Last night's environmental law class was about climate change/global warming. It was mostly disheartening. Because the U.S. refused to sign the Kyoto Accord some years ago, and since the economy went in the toilet, and since politicians have used climate change denial as a way to get cheap points, people think the issue has gone away. The instructor for last night's class has made most of his career on climate change as an environmental lawyer. He talked about how in school he read the first paper about climate change in the late 1970's. He pointed out how this topic has been treated very differently in Europe, where they signed Kyoto and have been trying to regulate carbon emissions ever since with a cap and trade program. Cap and trade means for example, say there's a big company like Boeing who would need to spent a LOT of money and time on research to refine the way they fuel jets to cut down on carbon emissions. They could pay (I think the average is $40 per pound of carbon) to another company whose main action to cut down on carbon would be to replace all their incandescent light bulbs for the energy efficient ones. Since Boeing paid them that money, they could put forth the capital to buy the new light bulbs, thus making a difference in carbon emission that way. Richer companies helping poorer companies make the simple fixes. Of course, as the cap gets lower on total carbon emitted, Boeing would have to make those innovations a reality, something that would take time. During that time, they could pay for innovation elsewhere.
Unfortunately this sort of system doesn't exist in America.
Though a company's lobbyists or public relations people could say they deny climate change, the way their engineering departments run, their actions, speak to the contrary. The instructor, who has direct knowledge of these activities, says that all American companies are making decisions pertaining to future development based on the understanding that climate change is happening. They are building their new structures, etc. to meet those challenges. For instance, new construction near coastlines are incorporating sea walls or other structures to combat sea level rise. You don't build a facility to last a couple years, you build it to last 50+ years. The range of projections for sea level rise vary, but as science gets better at predicting it through more precise modeling, the future looks scary. Especially since very little action has been taken to address it since the first reports came out from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) saying how bad things would get if minimal regulatory actions occurred.
Climate change is already happening and though some politicians want to say they don't believe it, capitalists' actions indicate that they do. It was enlightening the way the instructor explained why politicians (ahem some prominent Republicans) can deny the science of it. He said they most likely do believe it, but since the economy is in the toilet and fixing it seems almost hopeless, that to deny it exists can gain them political capital in the eyes of those who want any reason to bolster economic activity, even those that exacerbate the problem. Increased regulations means companies will have to spend more money on technologies and make the U.S. seem like a less friendly place to bring business. It's so funny that 'climate change' is such a hot topic buzzword these days. It's reality. The effects of which are already very evident, and the danger that they will accelerate exponentially very likely. As with other environmental issues, the ones who will suffer the most are poor people and ecosystems. I just read an article of how koalas' habitat is getting smaller and smaller in Queensland, and we all know the plight of the polar bears. Rich people can simply pick up and move somewhere else when their coastal homes are under water but the poor don't have that luxury. And animals can only move so far.
It's sad. Here's a great website the instructor cited: realclimate.org I made the hyperlink so that it takes you to a page where the common points of contention on climate change are addressed and discussed. The magic number is 2 degrees Celsius. Scientists agree that as long as the global temperature peaks at +2 degrees, the catastrophic effects can be avoided. The goal is for that peak to happen in 2020 and then have carbon emissions start declining rapidly after that, something that has never happened. The current plan since the latest talks with global leaders is that maybe the international community (and finally the U.S.) can all have a plan in place to finally address climate change by 2020. But all projections say that by then it will be too late.
There's always the chance that something miraculous can happen and change the course our planet is heading in, but let's be realistic in the meantime. We will see these catastrophic effects in our lifetime. I apologize for not beginning with a scientific primer on climate change before launching into the rest of my discussion, but please refer to the aforementioned website if you're interested. Or just google it, of course. Global warming is not just manifested in warmer temperatures, though that's a big part of it, it will affect water supplies, all sorts of stuff. Get informed. And I'd say be aware of what your local government is doing to prepare. You don't want to run out of water do you?
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