Dear CCAN supporters,
They say you have to be an optimist to be an activist. So I guess I’m an optimist. Despite the admittedly dark days and setbacks that come with fulltime campaigning on global warming, I know that a totally clean-energy world is within our grasp in our lifetimes. I believe this with every fiber in my body. So yeah, I’m an optimist. And you should be too! Read through to the end of my column to see why.
But first, let’s not sugarcoat things. After a long career in journalism, I founded CCAN in 2002 because I had come to realize that nothing else – nothing – was as important as fighting global warming. We could cure cancer tomorrow but we won’t have good health if malaria spreads and heat waves and droughts leave us malnourished. We could end all wars forever, and we won’t have peace if warming-induced Frankenstorms like Sandy and Katrina batter our coastal cities. A wise scientist once said, “Climate is destiny. Change your climate and you change everything.”
Each time I read or hear of some new natural-world weirdness I look for the fingerprints of climate change and they are almost always there. The massive algae bloom in Lake Erie that recently contaminated the drinking water of more than 400,000 people in the Toledo, Ohio region? It wasn’t the heat this time. It was, according to a state official, the incredible increase in “extreme rain events” that have recently plagued Ohio. Scientists confirm that measurable and growing extreme precipitation events are being triggered by global warming in much of the country. A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture. But what goes up eventually must come down. And we’re learning that it tends to come down in bursts. Those bursting rain events this summer have swept record amounts of livestock waste and agricultural fertilizer into Lake Erie during concentrated periods of time that have in turn triggered unprecedented algae blooms that knocked out the drinking water to nearly half a million Ohioans.
Of course, similar disruptive events related to climate change are happening worldwide. A draft report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, just released this week, states that climate change is now “severe” and “pervasive” and some characteristics of it are “irreversible.” The report is the scientific community’s starkest and most strongly worded warning yet of the dangers that lie ahead unless we act.
And so we must act. CCAN has never been busier in the fight to reduce carbon pollution in our region. We continue to battle the ridiculous and destructive proposal to build a fracked gas export facility at Cove Point in Maryland. We’re fighting drilling and new gas pipelines across the region. And we push just as hard for clean-energy solutions like offshore wind in Virginia and a mandatory doubling of clean electricity in Maryland.
But here’s the main reason — in addition to the historic People’s Climate March — that you should be an optimist despite the UN report and water contamination in Ohio and all the rest. On July 30th, prominent U.S. Congressman Chris Van Hollen (D-Md) introduced The Healthy Climate and Family Security Act of 2014. I’ve never seen a more just and affective piece of legislation aimed at “de-carbonizing” the American economy. The Van Hollen bill puts a strong and transparent cap on carbon emissions, forces polluters to pay for any harm they do to the atmosphere, and rebates the collected money on a quarterly basis to every single American with a social security number. This idea could WORK. The Washington Post and Baltimore Sun agree. Now it’s our job to build a climate movement that persuades Congress and our President to embrace this policy before it’s too late.
Learn more about the Van Hollen bill at www.climateandprosperity.org. And stay tuned for exciting action alerts from CCAN throughout the autumn.
Your optimist,
Mike Tidwell
