Member-only story
Energy is climate Plan B
Sentiment about the climate situation has likely reached a topping out point. Public opinion rarely, if ever, reaches one hundred percent and with 70 percent of the public now acknowledgingthe climate reality, trying to convince even more people is proving to be a problem. Those unconvinced are likely to be dug in so the logical question becomes how to convince them without alienating them. A recent story in the New York Times about energy solutions at the state levelis inspiring. The answer might be to leave them alone for the moment so that they can come to their own conclusions.
Changing tactics slightly, the great issue today doesn’t concern achieving majority opinion about climate, it’s about moving political leaders to action and, unfortunately, that will take an election to change. So, what do we do in the meantime?
The climate movement might profitably use the time to educate the public about the other facets of climate change. Too often we think one-dimensionally about the issue stopping short when we get to emissions and determining they need to halt. That’s fine as far as it goes but stopping a practice that causes harm is often not enough. Some measure of repair or remediation is also needed. In this case especially, halting emissions won’t change the concentration of C02 in the atmosphere and the reality that some of it needs removal. It also won’t do anything…
