[Baltimore Sun] What we can do now to fight climate change | GUEST COMMENTARY
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At this critical time in human history, it sometimes feels as if we’re being pummeled by the terrifying news of our changing climate. Record-setting heat waves, thousand-year floods, epic droughts, raging wildfires and juiced-up storms assault us as we stand helpless and powerless. What will become of us, with the worst yet to come? It’s tempting to fall into despair.
But we choose optimism and action instead. As ordinary people in our senior years, we want to bequeath a livable world to our grandchildren, and yours. We need a coalition of people of all ages and political viewpoints to create the political will for this livable world. We must find common ground to enact legislation that will rescue our future climate and then pressure the world to follow where we lead.
It won’t be easy. The hour is late. We fear tipping points. What if the Arctic permafrost begins to melt, releasing powerful climate-warming gases that accelerate the melting in a runaway feedback loop? If a process like this takes hold, we humans could become powerless to control it.
It’s urgent therefore that we slow the warming quickly and eventually stop it while we still can. Carbon dioxide, and the more powerful but shorter-lasting climate-warming gas methane, are emitted when we drill and burn coal, oil and gas. If we electrify as much of our energy use as possible and then generate that electricity from sources that don’t emit these gases, we can slow warming dramatically. Congress took a big step by passing the Inflation Reduction Act, which has many financial incentives to electrify.
But the Inflation Reduction Act alone won’t stop our warming. Its incentives will put us on the path away from fossil fuels, but we need to turn that path into a super highway. We must achieve permitting reform to get new clean energy projects approved (or rejected) faster. Transmission lines must be built faster to deliver that new clean electricity where it’s needed. The Bipartisan Energy Permitting Reform Act contains measures to reach this goal, and we should pass it. It also has measures friendly to fossil fuels, but reputable studies show it will produce a large net greenhouse gas reduction, and realism tells us that it won’t pass the Senate without GOP votes. We should pass it.
The bipartisan PROVE IT Act would help too. By providing verifiable emissions intensity data, it would enable Congress and the president to defend U.S. industry against unfair carbon-intensive competition. It could also lead to carbon tariffs to pressure nations like China to reduce their climate-warming emissions from manufacturing aluminum, steel, cement, fertilizer and other carbon-intensive products in order to retain access to the U.S. market. Conservatives point out rightly that the carbon emissions of China are now twice as high as our own, and we can’t fix global climate change in the United States alone.
Let’s also remember the role that farmers, foresters and ranchers can play. Many want to adopt practices that increase their land’s resiliency to heat, drought and flooding as well as to sequester more carbon. People trained as Technical Service Providers (TSPs) can teach these practices as well as how to access federal funds to make the transition. So let’s meet the pent-up demand for more TSPs by passing the Increased TSP Access Act.
Finally, we will need to harness the power of the market to reduce our emissions through a carbon tax with revenue refunded to all Americans. We should follow Canada’s lead and enact this policy by passing the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act.
Most people now realize that warming our planet is having devastating consequences. Can we afford our home insurance, driven by losses from floods? Can we afford the increasing costs of food, driven partly by droughts and extreme rains that stress farmers? If we’re seeing those consequences now, what will life be like for our children and grandchildren when they’re our age? Strategies are there to limit how much our planet will warm. But we need to up our game, take this problem more seriously, and implement those strategies now.
It’s an election year. The futures of our grandchildren are on the ballot. Vote!
Cheryl Arney, from Ellicott City, and Chris Wiegard, from Chester, Va., are volunteers for Citizens’ Climate Lobby.
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