I just read this very interesting article by Michael Specter on the New Yorker website. He talks at length about approaches to climate change through markets, technology, legislation, and more. There are counter-intuitive facts to digest, like how apples shipped from New Zealand might have a smaller carbon footprint than ones grown in the US (same with French wine versus domestic — it’s in how it’s grown, and how it’s shipped). It’s fascinating reading.
It seems like every time I starting thinking about climate change, the doomsday feeling inevitably sets in. There’s a sense of urgency, which is good, but it can feel crippling, like nothing we try to do will have enough of an effect, and future generations are doomed. There’s a quote I liked near the end of the article that addresses this feeling a bit, and how we might deal with it.
The trouble with you environmentalists is that you see a problem coming and you slam your foot on the brakes and try and steer away from the chasm. The problem is that it often doesn’t work. Maybe the thing to do is jam your foot on the pedal and see if you can just jump across.
Read the article for the context, obviously, but I will say that it’s not referring to emitting more carbon and hoping we can reverse the effects. The goal is to just encourage a lot of involvement from as many sectors as possible, and see if we can’t have a big and important impact. I do feel like enough people with active minds are looking into climate change and what can be done about it that there’s a great deal of reason to hope.
Certainly I’d expect things to improve here to a degree (maybe a large one) once we have a new president next year. Obama, Clinton, or McCain could be a substantial improvement over Bush with regard to environmental leadership. (I hope it ends up being Obama, but we’ll see.)
Incidentally, I found the article courtesy of the excellent Foreign Policy blog. I read it every day, and find it a tremendous resource.