The LOST two decades for attack on Climate Change!! #4

HOT - Living through the next Fifty Years

by Mark Herstgaard

Continued

part unrepentantly-for years. Why should anyone still listen to
them? But the media and other public outlets continue to give
platforms to deniers, generally without challenging their claims.
Media companies also gladly accept millions of dollars' worth of
advertising from energy companies such as Chevron, which in 2009
ran ads that blamed individual consumers but not corporate
agendas for carbon emissions.

Deniers have a right to express their opinions, but it should not
be an unfettered right. The U.S. government prohibits tobacco
companies from running cigarette ads on television - why
shouldn't it prohibit companies from running misleading ads about
climate change? And if deniers wish to testify before Congress,
lobby government agencies, appear in the media, or otherwise
influence public policy and debate, their audiences should first
be reminded of their track record on the issue and the deniers
should be forced to defend their unscientific ranting. We don't
allow tobacco companies and their apologists to decide public
health policy; we shouldn't let fossil fuel companies and their
dupes decide climate policy.

True, some companies that initially denied global warming claim
to have turned over a new leaf, but few have actually done so.
British Petroleum, which was one of the first defectors from the
Global Climate Coalition, in 1997, later rebranded itself BP, as
in "Beyond Petroleum," to signal its new high-mindedness. The
company has boasted of spending $8 billion a year to research and
develop low-carbon energy sources, but it spends twenty times
that much on traditional oil and gas development. Meanwhile, its
obsession with maximizing profits led BP to cut corners on
safety, as was horrifyingly demonstrated by the deep-sea gushes
that released tens of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of
Mexico in 2010.

In 2008, even ExxonMobil said it would stop funding denier
activities, but it didn't. With the coming to power of President
Barack Obama, deniers shifted their critique of climate change
from science to economics, with ExxonMobil leading the way. In
the opening months of Obama's presidency, Democratic congressmen
Henry Waxman of California and Edward Markey of Massachusetts
collaborated with the White House to introduce the American Clean
Energy and Security Act, which soon became the leading piece of
climate legislation on Capitol Hill. The bill aimed to reduce
U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by a mere 4 percent from 1990
levels by 2020--well short of the IPCC's call for 25 to 40
percent reductions, much less Schellnhuber's proposed 100 percent
cuts. But even Waxman-Markey's goal was too ambitious for
ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, and other fossil
fuel interests. ExxonMobil funded a study by the Heritage
Foundation, a right-wing Washington think tank, which claimed
that passing the Waxman-Markey bill would cost millions of jobs,
drive energy prices through the roof, and undermine U.S.
competitiveness in the international marketplace. Gasoline
prices, the study charged, would jump to $4 a gallon. But when
API trumpeted this eye-popping claim to the media, it neglected
to mention that the Heritage study had been funded by ExxonMobil.
Nor did it acknowledge that, even according to the Heritage
study, gas prices would not hit $4 a gallon until the year 2035.
ExxonMobil and most other giant fossil fuel corporations are
dinosaurs that belong to the twentieth-century energy order. Left
to their own devices, they will not abandon fossil fuels anytime
soon, certainly not soon enough to avoid catastrophic global
warming. So they cannot be left to their own devices.
To the ordinary person, changing the behavior of some of the
richest corporations in the world may seem an impossible task,
but in fact there are concrete recent examples of organized
citizens doing just that-you just don't hear about them on most
TV news shows (perhaps because the shows are often financed by
the same corporations' advertising). In 2007, a network of
citizens' groups across the United States set out to block coal
and electric companies from building new coal-fired power plants.
Loosely coordinated by the Sierra Club, the Beyond Coal campaign
employed a variety of tactics, including legal challenges, public
protests, and appeals to elected officials. It worked with a
broad array of interest groups, from health professionals worried
about air pollution's effects to farmers and ranchers, business
and church groups. By June 2010, the campaign had succeeded in
getting 129 new coal-fired power plants either canceled or
prohibited. Another 51 plants faced legal challenges. Of the 231
plants that had been planned as of 2000, the Sierra Club
estimated that only 25 were likely to be permitted for operation.
Meanwhile, as Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute
reported, Wall Street had downgraded coal company stocks, and
prominent national politicians, including Senate majority leader
Harry Reid and the governors of California, Florida, Michigan,
and Washington, had expressed their opposition to building more
coal plants.

Impressive as such direct action can be, however, it will not
suffice. Stopping climate-destructive behavior is only half the
battle. If we are to decarbonize our societies rapidly enough to
avoid catastrophic climate change, we must also fight for things.
We must push for rapid deployment of low-carbon alternatives, not
just in the energy sector but in agriculture, construction, and
across the entire economy, in rich and poor countries alike. This
will require fundamental changes in government policies, many of
which now perversely encourage climate-destructive behavior.
The rules that govern energy, agriculture, and other economic
sectors will not be changed simply because reform is necessary to
preserve a livable planet. Genuine reform in all spheres of
public policy is usually the result of governments being
pressured from below by determined, mobilized citizens. The media
and even some environmental groups often give the impression that
the best way for people to fight climate change is through
individual lifestyle changes-recycle more, drive less, eat less
meat. Lifestyle adjustments are important, but the real key to
shifting our civilization's climate trajectory is to change the
governmental policies that shape the decisions that all of us,
consumers and corporations alike, make. That means that politics
must be committed.
..........

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