My View: How to really stop global heating

By MORT MALKIN

The Bush-Cheney administration has used every strategy from stonewalling the reports of its own scientists to subtle nuances of language to outright lies in order to keep news of the certainty of global heating from reaching the American public. Exxon-Mobil, Chevron and their ilk have funded think tanks to write skeptical reports.

At first, the oil company flacks said global “warming” was a myth. When the evidence became overwhelming and the storms, floods and droughts made us doubt the skeptics, the radical right admitted that the planet’s temperature was rising. But, they said, it’s not of our doing. The White House, in lock step with Big Oil and Conspiratorial Coal, spoke of the need for energy independence, not conservation. The administration would ensure “secure, reliable, and affordable energy supplies that support a growing economy,” then, as an afterthought, “and protect the environment.”

Meanwhile, outside the White House, the states started their own conservation initiatives. The insurance companies, with over $100 billion in losses from hurricanes, went public to warn of worse to come if carbon emissions continue in a devil-may-care fashion. Tom Brokaw narrated a two-hour program on the very mainstream Discovery Channel to raise awareness of the planetary problem. On the show, he documented what already has happened all around the world from Glacier National Park to the low-elevation islands in the South Pacific. He listed all the personal ways for us to reduce carbon emissions: changing our light bulbs to compact fluorescents, lowering the thermostat by a couple of degrees in winter, driving a couple of miles per hour more slowly.

Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” showed stark evidence that massive ice sheets have broken free in the Arctic and Antarctic, storm intensities have increased and glaciers that supply water to some of the world’s major river systems are melting. The film makes a powerful case that the increases in carbon emissions from human activity is driving the global temperature rise. At the end of the film, interspersed among the credits, we are again advised to change our light bulbs and take other personal actions to reduce our carbon footprint.

Personal responsibility is fine, but why does no one speak of government and industry responsibility? Power plants and the transportation sector account for over 70 percent of the total greenhouse emissions in the United States. This is where we need to focus our efforts. The government must raise CAFE (gas mileage) standards substantially. The technology is already available and proven. Government fleets of autos should be hybrids or, better, entirely battery powered. The auto companies can weigh in by redressing their advertising balance—minimal promotion of low-mileage SUVs and a spotlight on high-efficiency vehicles.

Coal-fired power plants should be closed and replaced by decentralized electrical generation using clean, renewable resources such as tides, waves, wind, sun and geothermal. Transfer the tax breaks and subsidies now given to the fossil fuel industries —$12 billion worth— to stimulate the use of clean renewables. Wouldn’t you be a lot more likely to choose a hybrid that gets 50 miles per gallon if the government rebated you a few thousand dollars? And to install solar panels on your roof if they were available at half price and you could sell the surplus power back to the electric company?

Now, about our responsibility: first we talk the talk. It is global heating, not warming. It is the point of no return, not the tipping point. It is a chain reaction, not feedback loops. We must call and write our elected representatives, including the President (the Vice President is hopeless) to take action. Then, we walk the walk—change light bulbs and lower the thermostat. But first things first.