Okay, so I admit that the orange plunderer-in-thief’s nomination of science-denying, oil-soaked, climate change-causing polluter Scott Pruitt to head the EPA gave me a little extra acid reflux in addition to what has become our normal daily dose of gasps and gulps. I think anyone who cares about the planet can grok the setback this portends for all kinds of environmental progress we’ve made in the past eight years, with the challenging-enough-as-it-is uphill battle of averting the worst effects of climate change at the top of the “oh shit” list.
Clik here to view.
After the initial sucker punch accompanied by a text message from my friend at EPA sending me his soon to be boss’ little whinefest about being so horribly oppressed by clean power, I collected what’s left of my brain cells in these stupefying times and started thinking about the long game. While a fox like Pruitt in the henhouse certainly poses a serious risk not only to the hard-fought progress that has been made on the federal level in regards to clean energy and climate change but perhaps the very idea of environmental protection (though my gut tells me there will be some defense mechanisms at work to try to eschew the worst possible scenarios), the U.S. Government is far from being the lone cowboy that can make or break the planet all on its own.
It is powerful for sure, but especially in regard to the intricacies and complexities of the various ecological crises we are facing around the planet, it’s always been questionable in my mind as to exactly what share of the solution a concentrated, inflexible, top-down power structure like that represents.
That’s why Dave Roberts’ piece Cities are central to any serious plan to tackle climate change over at Vox resonated with me. In it, Roberts argues that “now that the US federal government is getting out of the climate protection business, at least for four years, subnational actors are more important than ever.”
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As cities are not only “responsible for about 75 percent of global energy-related CO2 emissions” but “first in line to feel the effects of climate change,” he accurately points out that it’s on those subnational levels where the most impactful battles for a livable planet must take place. In other words, if you create local infrastructure that allows what will be 70% of the world’s population in 2050 to live and move about more efficiently and sustainably, you are significantly reducing the demand for more fossil fuels in the first place.
Just as the coal industry isn’t coming back due to shrinking international markets coupled with rapid growth of renewable energy demand across the globe, even a raging fossil fuel lover at the helm of the EPA can’t fulfill his dirty fantasies when the demand from the most populous places in this country and pretty much everywhere else in the world is going to be increasingly for bike lanes, solar roofs, walkability, wind turbines and public transit instead of more oil and coal.
Clik here to view.
In what may come as a surprise to Donnie, Scottie and the rest of their Fossil Fools is that a global group of 86 affiliated cities (including 12 American cities including Seattle, Washington, DC, New York, Chicaco, LA, SF, Boston, Houston) representing 650 million people and a quarter of the world’s GDP have already laid out and are following a roadmap to decarbonization through the C40 initiative. To stay within the more ambitious 1.5 degree temperature increase trajectory that countries agreed to in Paris last year, C40 cities have pledged to cut their current average per capita emissions by almost half by 2030. What’s more, the biggest reductions must come from high carbon cities in the developed world and actions taken in the next four years will determine whether 1.5 degrees will even be possible.
In other words, every major metropolitan area in America is gearing up BIGLY right at this very moment to reduce their need for fossil fuels. And to be clear, We The People living in those cities who represent the popular vote in America have been and will continue to do everything in our power to speed up the transition to a post-carbon world.
Sure, it would be great to have a federal government that’s at least not standing in the way of — much less actively sabotage — progress, but people in cities everywhere are going to continue to ramp up our efforts in making sure that there will never be a market for what Trump and Pruitt envision in their feverish fossil dreams.
Clik here to view.
