“Frosty
the Snowman was a jolly happy soul, but he didn’t see it coming, ‘cause his eyes were made of coal...” Ohmygawd, Frosty the
next victim of global warming! What will we tell the grandchildren? That we let
the fossil fool Dick Cheney help his oil industry buddies squeeze another
decade of petrol profits? That we let our present Bush appoint a non-scientist oil
lobbyist crony to the EPA, where he gutted a 2003 EPA report on climate change,
then took a job with Exxon-Mobil. That our leaders regarded Sinter Klass as the greatest threat to keeping Christ in Christmas,
so they sunk Santa by melting the North Polar icecap? What *will* we tell the
grandchildren when the last polar bear dies at the zoo, in her refrigerated
cage?
The
confirmations of human-induced global warming and its impacts are piling up.
And those who still deny them appear ever more ridiculous (okay…I made up the
Santa part.) Still, there are some hilarious stories emerging from Washington
these days. Like the congressman who, in challenging Al Gore at a recent GW hearing,
said the earth couldn’t be warming because his home state was so cold this
winter, demonstrating not-uncommon ignorance about the chains of oceanic and
atmospheric currents that regulate our climate. As geophysicist Wally Broeker said, “The climate is a capricious beast, and we
are poking it with a sharp stick.” He went on to say, “It is about time we
stopped doing so.”
What does
it mean to “stop doing so”? More humor: the US automakers, riding the trough of
unprecedented losses resulting from their farsighted SUV strategy, whine about the
impossibility of meeting fuel economy standards in five years that China is
meeting today. Another knee-slapper: when someone characterizes
fossil energy conservation and replacement as the wearing of “hair shirts” or returning
to the fashionable Neanderthal life-style. Vast reductions are available just
by using existing technology to plug the leaks we built into our energy systems
when we thought energy was cheap, even if we keep our big cars n’ houses
(funny, I don’t remember feely shirt-scratchy or cave-bound in the 1200 square
foot tract house my Dad, Mom and Sis and I shared in my youth.) As further
evidence, I cite nohairshirts.com (cool technology) and ecobabes.org (beautiful
living), both viewed on a laptop computer using less than 5% of this sunny
afternoon’s output of my rooftop solar panels.
These
changes involve personal decisions, about behavior, spending and voting. The best
place to start is a viewing of An Inconvenient Truth. Even if you think you
know this stuff, see it. AIT puts it in a tasty, digestible package --
absolutely convincing, unexpectedly humorous, and ending with a great “what to
do now” list. Thanks in part to AIT, we are witnessing a rolling snowball of
support for climate protection in the big-business community, and the
Democratic congress is advancing on the legislative front.
But too
much of the public and Congress remains be convinced that saving our climate –
our planet -- is *this* generation’s rendezvous with destiny; that we can do it
while creating new sustainable industries and keeping oil dollars out of the
hands of terrorists and petro-authoritarian states.
To these noble ends, join the fun on April 14th, when Petaluma unites
with over a thousand other communities in every state for the Step It Up 2007
National Day of Climate Action (stepitup2007.org). We’re
asking Congress to “Step it up: cut carbon emissions 80% by 2050.” In Petaluma,
we’ll gather at 1PM, Walnut Park, where we’ll mark off the Petaluma River water
level across the range of possible GW-induced rises in oceanic sea level. Then
we’ll hoof up and back Main Street in our aquatic gear. For more info, see http://events.stepitup2007.org/events/show/701 or call 765-9969.
Local
climate protection activist Ellen Bicheler asked our
City Council, in preparing our new General Plan, to observe the Native American
concern for the next seven generations. Given the speed at which global warming
could transform our town and our world, I’d be happy, for now, with just two or
three. That would be something to tell the grandchildren.