NEWS

Current generation must act on global warming

07/22/2008

David R. Klein, Community Perspective 

President Bush, at the meeting in Japan of world leaders on July 9, agreed to a commitment by the world’s major industrialized nations to reduce fossil fuel emissions 50 percent by 2050. This is a welcome acknowledgment that major action is needed here in the United States to, as Bush had said earlier, "… wean ourselves off our dependency on oil."

Dealing with climate change is now no longer a partisan issue. A complete turnaround on climate change and appropriate action by the Bush administration cannot be expected within the few remaining months it will remain in office. It is now up to Congress to take stronger action to bring about reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Election year politics are no longer a justification for delay.

The amount of fossil fuels used throughout the United States can be reduced through improved efficiency, by increased investment in renewable and alternative energy technology, development to increase the availability of these non-polluting fuels and by energy conservation through improved building design by government, industry, as well as home design and construction.

These efforts can play a major role in reducing greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere and thereby curtailing the detrimental consequences of additional global warming.

Added benefits will be the scaling down of fuel costs as demand decreases, which will stimulate the return to a more stable economy. Another associated benefit will be extension of the availability of fossil fuels for their use by our children and their children in the not too distant future, who we hope, with the help of new technology, will have learned to use fossil fuels in a less wasteful and more responsible fashion than we have.

Much can be accomplished along these lines at all levels of government through incentives for increased efficiency and conservation of energy use by industry, in transportation and in the home. Major financial support by government and the energy industry is needed to accelerate development and production of renewable and other alternative energy that can replace a major portion of the use of oil, coal, and other fossil fuels.

Improved public transport systems offer the potential to greatly reduce fossil fuel emissions for work-related commuting and other domestic transport that in much of the country has become dependent on the use of private vehicles.

New schools should be designed and constructed to be models in efficiency of energy use and conservation as an aid to education while at the same time contributing to the reduction of fossil fuel emissions.

Teaching an understanding of the consequences of climate change and its natural and human causes should be included in primary and secondary school curricula so that young people can be better prepared for living in the world they will be inheriting. Their education, for their own benefit, should lead to an understanding of their own dependency upon both the renewable and non renewable resources which support them and of the relationship of all people to the Earth’s environment.

David R. Klein is a member of North Star Veterans for Peace in Fairbanks.