Article published September 27, 2009
Is America wimping out on climate change?
With the G-20 over in Pittsburgh and attention being shifted toward the world’s most historic climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December, I can’t get the headline that appeared in The Blade last Tuesday above Thomas Friedman’s column out of my head.
A Nation of Wimps.
Are we?
From health care to Afghanistan, we’ve got hard choices in front of us.
But when haven’t we?
In his speech at the United Nations on Tuesday — one poorly covered by the media — President Obama said there “should be no illusions that the hardest part of our journey is in front of us.”
“We seek sweeping but necessary change in the midst of a global recession, where every nation’s most immediate priority is reviving their economy and putting their people back to work. And so all of us will face doubts and difficulties in our own capitals as we try to reach a lasting solution to the climate challenge,” he said.
Industrialized countries such as the United States must step up as leaders, Mr. Obama said.
“What we are seeking, after all, is not simply an agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions. We seek an agreement that will allow all nations to grow and raise living standards without endangering the planet,” he said.
America was built on innovation. On integrity. On sacrifice.
Are we sticking our heads in the sand? Or are we just not up to one of Earth’s most historic challenges?
The sheer concept of providing basic health care to those unable to afford it has the nation up in arms, as if we are a bunch of bratty kids being told to give up our video games.
Truth is, most people don’t like the status quo for health care but are just too scared to change it. The lengthy debate over it has already stalled cap-and-trade discussions in the Senate and more than likely deflated hopes for meaningful climate negotiations in Copenhagen.
Yet two puzzling items came across my desk on Sept. 16.
One was a statement from the International Investor Forum on Climate Change, sponsored by the New York State Comptroller and others with ties to the financial community, including a coalition of investor-based environmental groups called Ceres. It said a joint investor statement calling for action on climate change had been released by 181 investors managing more than $13 trillion in assets, a group it billed as the world’s largest collection of global investors.
That same day, a French wire service agency reported that 18 colleges of physicians or academies of medicine from the United States, Australia, Britain, Canada, Ireland, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Ireland, South Africa, and Scotland made a joint appeal for a breakthrough in Copenhagen.
The physician groups claimed that failing to get serious about climate change would be “catastrophic” for public health, citing the prospect of greater drought and a wider spread of mosquito-borne diseases.
In the past, military experts have explained how climate change could affect national security. And, of course, climatologists — the ones we should have been listening to all along — have been pretty firm about what inaction could mean.
Yet we’re gonna muddle and muck things up. On Wednesday, the National Association of Manufacturers, led by former Michigan Gov. John Engler, supported calls for a Republican-led Senate moratorium on letting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
Moving too quickly “would only impose overly burdensome compliance costs on the manufacturing sector and limit their ability to deploy advanced technologies,” Jay Timmons, the association’s executive vice president, said.
A lot’s at stake for the Great Lakes region.
On Thursday, the University of Michigan announced a major initiative to map public health threats to the Great Lakes. One goal will be to account for the impact of climate change already under way, according to David Allan, a professor of aquatic sciences at the UM school of natural resources and environment.
Good-bye to One Great Lady: I only spent one day in the life of 85-year-old Betty Jo Carstensen, but what a memorable one it was. She was like a little kid when we quietly tip-toed through her own little piece of paradise in eastern Lucas County in the fall of 2004, looking for wildlife in a beautiful 35-acre forest she had carved out of the 135-acre farm she and her late husband, Bill, had owned since 1958.
Betty died Sept. 5. When I saw her obituary, my heart sunk. Eighty-five years is a good life for most of us — but for someone as spry as Betty, she was in her prime as an educator and environmental steward.
She was a member of the Oregon school board since 1993 and a tutor to countless children. As a lover of land, she followed her husband’s footsteps on to the Lucas Soil and Water Conservation District’s board of directors, continuing on with work he began as a founding supervisor in 1965.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources lauded her commitment to forestry, especially on her own property. She made sure that every Oregon child had a tree to plant in the spring.
And when the time came for her and her husband to put their five kids through college, the couple avoided the temptation of clear-cutting their land and farming every square inch they could.
Instead, they sold pickles.
Pickles.
“I tell you what — we didn’t get any new furniture for a while,” she mused during my 2004 interview.
Good for them.
Contact Tom Henry at:thenry@theblade.comor 419-724-6079.
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