Hal 9000’s Recent Comments

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  Interestingly, I remember Colin Beaven pursuing, albeit briefly, a "sense of the Congress" resolution on the need to address greenhouse gas emissions through Grist comments during his experiment. While I didn't regularly follow Colin's blog my wife did and I had the sense that his experiment was more community-minded--at least in an internet/virtual community kind of way--than Ms. Kolbert's article suggests.

  However, an admittedly unfortunate side-effect of eco stunts is their use to support the delayer/denier meme, "If Al Gore is so worried about climate change, why hasn't he made radical lifestyle changes? Unless he sells his mansion and gives up air travel, climate change must not really be a problem." Of course, the logical fallacy of this, as Kolbert suggests, is obvious: one person's lifestyle change is the proverbial drop in the bucket. However, the delayer/denier crowd uses the backdrop of eco stunts to legitimize attacks on the personal virtues of environmental leaders and to distract the distractable from the messaging environmental leaders are trying to get out.

  We need strong leaders like Al Gore pushing for federal legislation and international treaties to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions significantly and rapidly because that's what the science demands (recognizing that some contributers here have concluded that western society is beyond redemption and that whatever incremental steps we take now, societal collapse is our ultimate destiny). Asceticism will never appeal to a broad cross-section of the American public and radical self-sacrifice is inconsequential as a motivator for broad-based action. As interesting and heartful as personal experiments with asceticism may be, they shouldn't distract us from the urgent and primary need, moral and scientific, for the United States to act now at the federal and international levels.

  On No Impact Man, Elizabeth Kolbert, and the civic sphere posted 2 months, 4 weeks ago 5 Responses

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  Suckers

  President Obama's campaign position papers staked out fairly liberal ground. Why not try to hold him to it by using the grass roots organization his campaign created? I think he's fundamentally a centrist and a pragmatist and, therefore, getting him to lead on climate change won't be easy. At the same time, I think he'd be responsive to popular sentiment in favor of a strong climate bill if such sentiment existed and could be channeled properly.On How awful does a bill have to get to lose your support? posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago 32 Responses

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  Campaign Promises

  Here's a brief summary of the position President Obama staked out on his website during the campaign: an economy-wide cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050; 100 percent auction to ensure that industries pay for every ton of emissions released rather than a system that gives some or all emission rights away for free; $15 billion per year of auction proceeds invested in the development of clean energy, energy efficiency, next generation biofuels (I know, not a Grist favorite), clean energy vehicles, and habitat restoration and efforts to assist fish and wildlife to adapt to climate change; remaining receipts used for rebates and transition relief to assure that families and communities are not adversely impacted by the transition to a new energy, low carbon economy. The people who elected President Obama need to hold him to this by nudging him to lead rather than follow and by providing political cover for the positions he has staked out.On How awful does a bill have to get to lose your support? posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago 32 Responses

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  Personal Carbon Allowance

  Is a personal carbon allowance tied to a cap based on the science a progressive answer? Lower income folks with smaller carbon footprints can sell the unused portions of their allowances to the wealthy who have greater footprints. It's being floated in the UK as the fairest approach to the poor but I can't yet imagine it gaining much traction here.On More on conservatives and carbon taxes posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago 15 Responses

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  Moving the Center

  President Obama ran as a centrist and as a post-partisan pragmatist. More importantly, however, he won the nomination and general election in large measure because of his superior grass roots campaign organization. With climate change last on the list of the American public's priorities, the only way to improve what is currently possible politically is to move the public in the correct direction. To do this, shouldn't large environmental and climate groups hire organizers from the Obama campaign to educate and form the volunteer communities that elected President Obama again?  On As meaningful as his presidency is, Obama will not act fast enough on the climate crisis posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago 11 Responses