The Carbon Wars Begin

Whole Earth,  Summer, 2001  by Kert Davies

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IT'S TIME TO HIT THE STREETS

We have no choice. There is no refuge for the weak or faint of heart. These are grave times for environmental geopolitics. Every one of us can and must work and fight to push out the offenders and correct the course.

We are in deep trouble if the planet's assembled scientists are even half-right about global warming. All other environmental dilemmas pale by comparison to this one. The ice-caps are going and the coral reefs are crying out. By 2025 or 2050, the ecological din will be deafening. By then it may be too late to avert a climate crash. There's a large likelihood of events breaking out that no scientist could ever predict, of events occurring that are beyond our comprehension.

President Bush copped out on his campaign promise to regulate carbon pollution. This broken promise was a serious political miscalculation that will leave another lasting stain on the Bush family legacy. History will mark his efforts to destroy the global warming treaty, and with it the work of countless individuals, and millions of hours of negotiation, by over 180 nations, for over a dozen years.

The coal and oil henchmen working with Cheney and Bush will also pay a price. As will their cronies in Congress. The Toxic Texan will try to recover by slapping cosmetic Band-Aids on the damage done, but the wound will fester.

There is a bright side. Bush's retrograde actions have sparked the global debate we have long needed. George W. Bush has singlehandedly educated the world on this issue. His arrogance did more good than Al Gore's Earth in. the Balance. He raised consciousness faster than scores of paid enviros have managed in years. Front-page stories around the world have now focused the ire of the planet on the hapless USA.

The London Independent's front page recently screamed: "George W. Bush: Polluter of the Free World!"-Ordinary people who imagined that the planet's interests, and their own, were safeguarded under the Clinton-Gore administration are coming out of the woodwork.

Here's a sign of the depth of the dust Bush has kicked up. In a recent Time magazine dedicated to global warming, the editors published an open letter to Bush expressing the urgency of the climate issue. Among the signers were Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, John Glenn, Walter Cronkite, George Soros, Jane Goodall, Edward O. Wilson, Stephen Hawking, and J. Craig Venter. Not a bad crew to have on our side.

EVERY DROP COUNTS

The technology exists to squeeze every drop of oil and gas out of the Earth. Americans can chop the tops off of every coal mountain nationwide. The hardware is not the limit here, but there are limits. Carbon dioxide is about 30 percent above historically measured "normal" levels already, and global warming is already kicking in. On our present energy path, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will easily double its natural levels in coming decades, and it might triple or quadruple them. This prospect is completely unprecedented. It sends computer forecasts of the planet's climate spinning out of control.

If carbon dioxide is "not a pollutant," as the Bush Administration now claims, then that term has no meaning. Carbon dioxide is no longer a "natural" substance when it is being pumped into the sky at millions of tons per day. Salt is natural too, but throw a little bit into your goldfish bowl and watch Swimmy go belly up.

Bush blandly denies the scientific evidence of human-induced global warming, but what are the rest of us to do about that constant barrage of weird weather, with bizarre and dangerous storms, altered seasons, shifting ice pack, and rising seas? Scientists worldwide are being very frank about these ongoing changes: they know this is just the beginning. We'll see far greater disruption of our climate as global warming progresses. We'll suffer from spreading disease and pests, from increased intensity of hurricanes and El Nino, and from damage to ecosystems in every corner of the world. Where are the people supposed to hide from that reality? Inside the West Wing? In ExxonMobil's Houston headquarters?

THE AMERICAN WAY

Dick Cheney's carbon-energy goon squad wants to drill in every corner of the nation. They'll build thousands of sooty power plants and breathe foul life into the dying nuclear power industry. There is nothing new or clean about oil, coal, and nukes.

The tactics here are transparent. First, Energy Secretary Abraham launched his spin job to panic the populace with a looming and fraudulent energy crisis. Next we'll see a summer of brownouts and inflated Republican rhetoric, amid simmering Greenhouse heat waves. Then Dick Cheney, emergency energy plans in tow, will hurl himself into the masses of anti-nuclear protesters.

The ludicrous Bush-Cheney campaign to drill and despoil the Arctic has met with strong opposition in the Senate. This smash-and-grab raid to inflate Big Oil's already historic profits has inspired public contempt. Bush will change tactics and spin his necessary capitulation as a concession to the greens. He'll then require "concessions" from the other side. But we know better.