Issue #73

Last Update May 20, 2013

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Climate Change and the American Public by Sten Grynir May 17, 2015

We have missed the boat on climate change. At this point in time, the increases in greenhouse gases that have already occurred are sufficient to make a real difference in our climate. Even if we got serious about reducing emissions (unlikely given the hostility to regulation, and even to free market solutions on the part of the Republican party and some coal and oil state Democrats), the end result would merely be to slow the increase in greenhouse gases, not reduce them.

Ironically, many of the senators and congressmen most opposed to any of the proposed solutions to this problem come from states that will be most heavily impacted. Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and other low-lying southern areas are especially vulnerable to flooding from sea-level rises and storm surges. Florida, in particular, is likely  to become the Florida archipelago a century ot two hence, with only highway overpasses and a few elevated sections of the state rising above the waves.

The southwest and midwest will see economic and human devastation from increased numbers and ferocity of tornados, hailstorms and flooding rains. Changing weather patterns will bring drought to central California, parts of the south and parts of  the midwest.

Even the northeast and central Atlantic states will suffer, but unlike the climate denial sections of  the US, projects are already underway to build barriers to mitigate the effects of flooding in populated areas and cope with disruptions in water and electricity, It is in these states, by the way, that the most has been done in reducing the production of greenhouse gasses, using a combination of free-market .cap-and trade exchanges and regulatory limits on fuel economy for new cars  and trucks.

Is there any hope of developing national policies along these lines, insufficient though they may be? At present, no. Between the Republican/Tea Party state, congressional and senatorial policy of "if Obama's for it, we're agin it, even if it was our idea", nothing useful is likely to get through Congress for the next decade. Presidential powers by themselves are not sufficient to institute these actions on their own, nor would that set a healthy precedent for our democracy.  And until the conservative  wing of the Supreme Court is willing to consider facts, rather than engaging in wishful thinking, rulings by the lower courts that uphold interpretations of existing law in favor of environmental progress are likely to be overturned.

The one thing that's for sure: when the climate change denying segment of our nation finally realizes that it is their own homes, businesses and families that have been sacrificed, the first thing they will do is call it God's will; the second thing they will do is blame Obama and the Democrats for their own willful obstructionism.