cuting carbon emissions, sounds good Bill. But wait a minute. Obama is in bed with the coal industry. He accepted over half a million for Senate and Presidential runs according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He voted on behalf of another Bill giving windfall giveaways for liquid coal that Greenpeace says is 5 times worse on negative emissions than burnt coal. Obama's web site asserts the value of Nuclear as a piece of the picture even though no one has solved the spent nuclear fuel problem: the radioactive fuel actually outlives the containers they are stored in by hundreds of years, thus ground water may be tainted. Nuclear will also be subsidized by the US tax payers, but nevertheless ran as a for profit business by corporations. Bio fuels are also inimical to the Earth. Not only do bio fuels contribute to atmospheric degradation, but as more airable land transitions to higher paying yields for bio fuel crops, food prices will soar and world wide starvation increase.
A "cap on carbon" (ie Cap and trade?) that you mention Bill is the cowardly response to climate change. What we need as Al Gore, Nader, Kucinich, and McKinney note is a carbon tax that punishes the corporate entities from which Obama and McCain feed. Obama supports cap and trade which is just another slogan for telling environmentalists to bend over! Man, you really have gone over to the status quo tripe in this piece.
So, Bill, despite your life long commitment to sustainable practices, the next president is going to give us MORE OF THE SAME!
Wake up.
I hope one of the first things he does is reverse the idiotic thing Bush just did to allow those mountain destroyers to dump the ruined mountain tops anywhere they wish, including the waterways!
Of course President McCain will only remove more restrictions. And he'll deal with Global Warming in the same way Bush dealt with possible terrorist with hijacked airplanes warnings - by dumping all mention of such in the trash can.
Ruined mountain tops are the result of coal extraction. Obama is for it. What he does with the waste is irrelevant to the larger issue of using coal to address energy when solar, wind, and geothermal are completely sustainable. Like the Cat bellow noted, Obama will change nothing when it comes to climate change. He may throw some crumbs to sustainable solutions but those will be offset by coal, nuclear and bio.
.Look on the bright side. With the world wide economic collapse will come a shuttering of factories that pollute, the diminished use of oil and its derivatives as noone will be able to afford a car anyway.
Err did I say bright side?
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
President Carter tried to avert the energy crisis and the upcoming global warming mess and look what happened to him. It is up to we the people to counter the rigged market and let the environmentally friendly solutions in all walks of life have their say, be it fuel, buildings, clothes, food, you name it.
snydly
You know, sometimes it's instructive to make a few observations and see where they take us. The following may seem too simple, or over the top, but consider:
The IPCC ice core data charts, and the same as seen in Gore's Book printed, so it can be studied, show us that there have been about 6 ice age cycles in the last 650ky. We are on the up-swing of a temp/CO2 spike now, with GHGs now well out of historical norms. This begs the questions-What weather phenomenon has defeated and reversed the previous spikes, yet not immediately lowered the mean planetary temp? -which is the trigger? temp or CO2? Obviously, temp. -It is also obvious that the reversals occurred before the ice caps melted appreciably, otherwise there would be no data to harvest...Is, then, the reversal of our spike immanent, or even, overdue? -When does the ice of an ice age build up? All at once or gradually, as the temp/CO2 decreases? How is the atmosphere supplied with the moisture and energy necessary to transfer so much water to the poles as snow and ice? -What role does methane play as it is released from tundra and the oceans? -Was there massive methane release during the previous cycles? Or did the reversals act to put the methane back to sleep, so to speak, before it could compound the greenhouse effect? There were humans present during the previous cycles, -How and where did they survive the reversals?
-What can the paleo-geologic record found in the magnetic striping of the mid-Atlantic ridge tell us about tectonic plate movement and possible, or sudden, volcanic warming of the oceans? -Is it possible that the mass of melt water transferred to the equatorial bulge would be sufficient to change the angular momentum of the earth enough to tweak the plates into movement? -Does USGS data show increased activity along plate boundaries that might be a "forcing of the forcings" related to shifting watermass or rising landmass?
The answers to these questions are not hard to compute. The answers dictate the type and intensity of response that is called for. The answers have probably been known for some time, by some people who have the connections and means to respond. The answers demand a change to the status quo, a change from "growth and consumption" to sustainability and survival. Look at the tops of the spikes and decide if we have any more time to dick around with any energy sources that add heat or GHGs to the ecosphere. Coal and oil are out. Nukes and geo-thermal are out. NG, too, even though it's cleaner. The grid has to change. Wealth has to be used in different ways. It's a different game, and we're all in the same boat.
We can have just as much fun surviving with wind and sun, as with burning and consuming---let's do it!
Nobody else is bothered by the headline's reference to "the next American(sic) LEADER"?
Why not say President?
Its only one syllable and three letters longer in an already lenghty headline.
"America" has many "leaders" in many fields. Even in government, we have a multiplicity of "leaders" beside the President: Congressmen, Senators, Governors, Council Members, etc.
What has been largely passed over in recent debates here at CD on the merits or faults in Barack Obama, or John McCain, or Ralph Nader, or Cynthia McKinney, is that the first two seem very comfortable with the unconstitutional powers that have been seized by the Bushites for the "unitary executive".
Indeed, it could be surmised that the Dem leadership in Congress failed to act on these seizures and impeach SPECIFICALLY to retain these powers for a future Dem Administration -which if you think about it, is a very disturbing, though not in any way outlandish, thought.
And now we have an article by a presumably "leftie" -and therefore Anit-Fascist- environmental writer, with a headline that references the "American(sic) LEADER"!
I'd chalk it all up to some editor's imposition in re the headline (still disturbing that), except that McKibben makes it a point in his opener to reference the headline and connect it to the Office of President. The headline appears to be his and integrated into the article's body quite intentionally.
I don't think this means that Bill McKibben is a party to some crypto-fascist conspiracy, BTW. What this all suggests to me is that these kinds of decriptions and understandings are leaking into our Culture -in truth, more so our TELECulture- somehow, whether purposefully by some unidentified group or randomly with no determinative source at all.
I'd submit that what we might call crypto-fascist understandings of the World are just as dangerous for humanity -if not more so, near-term- as climate fluctuation, and we should pay them equal -or greater- mind.
The fact that none of the previous commentors on this article -in a rare, "mostly awake" place like CD, and even as the express skepticism about the next President's good intentions- seem to have noticed the strangeness of the headline, or if they did, were concerned enough by it to comment on it.
It jumped out at me like bright orange in a woodscape -I guess I'm an oddball.
Don't Panic,
-matti.
P.S. For those who don't get what I'm on about, "leader" in this sense is Fuhrer in German, and specifically the title of Adolf Hitler. Think of it like the arabic word "allah". This is a word describing the exact Abrahamic Deity that is called "God" in English. This is why it is "orientalist" and likely propagandistic when English writers or speakers refuse to translate "allah" to "God". It makes it sound as if Islam has a wholly alien deity to Cristianity when in fact the deities are the exact same, while the number and importance of Prophets and Messiahs is what is different. Apply this same honest translation to the headline of this article, and "American(sic) Leader" becomes "Amerikanischer FÜHRER".
While it is true that the President of the United States has been referred to in the past as the "Leader of the Free World", this has almost always been by "right-wingers" or MSM stooges. Plus this usage was mostly employed to differentiate the entire West from the Soviet Union and its client States, with the President's "leadership" connected to the U.S.'s as a whole. The usage here is different: more directly similar to Nazi usage, in reference to no differentiation, and employed by an avowed environmentalist (therefore presumably a "leftie" and Anti-Fascist).
P.P.S. For anyone who is curious, my consistent use of "(sic)" after "American" is to remind us all that the "Americas" are the Continents of the Western Hemisphere, that we live on -but do not solely occupy- one of those Continents (N. America), and that our "nation" (Federal Constitutional Republic) is named the United States OF America as a reference to GEOGRAPHY not political or cultural boundries. The non-imperialist way of shortenting this name is to write "United States" or "USAn" NOT "America" or "American".
That this is another slightly disturbing oddity in McKibben's should need -for those that have followed me this far- no explanation.
That this usage is common even among avowed Anti-Imperialists seems like another example of "leakage into Culture" to me -perhaps a more concerning and annoying one, than "Leader/Fuhrer".
Don't Panic,
-matti.
A simple transition to the new cars that GM has promised (The Chevy Volt) would reduce our fossil fuel consumption by nearly half. Over night the U.S. would once again revert to being an oil exporter rather than importer. However this is very unlikely to occur simply because the corporate companies who benefit from maintaing the status quo will not go down with out a well funded fight.
It is going to take more than just a change on Pennsylvannia Ave. to counter decades of profit-oriented policies.
A bit hyperbolic, since transportation consumes less than 30% of US fossil fuel energy, but definitely a step in the right direction.
And if the additional electricity for all these EV cars is produced from new coal-fired plants, could be a net loss environmentally.
Unfortunately, on this thread I get no real sense of urgency on the Climate Change issue. What really is at issue here is the Synergy of the Life Force on this Planet being reduced Entropically by one global parasite---humans. Our current system extracts energy from Nature for our immediate "benefit" and then spews out toxins.
This all goes to what Henry and Brooks Adams around 1910 called "The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma," the Reductionism that rationalizes Economics in terms of GDP while pretending that the "externalities" of Production do not count.
Somebody recently termed the methane crisis of the Tundra rim a "burp." Mother Earth is now belching out methane (a greenhouse gas some 20 times more powerful than CO2) where before this gas was held down by cold temperatures. For all we know such a process in the past may have been just as important to global climate change as intermittent volcanic activity or giant meteors causing a blackout of the sun.
Actually, it turns out that humans are nearly as stupid as all other species. The only advantage we have over others is language, and it has yet to genuinely respond to the crisis/crises that greet us.
"Methane Burp"? Mother Earth may be farting us to extinction, we have the technology to reverse our own contribution to the coming disaster, and yet it is pretty much business as usual. Like, here we are, a few days before the election, and gas prices are dropping, right on time.
What forms of future energy "production" actually directly counter the effects of global warming? Solar (incrementally redirects earth's heating to productive use); windmills (actually interrupt high speed winds that cause destruction); tidal cyclics (you figure it out...). Meanwhile, any candidate who calls for fluidized coal, nuclear, corn ethanol, offshore drilling, etc., is a pandering whore or else is totally ignorant of the physics and sociology of Entropy and thus not qualified. The real obstruction to "alternative energy" is not its innate limitations but instead its upfront entrepenuerial costs in the face of the imbedded corruption of the existing subsidies to the oil companies, et al. For example, I can solarize my house and I can even implant wind power here and I know what needs to be done to do it, but I would have to either borrow money to do it or quit my job to devote my time. Another problem here is that most people who used to work on "home construction" and are now unemployed would not know where to begin.
One final point: The global warnings of global warming are by no means my sole source. I have lived in the American Midwest for most of my 65 years, just above the limestone crust of eastern Indiana and western Ohio. In my short lifetime, the loss of species locally has been DRASTIC. The amphibians and the reptiles are just about gone. No snakes, no salamandars, no frogs, an occasional toad, no turtles, and I live out in the country.
Give McKibbens kudoes for trying, but the isues are really, really bad. According to the MSM, we are now bankrupt and lack the cpacity to invest in what need to be invested in, Alternet Energy, when what we need is an Alternate Culture.
-30-
An agreement such as the one struck at Versailles? God help the world!