Climate Policy Solutions that Save the Planet

Responses must be sufficient, scientifically based, rapidly pursued, address underlying causes, and go beyond seeking to maintain conspicuous excessive consumption by the rich.

Earth Meanders, http://earthmeanders.blogspot.com/
By Dr. Glen Barry
February 28, 2006OK,

Climate Change Is Real, So Should We All Consume Like MovieStars?

It has been said that Oscar wins for "An Inconvenient Truth"could spur climate action. This begs the question what type of action? Not all actions would be equally effective, nor prove cumulatively adequate to eventually stop global heating. As the efforts to find climate solutions mount, prepare yourself forever greater levels of corporate, political and celebrity greenwashing - false claims of environmental sensitivity and climate concerns for the purpose of public relations.

I love you Al. It was me that said "Climate, Forests, Save the Planet Al" on the 2000 election rope line in Madison; as we shook hands, to which you replied "We'll do it together". I think we have both been holding up our part of the bargain. While Mr. Gore has done a great service raising awareness regarding climate change, I am far from convinced that he and his Hollywood friends, with their energy hungry multiple mansions and jet-set life-styles (carbon offsetting or not), have diagnosed planetary climate change solutions, nor are they leading by example. There are serious questions being asked regarding celebrity environmentalist's rich, excessive lifestyles that cannot be pawned off on "I'm offsetting the carbon" of living in opulent luxury.
This simply shifts the necessity of actually reducing emissions to others that are less well off.

Hollywood greenies are not enunciating a message of personal and societal sacrifice for the Planet and our children, or leading by example by showing a willingness to live in smaller homes, drive less, fly rarely or appreciably cut their own energy use and emissions; nor raising the politically and religiously complex issues such as population control, carbon rationing, carbon taxes and other fundamentals that are crucial for global ecological sustainability. It is not just about protecting the climate. How are we going to feed, house and clothe the world while shrinking its population, repairing the climate and other planetary ecosystems and learning to live sustainably? The answer is a series of fundamental social changes, not reformist greenwashing where we all aspire to live as movie stars.

Crafting Climate Policy Solutions Adequate to Save the Planet

There is still plenty of climate change debate to come. Now that virtually every sensible scientist and citizen understands climate change, which is an important part of broader global ecological change, is a reality. We are now entering the period of identification and implementation of long-term sufficient policy solutions. There is still plenty of room for humanity to go wrong - moving too slowly, too incrementally, or even wrongly with chimerical techno-fixes, and/or refusing to think outside of the box about profound social, political, economic and ecological change adequate to address the collapse of the global atmosphere and other ecosystems. We can be 100% aware, and yet through poorly conceived and implemented solutions continue our trajectory of greatly overshooting the global ecological system's carrying capacity.