WHAT ABOUT THE CLIMATE!

by Ruth A. Sheets

We really need climate leaders.  We actually are all in this together and will all go down together if we don't stand up NOW!  What are we waiting for?  Well, we need leaders who can provide coordinated direction.  Change may be scary, but in this case, it is happening whether we want or believe it or not.  It is essential that we behave as though it is happening.

The Trump administration's replacement for the Obama-era Clean Power Plan is appalling and should have been immediately rejected by Congress.  Ha! Lessening regulations on clean air, water, power plant emissions, etc. is really near-sighted and stupid!  There is no other way to describe it, but Mr. Trump does not care.  He is trying to appease fossil fuel corporations, who by the way also know their industries are largely responsible for global warming. 

With all the research telling us we need to act immediately to avert climate catastrophe, we're counting on states to lead the way.  The Federal Government is pretty much absent as Mr. Trump and Mr. McConnel pretend they are still living in the 1950s.  

We need ALL the states in this.  Even though we have a lot of backward thinking legislators all over the country, we need our governors  and other state officials to step up and constantly stand for a green future.  They must motivate the less informed to want to participate with those of us already working on this crisis. 

Below are some recommendations every state and governor can work for, with dedication and effort. 

1. Set a strong statewide emission reduction goal.  That can take many forms from gas emission standards to getting more vehicles off the roads.

2. Set strong clean energy use and energy reduction goals that people can implement.  This can include encouraging people to raise their thermostats to 79 or 80 degrees on hot days and to 70 on cold days.  Making sure people have low energy light bulbs, turning off lights not being used, reusing materials when possible, setting energy reduction goals for one’s household, etc. can make a difference.

3. Set goals for electric vehicles.  Provide financial incentives for buying electric vehicles and be sure that there are sufficient recharging stations either at people’s homes or in public spaces.   

4. Set a waste reduction goal.  Encourage households to use less disposable material.  Use more reusable products like straws, shopping bags, storage containers, etc.

5. Direct state agencies to support and deploy clean energy, renewable resources.  Leaders need to make it clear that this is a public good and that supporting wind farms, the solar industry, and sustainable agriculture are priorities.

6. Develop an industry that effectively handles waste and recycling.  Build or repurpose plants for sorting materials and using the products to make other things we need.  We sent stuff to China for a long time, the time when we should have been processing our own trash and recycling.

7. Set strong energy building codes.  No home should have a new roof without solar panels and the structure to use the electricity generated from those panels.  Subsidies should be available to help with this.

8. Shift transportation spending and policies to support low-carbon modes.  Support public transportation in a more substantial way, making public transportation more comfortable, easily accessible, and user friendly so more people will choose it.  Tax breaks might be employed to help low-income people choose public transit.

9. Limit new fossil-fuel infrastructure.  It is critical that we move those resources to renewable energy sources.

10. Collaborate on regional and national climate initiatives, whatever is possible to ease our carbon footprints.

11. Research and support should be made available for enhancing sustainable agriculture including verticle farms, hydroponics, genetic research, and more.

12. Traffic patterns including traffic lights should be studied to see how they can be better synched to ease rush hour stress and to help cars to be more efficient getting from place to place.

13. Research money should be put into turning roads, parking lots, and other public spaces  into solar farms so all that heat could be transformed into usable energy.  In addition research on buildings could help develop glass that can allow heat from the sun into buildings on cold days and not on hot days.

14. Efforts should be made to plant more trees and create more green spaces.  This can have a cooling effect, particularly on cities.  

15. More funds should be available for turning abandoned properties either into green spaces or affordable housing.  This could also include schools, warehouses, and other buildings no longer used for the purpose they were intended.  

In short, there is a lot we could be doing.  Of course a lot of it requires money, but so does cleaning up after hurricanes, tornados, floods.  Power outages cost money as does caring for people ill from the effects of heat.  Global warming is speeding up, so we need to act NOW. 

We need our leaders to speak about these issues ALL THE TIME, not just when it is convenient for a speech somewhere or at the ribbon cutting for a new plant.  We are RUNNING OUT OF TIME!  It really is a crisis.  

CLIMATE LIARS

The Environmental Protection Agency was founded shortly after the first Earth Day back in the early 1970's.  It's mission was to clean up and protect our air and water.  This was a tough mission since air pollution at the time was horrific as were our waterways.  Ohio got to watch one of its rivers burning and citizens of New York City and Los Angeles often could not see a blue sky.

Over the years, the EPA has worked hard and fought to clean up  our air and water.  There is still a lot to do, but until recently, the Agency was moving in the right direction.

We now face an even more critical period in our nation, and the world as a whole.  We face the possible collapse of the environmental systems that support the entire planet.  The cause, global warming.  It is called "climate change."  It is a change in the climate, but the truth is, the change is global warming.  The warming began with the Industrial Revolution a couple hundred years ago and is continuing, even increasing. 

In short, nearly all environmental scientists know global warming is caused by human activity.  What activity?  The burning of fossil fuels:  coal, oil, natural gas, releasing into the air, gasses known to act as a warming blanket, creating a planetary greenhouse.  Animal farming and leaky natural gas wells also contribute large amounts of methane, a very potent greenhouse gas.
  
The current head of EPA, Scott Prewitt is what some call a climate denier.  This means he does not publicly acknowledge any change in the world's climate.  Besides, if there were any change, it could not be caused by the actions of people, Right?

Mr. Prewitt is a lawyer.  This means he attended at least 7 years of college.  Unless Mr. Prewitt attended a school like Trump University, he had basic science and math classes which teach reasoning and logic.  He would have learned about the scientific method and the ways scientists investigate an issue, testing and retesting.  As a law student, he would have learned how arguments are structured and that each position needs to be backed up with facts.

Mr. Prewitt, Mr. Trump, and all the other folks dubbed "Climate deniers" know global warming is happening.  They have seen or heard the evidence.  They know that 100-year storms are occurring every few years.  Sea levels are rising, droughts and floods are happening more frequently than at any other time in recent history. 

It is easy to see these "climate deniers" as quaint, stupid, foolish, or any of a variety of appropriate adjectives.  However, they are, in addition, really, climate liars.  They are lying to their constituents, the American people.  They know what is occurring. 

Why would people like Mr. Prewitt knowingly put all our lives at risk by weakening or eliminating regulations that have served to lower human impact on the environment?  Why would they want the United States to drop out of a climate agreement signed by every country in the world but one (Syria), and now us?

The only word I can think of is GREED.  They are hoping to make a few quick bucks before there will be no choice about the use of fossil fuels.  I suppose they think they can accumulate enough money to cushion the blow that is coming. 

The media is partially to blame for the prominence of climate liars.  In some kind of "search for different viewpoints" they think they must put up a climate liar every time an environmentalist is interviewed.  This lets people think the viewpoints are of equal weight.  They are not!  

The climate is changing.  The change is being accelerated by human activity.  We, as a global community, need to act now.  That's it.  Everyone knows it or at least suspects it.  Those in power who publicly deny these truths are lying to themselves and to everyone else.  They are CLIMATE LIARS!  Done!

One-Issue Decision? Not This Year

by muon

I made a list last night of all the issues, off the top of my head, that seem to hinge on this election. I'm sure I forgot something. Here's my list, in no particular order:

Unemployment
Education
Energy independence
Climate change
Renewable energy
Equal pay for women
Middle East, terrorism, war, national security
Healthcare
Women's healthcare, including contraceptives, abortion, and Planned Parenthood
Medicare and Social Security
Immigration
FEMA and crisis management
Infrastructure
Welfare, food stamps, other poverty issues
Science, Arts, PBS
Deficit
Gun control
Citizens United
Supreme Court appointees
Banking/mortgage industry problems
Foreign and Domestic Trade
Wealth imbalance

For all of you still undecided folks out there (if any), really, all you have to do is go down this list and decide who you trust to make policy for you on these issues, at the Presidential, Congressional, State and Local levels. For instance, if you're hit by a natural disaster in the next 4 years, do you want someone who acted the way President Obama, Governor Christie and Mayor Bloomberg acted this week, or say, the way President Bush acted during Hurricane Katrina? Do you want a president who'd shut down FEMA and tell the states to handle disasters themselves, even when their infrastructure is completely compromised?  You might say, oh, but I don't live in a natural disaster prone area. I thought so, too, until Hurricane Sandy.

These issues are the main reasons I'm voting, not only for Obama, but for all the Democrats on my ballot.  I say main reasons because there are others.

I refuse to vote for a party that condones and spreads the blatant lies of its presidential candidate. This week Mitch McConnell and other GOP leaders pressured the independent Congressional Research group to suppress a report showing that tax cuts for the wealthy do nothing to help the economy. I won't vote for anyone who has such a contempt for truth.

GOP leaders have gone out of their way to make voting more difficult this year. Voter ID laws, voter roll purging, laws restricting registration drives, reduced early voting in many states, and intimidation measures aimed at African-American and Latino voters are all forms of voter suppression. For the first time, the UN has sent monitors to the US to observe our elections. I'm not voting for the party that made all this happen.

Legislation in this country shouldn't be influenced by anyone but the voters. Many Democrats are in the pockets of lobbyists as much as Republicans, but the worst offenders right now--the Koch Brothers, Grover Norquist, the NRA, far-right religious fanatics, and Big Oil--are GOP cronies.

So that's the election in a nutshell for me. You're on your own.