If there's one issue for President Obama to stake his entire
second term on, it's the climate.
Much of the nation is
still suffering the worst drought in half a century, which began in 2012.
Consumers are just now beginning to feel its effects in the form of higher food
prices.
Texas suffered another catastrophic drought in 2011. Full recovery from Superstorm Sandy will take years for the hardest-hit communities.
Texas suffered another catastrophic drought in 2011. Full recovery from Superstorm Sandy will take years for the hardest-hit communities.
Tackling the climate
crisis will be a battle. Powerful and entrenched interests don’t want the
country to stop mining, drilling, and burning fossil fuels. Corporations don’t
want to change their practices, even if it means their CEOs’ grandchildren will
enjoy better lives.
These powerful
industries will try to fool the American people into believing that any action
we take in greenhouse gas emissions will stifle economic growth and curtail our
freedom and liberty. But the recent weather extremes show us the truth.
Our freedom, liberty,
economy, and safety are all in much greater jeopardy from hurricanes, droughts,
floods, and other natural disasters than they are from well-designed, sensible
measures to prevent a climate crisis.
Ask a New Jersey
resident which is worse: Superstorm Sandy or retrofitting buildings with better
insulation and solar panels? Ask a farmer if he’d prefer repeating this year’s
crop-killing drought or adopting new conservation methods on his farm.
They say an ounce of
prevention is worth a pound of cure. In this case, millions of dollars of
prevention are worth billions of dollars of cure. The U.S. Senate has
authorized a $60 billion hurricane recovery package to clean up the damage from
Sandy and reduce the risk of future flooding.
Our leaders are
haggling over spending priorities and taxes because they believe the nation
can’t afford to go over a “fiscal cliff.” We must ask ourselves whether we can
afford the damage we stand to suffer from more frequent and more extreme
natural disasters in the future. This is the cost of doing nothing about the
climate.
Germany produces enough energy from solar panels to
equal the power generated by 20 nuclear power plants operating at full
capacity. Europe’s largest economy aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions
by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. But Germany is only responsible for
less than three percent of global emissions. Even if that country were to cut
its levels down to zero, it would never have much of an impact on the world as
a whole.
The United States, on
the other hand, produces almost 20 percent of the world’s emissions. We unleash
one out of every five carbon atoms in the atmosphere. If Washington and our
business leaders decide to do something about that, we could make an enormous
difference in the fate of the entire planet.
The climate crisis
isn’t just some hippie tree-hugger environmentalist problem. It’s a matter of
food security too, because our climate impacts our ability to grow food. It’s
an economic problem, because you better believe that frequent, catastrophic
natural disasters will pummel the economy. And it’s a matter of national
security. A planet full of climate refugees from poor nations could destabilize
governments around the world.
So, Obama, you’ll
never have to face another presidential election, but you do have to worry
about what will be written about you in the history books. Why not devote this
term to doing something truly epic?
Use every bit of power
your office affords you. Don’t expect the Republicans to compromise, and don’t
try to meet them in the middle. If there’s one issue to stake your entire
second term on, it’s the climate.
OtherWords columnist
Jill Richardson is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food
System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It. OtherWords.org