[SustainableTompkins] Are Big Enviro Groups "Holding Back" Anti-Warming Movement?

Tue Mar 20 15:00:44 PST 2007

Are Big Enviro Groups "Holding Back" Anti-Warming  Movement? 
By Megan Tady  
The NewStandard  
Monday 19 March 2007  
While the US government and some corporations are finally  acknowledging 
global climate change, some critics say partnering with such  forces may "tame" 
the movement's goals and strategies.
The heat is on environmental groups and politicians  to churn out proposals 
for stabilizing the planet's rising temperatures, but  some environmentalists 
say existing plans to cool climate change are timid.  Their criticism reveals a 
rift between two approaches: preserving the American  way of life at the 
expense of quicker solutions, or changing the structure of US  society to counter 
an unprecedented threat.  
The dominant approach to human-induced global warming  revolves around slow 
but dramatic reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions by  mid-century. The 
mainstream environmental community, along with a handful of  politicians and 
corporations, is calling for various regulations and  market-based actions to reduce 
greenhouse-gas output by 60 to 80 percent over  the next 43 years.  
This goal is based on what some scientists have  estimated the United States 
needs to do to help the world limit the rise in  global temperatures to less 
than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial  levels. The goal presupposes 
that some climate change is inevitable. In 2006, a  government-commissioned 
report in the United Kingdom called the "Stern Review"  said that the "worst 
impacts of climate change can be substantially reduced" by  cutting greenhouse 
emissions to meet the two-degree goal.  
Even if climate warming is kept to two-degrees or  lower, the report said 
there will still be "serious impacts" on "human life and  on the environment." 
For instance, the report predicted the disappearance of  drinking water in the 
South American Andes and parts of Southern Africa and the  Mediterranean, up to 
10 million people affected by yearly coastal flooding, and  10 to 40 percent 
of species on Earth going extinct. "They're really holding the  whole movement 
back by setting their sights so low."  
Noting that "2050 is a long time away," David Morris,  vice president of the 
Institute for Local Self-Reliance, said he wants to see  action right away. 
"So what I want to know is, what are [environmental groups  and politicians] 
going to do tomorrow?"  
Morris and others who want to see more-immediate and  deeper action fear such 
incremental changes are downplaying the urgency of the  situation. "They're 
really holding the whole movement back by setting their  sights so low," said 
Brian Tokar, Biotechnology Project director at the  Institute for Social 
Ecology in Vermont.  
Market-Based Solutions  
The basic premise behind long-term plans for  emissions reduction is that 
moving away from a fossil-fuel-based energy system  will take time because market 
forces will take a while to make renewable  technology prices competitive.  
"It's still possible that we can avoid dangerous  climate change and cut 
emissions in half by mid-century through a process that  doesn't require an 
immediate shutdown of all of our coal-powered plants," said  John Coequyt, 
Greenpeace energy policy analyst. "We can still do this in a  phased - and as a result 
- economically beneficial manner."  
"There's no reason we can't get there within the next  five to ten years with 
significant funding."  
In January, Greenpeace published what it called a  "blueprint for solving 
global warming." The plan calls for 80 percent of  electricity to be produced 
from renewable energy, 72 percent less carbon dioxide  emissions, and for the 
US's oil use to be cut in half - all by 2050.  
The timeline is based on removing the market barriers  to green energy, while 
making dirty energy more expensive. It does not call for  significant public 
funding of renewable energy or government investments in new  energy 
infrastructure or public transportation.  
Tokar dismissed the 2050 timeline, saying the US  could cut greenhouse-gas 
emissions more quickly if pressure groups took a  different stance and instead 
called for immediate government intervention.  
"The only thing that can change it is a significant  investment in public 
funds to really jumpstart the industry," Tokar said.  "There's no reason we can't 
get there within the next five to ten years with  significant funding."  
Coequyt of Greenpeace agreed with Tokar that the  United States could reach 
emissions-reduction goals sooner if not for the  perceived need to depend 
primarily on the market to make renewable energy the  best choice for consumers.  
"That's definitely the case; we could see faster  action," Coequyt said. 
"It's hard for us to be a lot faster than what we put in  our scenario, but if the 
government made it a true national priority, I don't  think there's any doubt 
that we could go faster."  
Despite this admission, Greenpeace is not pushing for  the government to get 
heavily involved in funding and distributing renewable  energy, but instead 
promotes weaker reforms like removing subsidies for  fossil-fuel industries and 
forcing prices to reflect the actual costs of  environmental damage. To reduce 
market barriers faced by clean-energy  technology, Greenpeace advocates 
offering producers of sustainable power  priority access to the electricity grid 
and reducing the governmental red tape  that inhibits their startup.  
"None of [the solutions presented by mainstream  groups] address the power 
structures. None of them address corporations. None of  them address a lack of 
democracy."  
"What would be the other option?" asked Coequyt.  "Mandate that every house 
has to have solar panels on it and that coal plants  have to shut down?"  
According to Tokar, Greenpeace and other groups  should be calling for the 
funding of public transportation and subsidies to make  housing more energy 
efficient. "We can do all of these things immediately," he  said.  
Dissidents also rebuke the mainstream environmental  community for not 
pushing hard for a less-energy-intensive lifestyle in the  United States.  
Coequyt acknowledged Greenpeace is not yet urging  Americans to fundamentally 
change the way they live to fight climate change.  "What we're saying right 
now is that we have the technology, and we can reduce  our energy through 
efficiency use so much, and we can do it without having to  completely change our 
lifestyle," he said. "But it is certainly possible that in  the near future we 
may have to have a more-urgent call."  
But for some environmentalists, making the urgent  call for lifestyle changes 
- from something as tame as driving less to more  radical changes like 
adopting a vegetarian, localized diet - should go hand in  hand with the push for 
larger, system-wide greenhouse-gas reductions and energy  efficiency. They say 
radically scaling back consumption is needed to ensure  global environmental 
sustainability and equity.  
Mark Hertsgaard, an environmental journalist, said  that to avoid 
"irrevocably cooking" the planet, "we cannot continue this  resource-intensive life." 
Given a rising global population and unmet energy  needs of poorer countries, he 
said: "At the end of the day, we also have to cut  back on our appetite. 
That's just arithmetic."  
Morris, of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance,  said environmentalists 
need to start pushing large-scale changes into the public  discourse. "We need to 
start asking for the kind of sacrifice that will be  required," he said.  
Political Disconnect  
Another plan published by the United States Climate  Action Partnership 
(US-CAP), a coalition of corporations and environmental  groups, calls for 
legislation to rapidly enact a "mandatory emission-reduction  pathway," with an 
ultimate goal of 60 to 80 percent carbon reductions by 2050.  
The partnership includes the Natural Resources  Defense Council, 
Environmental Defense, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change  and the World Resources 
Institute. They are joined by nine corporations -  including DuPont, BP America 
and General Electric.  
Vicki Arroyo, who is with the Pew Center, said their  proposal is 
"ambitious."  
But, Arroyo said, the plan "can't start today"  because passing legislation 
takes time. "There really is no way in our system to  move any faster than 
what's being recommended here," Arroyo said.  
Many of the proposals reflect the need to court the  Bush administration and 
politicians, who have refused to call for tough measures  on climate change.  
Bill McKibben, an environmentalist organizing  national demonstrations 
against climate change with the new "Step It Up"  campaign, likened the United 
States's stance on global warming to an "ocean  liner heading in the other 
direction entirely." He said, "[Eighty percent  reductions by 2050] seems to be at the 
moment the outer limit of what's  politically possible."  
For author and radical environmentalist Derrick  Jensen, the obstacles to 
faster changes presented by the US political system,  illustrate the need for 
more-holistic measures.  
"None of [the solutions presented by mainstream  groups] address the power 
structures," Jensen said. "None of them address  corporations. None of them 
address a lack of democracy.... The environmental  groups are not questioning this 
larger mentality that's killing the planet."  

____________________________________
Megan Tady is a staff journalist with the  NewStandard. 

----------------------------------------------------
Gay  Nicholson, Ph.D. 

607-533-7312 (home office)
607-279-6618  (cell)

1 Maple Avenue
Lansing, NY  14882
gaynicholson at aol.com

Sustainable Tompkins 
Program  Coordinator 
w_ww.sustainabletompkins.org_ (http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/) 

Southern Tier Energy$mart Communities
Regional  Coordinator
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County
615 Willow  Ave., Ithaca, NY 14850
agn1 at cornell.edu

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