Taking the Long Term View

I am not going to try to pretend to fully understand the financial meltdown that is hitting Wall Street and the rest of the nation. I'll leave that to the pundits. But I do know that this nation seems trapped in the vice grip of short term thinking. And it is short term thinking, with an emphasis on profit or loss today(!) that appears to be at the heart of this recent calamity, plus a lot of other financial implosions. Unfortunately, it is this very same short thinking mentality that prevents us from solving our climate challenge.

Climate change is the deadliest of problems for Americans because it hits at our biggest weakness - inability to confront a challenge until it is right upon us. The build up of carbon in our atmosphere occurs slowly over time, but once it hits a certain tipping point, we are doomed to catastrophic consequences in our ecosystem and hence in our entire way of life. We can't see the carbon coming out of the tailpipes of our cars and power plants. It's hard to measure in a way that people can comprehend. Unlike the movie, "The Day After Tomorrow," there is not likely to be a single massive event that everyone can point to as evidence that the climate has passed the tipping point. So, how do we solve a problem that is long-term and not visible, or easily understood by the average person?

Long term thinking. We have to make investments in clean energy, in energy efficiency, and yes, in adaptation, today with the thought that these investments may not pay off for several years. We need to break the chains of short term thinking. Maybe the Wall Street meltdown is enough of a wake up call. Maybe our leadership will finally understand that we need policies in place that go beyond the next election cycle. We need fundamental change that will last a generation. The beauty of investments in a clean energy infrastructure are that they provide jobs today. They put this country back to work. In the short term, that will provide a needed lift. In the long term, the clean energy economy will solve climate change.

The Big Issue

With less than 60 days left until the election, we are about to witness an intense barrage of political talk from both parties. At the conventions in Denver and Minneapolis, we heard hours and hours of talk about each candidate's vision for the future of this country. I am not here to take sides in the election (you can check out my facebook page to see that!), but I am taking the side of fighting climate change now, not in ten or twenty years. Now.

One could be excused for thinking that we have reached the tipping point in the United States regarding the need to fight climate change with clean energy. After all, the past four years has seen every major magazine (Time, Newsweek, etc), newspaper and broadcast news program prominently feature global climate change. Al Gore's movie won the Academy Award, was a huge hit with millions of viewers. The former VP and the international scientific group that coordinates studies on global climate change won the Nobel Peace Prize. Hurricane Katrina showed people the very real danger of climate change. The Polar Bear is being listed as a threatened species from Arctic ice loss. Executives from some of the largest corporations in the country have written and spoken repeatedly about the need to address carbon emissions.

In short, it seemed the time for action had finally arrived.

Thus, my total disappointment and frankly, shock, that global climate change apparently disappeared completely from one party's convention. There was not a single mention of the need or a plan to fight global climate change by the GOP's nominees during their acceptance speech at their convention. It's as if the last four years didn't happen and we are back to the bad old days of 2000, when global climate change was an issue way down the priority list at best. The Sunday morning talk shows and the political pundits on television seemingly don't bring up the issue of global climate change when talking to the candidates or their surrogates.

This issue is too important to have one party own it. We need all major American parties to work together now on solutions. There are Republicans like Arnold Schwarzenegger and others who are showing amazing leadership. We as a country need to ensure that these kinds of leaders have a seat at their own party's table, and that we all work together to solve this challenge.

Take action - write a letter to the Editor of your paper, contact both Presidential campaigns, let people know that global climate change is the biggest challenge of our generation. Let them know that you demand action, and that you want to hear their plans for how to create a cleaner, greener future. Don't let the media or the politicians off the hook. This is the big issue of our time. Silence is not an acceptable answer.