Features » April 13, 2007

Global Warming: Dim Bulbs, Bright Lights

By Joel Bleifuss

People who want to save the Earth from the ravages of global warming face a perennial problem: How do they translate their concerns into actions that will create real change?

One barrier standing in the way of meaningful action is fuzzy-headed thinking on the part of those truly concerned about global warming. So worried are these activists, that their solution to the climate change problem is to marshal legions of Americans to change light bulbs, buy a Prius, or do any other number of helpful, but, in the big picture, not too significant feel-good actions.

For a full accounting of such a list go to the Alliance for Climate Protection Web site (www.allianceforclimateprotection.org), the nonprofit organization chaired by Al Gore. There you will learn: “What You Can Do,” or more precisely, how your “own actions can also help reduce this threat.” For example, the Web site advises:

Take Personal Action: You can reduce your personal contribution to global warming and set an example for others by using less gasoline, natural gas, oil, and electricity in your daily life. … Ask each member of your household to take responsibility for a different electricity-saving action. …

Encourage Community Action: … Encourage your local electric utilities to promote energy efficiency and the use of clean, renewable energy sources. …

Influence U.S. Action: The United States needs to play a leadership role in addressing global warming, and you can help make this happen. … Tell government officials that you want them to push industry to protect the future health of the environment by reducing carbon emissions.

These suggestions are all well and good. However, what is needed at this time of the global warming crisis is a movement that vigorously challenges the status quo, one that does more than advise citizens to “ask” members of their families to reduce energy use, or “encourage” electric utility corporations to be more efficient or, “tell” their elected representatives to “push” industry.

People, of course, should do what they can to reduce global warming. But they should never be made to think that their individual actions are the root cause of the problem or the ultimate solution.

Take the Civil Rights movement. Yes, personal reflection and individual change had its place, but can you imagine Martin Luther King telling people to “ask” their school boards to integrate the public schools, or “encourage” corporations not to discriminate, or “tell” their elected leaders to “push” legislatures in the South to do away with Jim Crow laws?

No. Political movements work when they mobilize a huge number of like-minded individuals and then use the ballot box to elect leaders who will change laws.

Somehow, this is something progressives have long failed to understand. In the early ’80s, the Freeze Movement galvanized the nation against the threat posed by the nuclear arms race, which at the time the Reagan administration was busy ratcheting up. However, because the movement was largely funded by 501(c)3 organizations that by law cannot get involved in electoral politics, the Freeze Movement concentrated on educating the public about the dangers of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) rather than mobilizing people to vote the Cold Warriors out of Congress.

Similarly today, the movement against global warming, funded as it is by 501(c)3s like Gore’s outfit, appears reticent to play political hard ball.

The corporations that profit from the industrial processes that create global warming have no such compunction. They will never willingly sacrifice short-term profits for the long-term common good. And they well understand that Congress could force them to alter their behavior through a combination of legislative directives and economic incentives.

For example, Congress could require that all new vehicles sold in the United States meet minimum fuel efficiency and carbon emission standards by a set date, legislate that all new constructions projects be “green,” or heavily invest in mass transit and reconstruct the national rail network. If lawmakers took such initiatives, the United States would drastically reduce the size of its carbon footprint.

Understandably, the industries that benefit from the status quo oppose such measures. To prevent change and the costs associated with it, corporations fund think tanks, hire PR firms and pay lobbyists. They also fund the campaigns of those Representatives and Senators whose support they need to ensure no law passes that would adversely affect their industries.

As the chart at the left indicates, and as legislative history bears out, the GOP is underwritten by the industries culpable for global warming. Yet Democrats, while the favored recipients of support from environmental policy organizations, are not beyond the influence of big money.

In the House, a squabble has over about who will set the Democrats’ climate change agenda. In January, Speaker Pelosi established the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and named Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), an environmentalist, as chair.

Whoops! This select committee did not sit too well with Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), who chairs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Dingell loves the auto industry, earning the moniker “Tailpipe Johnny” in the ’80s for his opposition to legislation dealing with acid rain. Another unhappy camper, Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), chairs the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality. He was concerned that the select committee might do something that would make his friends in the coal industry unhappy. According to the Washington Post, Boucher threatened to form an alliance with Republicans to block any legislation that Markey’s committee would put forward.

Dingell, who has been in the House since 1955, and Boucher won a temporary reprieve when Pelosi gave them a deadline of June to come up with legislation to address global warming.

Don’t hold your breath. According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, since the 2000 election cycle, Dingell and Boucher have been the top Democratic recipients in the House of money from the “energy/natural resources” sector of the economy (the electric utilities, mining, and oil and gas industries), raking in $862,000 and $773,000 respectively.

And what can $1,635,000 buy on Capitol Hill? Inaction.

Last year, Rep. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) introduced the Keep America Competitive Global Warming Policy Act of 2006, which sought to “establish a market-based system to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and to promote advanced energy research and technology development and deployment.” In October, Udall tried to get Dingell to look at his bill, but he would have none of it. As Dingell told the Washington Post, “If I thought it was a good idea, I would have already done it.”

Boucher has a similar commitment to do-nothingism. On Nov. 28, 2005, he spoke at the Western Business Roundtable, Summit of the West. The American Coal Council Web site reported that Boucher and Pat Michaels, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, told conference attendees “that the economic dislocation of policies such as Kyoto would ensure they would not achieve substantial greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Instead, they argued that voluntary actions with targeted incentives would accomplish more reductions and encourage the adoption of more efficient technologies.” In other words, any meaningful action to address global warming was off the table.

On March 7, Boucher chaired a hearing titled, “Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Contributing to a Warming of the Planet?” Gee, let’s ponder the question—and then refer it to committee.

In the Senate, things look a little brighter with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) replacing Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) as head of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works—though Inhofe has promised to filibuster any global “big lie” warming legislation that gets to the floor.

In short, while Congress is now in the hands of Democrats, that shift in power does not necessarily mean that vital issues like climate change will be adequately addressed. What’s needed is a movement against global warming willing to play political hardball.

Yes, bless Gore for making the inconvenient truth about climate change part of the public dialogue. But if the new movement against global warming is going to get Congress to act, it will have to do more than pose an inconvenience to the likes of Dingell, Boucher and Inhofe. It will have to work to kick the bums out.

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• Reader Comments

  In many ways “global warming” and whatever its causes, possible
  solutions, etc. etc. is beside the point.  The issues of finite resource
  depletion and a population growth that has overshot the renewable
  carrying capacity of what is a limited system (the planet, that is) 
  are far more important to have people fundamentally
  understand.  Global warming is already being wholly embraced now as a marketing
  ‘opportunity,’ and though more and more people are becoming aware and
  accepting of it’s reality, it is coming to be understood as something we
  will solve through the magic of ‘technology’ and by simply altering
  our consumer choices to ‘greener’ ones.  Without understanding the
  mathematics of growth and a system of limited resources there won’t
  be acceptance of the unavoidable conclusion that the solution to our
  problems is “less.”  Less consumption, less economic activity, less
  people, less travel, etc.  Even if global warming wasn’t an issue at
  all we’d still be coming up against all the same fundamental problems
  of overpopulation, environmental poisoning, resource depletion. 
  Personally I don’t see how the tools of our current global system of
  activity and interaction are possibly going to even attempt to solve
  the problems we face when the very ‘toolbox’ is built of the
  impossible notion of perpetual growth.

  All of which is a windy way of saying global warming is a symptom, 
  not the disease, and I completely agree that the recent change to Democratic control of Congress is practically meaningless vis a vis real action toward global warming.  I firmly believe that focusing on educating people about the fundamental issues stated above (which in fact are ultimately the underlying causes of global warming) rather than the potential horrors of global warming will be a more effective means of inciting action.

  Posted by Honeychrome on Apr 14, 2007 at 1:32 PM

  I’m not sure about your cynacism about the Democrats. Al Gore is a Democrat. At the very least the Democrats are mentally present in the 21st century enough to respect the scientific research behind the claims regarding global warming. They are far more likely to do something than those who are (a) in the pocket of the big corporate energy interests and (b) tending toward a medieval view of modern science.

  Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Apr 14, 2007 at 4:28 PM

  Honeychrome,
  Yes, we have a potential problem of finite resources and virtually no limit to population and consumption. However, so far natural and man-made disasters have kept the overall problem from becoming critical.
  When I was young, over population was the “Global Warming Scare” of the day. By 2000 it was said we would be unable to feed the huge numbers. As with all crises this is partly true. There are areas which can’t be fed. Mostly because of human intervention preventing humanitarian aid — not due to a total population or lack of food. As usual the human factor prevails.
  As you pointed out — the assumption that it can be solved by altering our lifestyle overstates our influence and the effectiveness of the strategy.
  This article gives the Freeze Movement as an example of misdirected effort. But, MAD worked because nobody wanted risk starting that chain of events AND… it never accidentally happened. Now we are in a situation where that is no longer necessarily true and still can’t mobilize enough common concern to protect against it. Life is precarious — as always.
  In attempting to remove both the nuclear threat and the global warming one, there is a common assumption which I see as erroneous. They target the U.S. as (A) The cause (B) The solution. (We are part of each.)
  It is a lot like the gun control issue — the cliché, “If guns are banned, only the criminals will have guns.” One only has to consider the War on Drugs to see the validity of the statement. The uncontrollable (an largely ignored) part in the equation is the human factor.
  How can the emerging markets countries be made to comply with the solutions proposed when we cannot even force our own businesses to do so?
  The author states the obvious regarding corporations, “They will never willingly sacrifice short-term profits for the long-term common good.” So too, countries such as China, India and others beginning to enter the modern era through manufacturing will act the same.

  It is a matter of Maslow’s Pyramid — the immediate need of survival — whether an individual, a corporation or a nation will determine the priority.

  The author claims, “Political movements work when they mobilize a huge number of like-minded individuals and then use the ballot box to elect leaders who will change laws.”

  How many like-minded individuals would it take to change a billion and a half Asians? What political movement will China cater to?

  ——————————— ;——-
  Cabdriver,

  I fail to see any substantive difference in the parties anymore. Except for the recent short period of Republican Congressional control, the Democrats have ruled. They’ve sponsored and passed legislation very favorable to corporations and the wealthiest Americans at the expense of the rest of us.

  Clinton was at least as “Republican” as either of the Bushes. W is about as conservative as a teenager with unlimited access to a credit card. The 36,000 plus lobbyists in DC are bipartisan spenders.

  I’m very sure about MY cynicism… Social Security/Medicare, health care, environment, border security, job outsourcing and job quality, education, CEO pay (CEO pay vs avg. employee —1965, 46:1   2004, 411:1)

  Both parties are — all talk — no action!

  Posted by whattheheck on Apr 15, 2007 at 12:28 PM

  WTH,

  Yes, your cynicism is sure. So utter and complete.  So absolute and un-nuanced.  In other words, it is the very recipe for the paralysis and inaction of which you despair.

  Ironic, isn’t it?

  Posted by luminous beauty on Apr 16, 2007 at 1:38 PM

  WTH, as usual you are right on target. Ignore the cabbie, he has been proven wrong on every issue and there are many, that we have debated.
  Gore is full of himself. Anyone who’s a Demo has serious mental problems, not in a spurious medical sense, but epistemologically.
  Only reason Dems won was the war and the fact that Bush is the biggest Big Gov Prez since LBJ. It’s scary. But the leftist morons who post here like the unluminous antibeauty and the colostomy bag cabbie
  think the election was a mandate for socialism.

  Posted by blondemike on Apr 16, 2007 at 2:59 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 31 posts.

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