If President-elect Donald Trumpactually believes all the warnings he issued during the election about thethreats of immigration, he should be talking about ways to slow global warmingas well. Rising sea level, caused by the melting of the Antarctic and Greenlandice caps, will probably displace tens of millions of people in the decadesahead, and many may come to North America as refugees.
Climate change will cause a suite ofother problems for future generations to tackle, and it’s arguably the mostpressing issue of our time. A year ago December, world leaders gathered inParis to discuss strategies for curbing greenhouse gas emissions, andscientists at every corner of the globe confirm that humans are facing acrisis. However, climate change is being nearly ignored by American politiciansand lawmakers. It was not discussed in depth at all during this past electioncycle’s televised presidential debates. And, when climate change does break thesurface of public discussion, it polarizes Americans like almost no otherpolitical issue. Some conservatives, including Trump, still deny there’s even aproblem.
“We are in this bizarre political statein which most of the Republican Party still thinks it has to pretend thatclimate change is not real,” said Jonathan F.P. Rose, a New York City developerand author of TheWell-Tempered City, which explores in part how low-cost greendevelopment can mitigate the impacts of rising global temperatures and changingweather patterns.
Rose says progress cannot be made indrafting effective climate strategies until national leaders agree there’s anissue.
“We have such strong scientificevidence,” he said. “We can disagree on how we’re going to solve the problems,but I would hope we could move toward an agreement on the basic facts.”
That such a serious planet-wide crisishas become a divide across the American political battlefield “is a tragedy” toPeter Kalmus, an earth scientist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltechin Pasadena, who agreed to be interviewed for this story on his own behalf (noton behalf of NASA, JPL or Caltech).
Kalmus warns that climate change ishappening whether politicians want to talk about it or not.
“CO2 molecules and infrared photonsdon’t give a crap about politics, whether you’re liberal or conservative,Republican or Democrat or anything else,” Kalmus said.
Slowing climate change will beessential, since adapting to all its impacts may be impossible. Governmentsmust strive for greater resource efficiency, shift to renewable energy andtransition from conventional to more sustainable agricultural practices.
America’s leaders must also implement acarbon pricing system, climate activists say, that places a financial burden onfossil fuel producers and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. But there may belittle to zero hope that such a system will be installed at the federal levelas Trump prepares to move into the White House. Trump has actually threatenedto reverse any commitments the United States agreed to in Paris. According towidely circulating reports, Trump has even selected a well-known skeptic ofclimate change, MyronEbell, to head his U.S. Environmental Protection Agency transition team.Ebell is the director of the Center for Energy and Environment at theCompetitive Enterprise Institute.
Steve Valk, communications director forthe Citizens’ Climate Lobby,says the results of the presidential election come as a discouraging setback inthe campaign to slow emissions and global warming.
“There’s no doubt that the steep hillwe’ve been climbing just became a sheer cliff,” he said. “But cliffs arescalable.”
Valk says the American public mustdemand that Congress implement carbon pricing. He says the government is notlikely to face and attack climate change unless voters force them to.
“The solution is going to have to comefrom the people,” he said. “Our politicians have shown that they’re just notready to implement a solution on their own.”
After Paris
There is no question the Earth iswarming rapidly, and already this upward temperature trend is having impacts.It is disrupting agriculture. Glacial water sources are vanishing. Storms anddroughts are becoming more severe. Altered winds and ocean currents areimpacting marine ecosystems. So is ocean acidification, another outcome of carbondioxide emissions. The sea is rising and eventually will swamp large coastalregions and islands. As many as 200 million people could be displaced by 2050.For several years in a row now, each year has been warmer than any year priorin recorded temperature records, and by 2100 it may be too hot for people topermanently live in the Persian Gulf.
World leaders and climate activistsmade groundbreaking progress toward slowing these effects at the Paris climateconference. Here, leaders from 195 countries drafted a plan of action to reduceglobal greenhouse gas emissions and steer the planet off its predicted courseof warming. The pact,which addresses energy, transportation, industries and agriculture—and whichasks leaders to regularly upgrade their climate policies—is intended to keepthe planet from warming by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit between pre-industrial yearsand the end of this century. Scientists have forecasted that an average global increaseof 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit will have devastating consequences for humanity.
The United States pledged to cutgreenhouse gas emissions by 26% from 2005 levels within a decade. China, Japanand nations of the European Union made similar promises. More recently, almost200 nations agreed to phase out hydrofluorocarbons, extremely potent butshort-lived greenhouse gases emitted by refrigerators and air conditioners, andreduce the emissions from the shipping and aviation industries.
But in the wake of such promisinginternational progress, and as 2016 draws to a close as the third record warmyear in a row, many climate activists are disconcerted both by United Statesleaders’ recent silence on the issue and by the outcome of the presidentialelection. Mark Sabbatini, editor of the newspaper Icepeople in Svalbard, Norway, believesshortsighted political scheming has pushed climate change action to the backburner. He wants to see politicians start listening to scientists.
“But industry folks donate money andscientists get shoved aside in the interest of profits and re-election,” saidSabbatini, who recently had to evacuate his apartment as unprecedentedtemperatures thawed out the entire region’s permafrost, threatening to collapsebuildings.
Short-term goals and immediatefinancial concerns distract leaders from making meaningful policy advances onclimate.
“In Congress, they look two yearsahead,” Sabbatini said. “In the Senate, they look six years ahead. In the WhiteHouse, they look four years ahead.”
The 300 nationwide chapters of theCitizens’ Climate Lobby are calling on local governments and chambers ofcommerce across America to voice support for a revenue-neutral carbon fee. Thehope is that leaders in Congress will hear the demands of the people. Thiscarbon fee would impose a charge on producers of oil, natural gas and coal. Asa direct result, all products and services that depend on or directly utilizethose fossil fuels would cost more for consumers, who would be incentivized tobuy less. Food shipped in from far away would cost more than locally grownalternatives. Gas for heating, electricity generated by oil and coal, anddriving a car would become more expensive.
“Bicycling would become more attractive,and so would electric cars and home appliances that use less energy,” saidKalmus, an advocate of the revenue-neutral carbon fee.
Promoting this fee system isessentially the Citizens’ Climate Lobby’s entire focus.
“This would be the most important stepwe take toward addressing climate change,” Valk said.
By the carbon fee system, the revenuefrom fossil fuel producers would be evenly distributed by the collectingagencies among the public, perhaps via a tax credit. Recycling the dividendsback into society would make it a fair system, Valk explains, since poorerpeople, who tend to use less energy than wealthier people to begin with and aretherefore less to blame for climate change, would come out ahead.
The system would also place a tariff onincoming goods from nations without a carbon fee. This would keep Americanindustries from moving overseas and maybe even prompt other nations to settheir own price on carbon.
But there’s a problem with therevenue-neutral carbon fee, according to other climate activists: It doesn’tsupport social programs that may be aimed at reducing society’s carbonfootprint.
“It will put no money into programsthat serve disadvantaged communities who, for example, might not be able toafford weatherizing their home and lowering their energy bill, or afford anelectric vehicle or a solar panel,” said Renata Brillinger, executive directorof the California Climate and Agriculture Network. “It doesn’t give anything topublic schools for making the buildings more energy efficient, and it wouldn’tgive any money to farmers’ incentive programs for soil building.”
Brillinger’s organization is advocatingfor farmers to adopt practices that actively draw carbon out of the atmosphere,like planting trees and maintaining ground cover to prevent erosion. Funding,she says, is needed to support such farmers, who may go through transitionalperiods of reduced yields and increased costs. California’s cap-and-tradesystem sets up an ample revenue stream for this purpose that a revenue-neutralsystem does not, according to Brillinger.
But Valk says establishing a carbonpricing system must take into account the notorious reluctance of conservativesin Congress.
“You aren’t going to get a singleRepublican in Congress to support legislation unless it’s revenue-neutral,” hesaid. “Any policy is useless if you can’t pass it in Congress.”
Sequestering the Farm
In Washington, D.C., the nation’sleaders continue tussling over popular issues like immigration, taxes, health care,abortion, guns and foreign affairs.
Climate change activists wish theywould be thinking more about soil. That’s because stopping greenhouse gasemissions alone will not stop climate change. The carbon dioxide emitted throughcenturies of industrial activity will continue to drive warming unless it isremoved from the air and put somewhere.
“There are only three places carbon cango,” Brillinger said. “It can go into the atmosphere, where we don’t want it,into the ocean, where we also don’t want it because it causes acidification, orinto soil and woody plants where we do want it. Carbon is the backbone of allforests and is a critical nutrient of soil.”
But most of the Earth’s soil carbon hasbeen lost to the atmosphere, causing a spike in atmospheric carbon. In the1700s, the Earth’s atmosphere contained less than 280 parts per million ofcarbon dioxide, according to scientists. Now, we are at more than 400 andcounting. Climate experts generally agree that the atmospheric carbon levelmust be reduced to 350 or less if we are to keep at bay the most disastrouspossible impacts of warming.
This is why farmers and the soil theywork will be so important in mitigating climate change. By employing certainpractices and abandoning other ones, farmers and ranchers can turn acreage intovaluable carbon sinks—a generalagricultural approach often referred to as “carbon farming.”
Conventional agriculture practices tendto emit carbon dioxide. Regular tilling of the soil, for example, causes soilcarbon to bond with oxygen and float away as carbon dioxide. Tilling alsocauses erosion, as do deforestation and overgrazing. With erosion, soil carbonenters waterways, creating carbonic acid—the direct culprit of ocean acidification.Researchers have estimated that unsustainable farming practices have caused asmuch as 80% of the world’s soil carbon to turn into carbon dioxide.
By carbon farming, those who producethe world’s food can simultaneously turn their land into precious carbon sinks.The basic tenets of carbon farming include growing trees as windbreaks andfocusing on perennial crops, like fruit trees and certain specialty grainvarieties, which demand less tilling and disturbance of the soil.
Eric Toensmeier, a senior fellow withthe climate advocacy group Project Drawdownand the author of TheCarbon Farming Solution, says many other countries are far aheadof the United States in both recognizing the importance of soil as a place tostore carbon and funding programs that help conventional farmers shift towardcarbon farming practices. France, for instance, initiated a sophisticatedprogram in 2011 that calls for increasing soil carbon worldwide by 0.4% everyyear. Healthy soil can contain 10% carbon or more, and France’s program has thepotential over time to decelerate the increase in atmospheric carbon levels.
Toensmeier is optimistic about theprogress being made in the United States, too. The U.S. Department ofAgriculture funds programs that support environmentally friendly farmingpractices that protect watersheds or enhance wildlife habitat, largely throughplanting perennial grasses and trees.
“And it turns out a lot of thepractices they’re paying farmers to do to protect water quality or slow erosionalso happen to sequester carbon,” Toensmeier said.
He says it appears obvious that thefederal government is establishing a system by which they will eventually payfarmers directly to sequester carbon. Such a direct faceoff with climatechange, however, may be a few years away still.
Climate activists may even need to waituntil 2021.
“First we need a president whoacknowledges that climate change exists,” Toensmeier said.
National Politics and City Reform
Climate reform advocates still talkabout Bernie Sanders’ fiery attack on fracking as a source of global warming inthe May primary debate with Hillary Clinton.
“If we don’t get our act together, thisplanet could be 5 to 10 degrees warmer by the end of this century,” Sanderssaid then. “Cataclysmic problems for this planet. This is a national crisis.”
Sanders was not exaggerating. The Earthhas already warmed by 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880, and it’s gettinghotter. Even with the advances made in Paris, the world remains on track to be6.1 degrees Fahrenheit warmer by 2100 than it was in pre-industrial times,according to a United Nations emissions report released in early November. Theauthors of another paper published in January in the journal Nature predicted temperatures will riseas much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit.
In light of the scientific consensus,conservatives’ denial of climate change looks childish at best and dangerous atworst. In low-lying Florida, so vulnerable to the rising sea, an unofficialpolicy from its Republican leadership has effectively muzzled state employeesfrom even mentioning “climate change” and “global warming” in official reportsand communications. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz suggested NASA focus its researchless on climate change and more on space exploration, accordingto The Christian Science Monitor.
Most frightening of all, maybe, is theincoming American president’s stance on the matter: Trump said in a 2012 tweetthat globalwarming is a Chinese hoax. In January 2014, during a brief spell of coldweather, heasked via Twitter, “Is our country still spending money on the GLOBALWARMING HOAX?”
While most of the rest of the worldremains poised to advance emissions reductions goals, Trump is aiming in adifferent direction. TheTrump-Pence website vows to “unleash America’s $50 trillion in untappedshale, oil, and natural gas reserves, plus hundreds of years in clean coalreserves.” His webpage concerning energy goals only mentions reducing emissionsonce, and it makes no mention of climate change or renewable energy.
While meaningful action at the federallevel is probably years away, at the local level, progress is coming—even incommunities led by Republicans, according to Rose. That, he says, is becauselocal politicians face a level of accountability from which national leadersare often shielded.
“At the city level, mayors have todeliver real results,” Rose said. “They have to protect their residents andmake wise investments on behalf of their residents. The residents see whatthey’re doing and hold them accountable.”
Restructuring and modifying our cities,which are responsible for about half of America’s carbon footprint, “will becritical toward dealing with climate change,” Rose said.
“On the coast we’ll have sea levelrise,” he said. “Inland, we’ll have flooding and heat waves. Heat waves causemore deaths than hurricanes.”
Simply integrating nature into cityinfrastructure is a very low-cost but effective means for countering thechanges that are coming, Rose says. Many cities, for example, are plantingthousands of street trees. Trees draw in atmospheric carbon as they grow and,through shade and evaporative cooling effects, can significantly reduce surfacetemperatures by as much as 6 degrees Fahrenheit in some circumstances, Rosesays.
Laws and policies that take aim atreduced emissions targets can be very efficient tools for generating changeacross entire communities. However, Kalmus believes it’s important thatindividuals, too, reduce their own emissions through voluntary behavior changes,rather than simply waiting for change to come from leaders and lawmakers.
“If you care about climate change, itwill make you happier,” he said. “It makes you feel like you’re pioneering anew way to live. For others, you’re the person who is showing the path andmaking them realize it’s not as crazy as it seems.”
Kalmus, who lives in Altadena, Calif.,with his wife and two sons, has radically overhauled his lifestyle to reducehis carbon footprint. Since 2010 he has cut his own emissions by a factor of 10—from20 tons per year to just 2, by his own estimates. This personal transformationis the subject of his forthcoming book, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a ClimateRevolution, due out in 2017.
Kalmus rides a bike most places, eatsmostly locally grown food, raises some of it in his own yard, has stoppedeating meat and—one of the most important changes—has all but quit flying.
He hopes to serve as a model and helpspark a transition to an economy that does not depend on constant growth, asours currently does. One day, he believes, it will be socially unacceptable toburn fossil fuel, just as it’s become shunned to waste water in drought-driedCalifornia. The oil industry will eventually become obsolete.
“We need to transition to an economythat doesn’t depend on unending growth,” Kalmus said.
Unless we slow our carbon emissions andour population growth now, depletion of resources, he warns, will catch up withus.
“We need to shift to a steady-stateeconomy and a steady-state population,” he said. “Fossil-fueled civilizationcannot continue forever.”
Though Americans will soon have aspresident a man who is essentially advocating for climate change, Valk, at theCitizens’ Climate Lobby, expects time—and warming—to shift voter perspectives.
“As more and more people are personallyaffected by climate change, like those recently flooded out in Louisiana andNorth Carolina, people of all political persuasions will see that acting onclimate change is not a matter of partisan preferences, but a matter ofsurvival,” he said.
Alastair Bland is a freelance journalist in San Francisco. Hewrites about water, fisheries, agriculture and the environment, and his workhas appeared at NPR.org, SmithsonianMag.com, the Sacramento News and Review andYale E360.
This story was produced as part of the Lettersto the Future project.
