Tomorrow is not an option

My Op-Ed below, which previews the Copenhagen climate talks, first ran in the Baltimore Sun and on Grist. As many of you know, I will be attending the climate talks next month from December 13-18 on behalf of CCAN and Earthbeat Radio. I will personally be there to record the voices of passionate, inspiring leaders and to add my own voice to the global chorus demanding faster, better results from our world leaders. Starting December 13th, check out the daily video and audio feeds I’ll be posting to this blog.

Climate change reset needed
Let the EPA crack down on carbon emissions, and switch from ‘cap and trade’ to ‘cap and rebate’

By Mike Tidwell
Baltimore Sun
November 27, 2009

Tomorrow is not an option.

Those ought to be the words coming from the White House right now on global warming. Never again can we tolerate a year like 2009, when attempts to cap carbon pollution go nowhere. Already this month, President Barack Obama has confirmed two painful truths. First: Congress will not complete work on a global warming bill in 2009. And second, the corollary blow: There will be no international climate deal in Denmark next month, dashing years of international hopes.

So Mr. Obama should move quickly from explaining failure to achieving real success. He should travel to the Copenhagen climate conference in December and guarantee drastic action from the U.S. in 2010, even if it means blowing everything up in Congress and starting over. If a “cap and trade” bill won’t fly in the Senate in 2010, then let the Environmental Protection Agency explore maximum-strength carbon regulations while, legislatively, we switch back to Mr. Obama’s original presidential campaign plan: “cap and rebate.”

Apologists, of course, are rushing to defend the president, explaining away the now-official climate failures of 2009. There was never enough time, they say, to fix in a few months all the global warming harm George W. Bush created in eight long years.

Maybe so. But we can’t blame Mr. Bush forever. What’s the plan for 2010? The only strategy the Democrats seem to have is borrowed from 2009: Get the Senate to finally pass the cap and trade bill. That would be the 1,400-page bill narrowly approved by the House in June and loaded with subsidies for “clean coal” and likely big profits for Wall Street traders. It’s been stagnating in the Senate for most of the autumn.

Centrist Democrat Jim Webb of Virginia – a vitally important vote – all but condemned the cap and trade bill last week in a news conference. What if the bill simply never passes? What will Mr. Obama take to the international treaty talks in Germany in June 2010 or in Mexico next December? Continue reading

The Story of Cap and Trade

The Story of Cap and Trade

Posted using ShareThis

Climate & Consumption
November 30th, 2009, cross posted from story of stuff blog

If you’re like me, an increasing amount of your worries these days focus on the rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and the resulting potential for devastating climate chaos.

Years ago, when I first heard about climate change, I figured someone else would work all that out while I kept plodding away with my work on consumption, pollution and waste. Well, guess what? They didn’t work it out; in fact, the climate situation is far worse today than even recent scientific predictions. And guess what else? It turns out that climate and consumption are actually the same issue.

You see, most of the greenhouse gases countries emit come from our materials economy: the way we make, use, transport, and throw away all the stuff in our lives. As Boston College professor (and one of my favorite authors) Juliet Schor said “Global consumerism devours resources like there’s no tomorrow. And unless we address how much we consume, we won’t succeed in averting disastrous climate change.”

A majority of scientists now say we need to significantly reduce carbon levels in the atmosphere if we want the planet to resemble something close to what it is like today, supporting the kind of life that it does today. To do this, we simply have to use less Stuff

Just look at yourself! Carbon taxes, caps, & trades

Just look at yourself! The average American is responsible for around 23 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year. Want to do something about it? Let’s talk about personal carbon rationing, trading, and taxes because there are movements afoot to promote all three. They basically address the individual, as opposed to or in addition to, industry.

1. Personal Carbon Rations/Limits/Caps

Personal carbon rationing involves the setting of a per person cap on carbon dioxide emissions. One such concept was developed in the UK by Mayer Hillman and Tina Fawcett in their book, “How We Can Save the Planet“. Rationing follows these principles:

  • Every person, adult or child gets a ration.

  • Rations are measurable and are tracked and audited.

  • Rations are tradeable.

  • The ration covers the direct energy used in the household and for personal travel. Each unit of energy like gasoline or electricity used results in the emission of carbon dioxide

  • Every year, the ration size decreases.

There is currently a voluntary movement known as Carbon Rationing Action Groups, or CRAGs, where people set themselves emissions rations and then work to stay within the ration. This effort was started in the UK about 18 months ago. These groups are local, include around 8-10 people, meet regularly, set their per capita rations, audit their energy bills at the end of each “Carbon Year”, and sometimes penalize or reward their members for going over or under their rations. There are also individual tracking programs in the UK like CarbonDiet. Consistent protocols for tracking individual emissions are under development by groups like the “Avoiding Mass Extinctions Engine”(AMEE) applications programming interface.

Continue reading