The Climate bill wrangling is really starting to get to me. I am starting to have the same feeling that overwhelmed me and many others when the US invaded Iraq. My gut is saying:
this can’t be good,
this isn’t going to get better, and
this is a symbol that our country’s values and ethics are misaligned with reality.
So reading the latest SustainableBusiness.com article on climate bill developments, my fascination with the process driven by optimism that true leaders are going to stand up and that compromise will at least get us somewhere- dwindled. Reading this sank me even lower:
“Whether it’s 17% or 20%, emissions would be reduced below 2005 levels, making total reductions only 4% below 1990 levels, the benchmark year scientists use.
Further, to get 60 votes in the Senate will require incentives to expand nuclear energy, offshore oil drilling, and clean coal technologies.”
4% below 1990 levels! Are you serious? My hopes for legislative change to bring us to an energy smart future are slimming. Clean coal and offshore drilling will happen anyway when oil prices increase steadily. Indeed many conservative, fossil fuel loving policies and economic drivers will be implemented as desperate holds on the current economic and energy paradigms. Yet why must our targets for cleaning our emissions be so limitting during this time when policy based on ‘change’ and ‘progress’ can be sold to public fears and hopes? This is the time to aim big, beyond what is actually doable even, to push and challenge ourselves to do the impossible.
I heard a leading scientist say: “we need a WWII effort for curtailing destructive effects of Climate Change.”
Did our generals in WWII say, “lets do 4% better then WWI” ? If we are going to beat this thing, we need to aim high and stop diddling in political wrangling.
