Earth Day Addressing Climate Change
by Walter Simpson


Al Gore has found his niche. As a tireless campaigner on global climate change, the Academy Award winner, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and former vice president has found a thousand venues to tell the American people that the scientific debate about global warming is over. And his message is sinking in. Finally, we are beginning to realize that global warming is real and climate change is happening.

The open question now is what to do about it? How should we respond—as individuals, citizens, professionals, workers, business owners, people of faith, community leaders and politicians?

Much of the rest of the world has acknowledged the reality of climate change for years. More than 150 nations (not including the United States) have signed the Kyoto Protocol which Al Gore helped negotiate a decade ago. The treaty calls on signatories to collectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions by five percent compared to 1990 levels by 2010. The treaty leaves a lot to be desired but is a step in the right direction. Many countries, especially in Europe, have been developing comprehensive programs to significantly reduce climate-changing pollutants. While the US sits on the sidelines, these other industrial countries are developing the technologies of the future—a point made repeatedly by first Earth Day organizer Denis Hayes when he spoke in Buffalo two weeks ago.

Americans represent less than five percent of the world’s population but are responsible for emitting 25 percent of greenhouse gases which are causing climate change. Foremost among these gases is carbon dioxide, which is produced by burning and consuming fossil fuels—coal, oil and natural gas. We are the world’s biggest polluters. Our fossil fuel energy addiction is doing us in.

Over the last two months the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began releasing its latest report. It is the product of the most peer-reviewed scientific exercise ever undertaken. The IPCC Fourth Assessment states that there is near certainly about human activity-induced climate change. And that unless we change our energy path, the planet could warm by an average of three to eight degrees Fahrenheit over the next century, leaving the planet warmer than it has been in a million years.

If we try to imagine this future, we see a world for our children and grandchildren which is blighted by killing heat waves, long-lasting droughts in some areas and more frequent and intense downpours and floods in others, an increasing number of Katrina-like super hurricanes and typhoons, massive species extinction, eco-system collapse, agricultural failure and rising sea levels, which eventually will inundate coastal towns and cities around the world—creating hundreds of million of refugees.

Close to home, climate change is expected to lower Great Lakes water levels, affecting shipping, recreation, shoreline ecology and wildlife. According to a recent study by the Union of Concerned Scientists, if we follow a “business as usual” energy scenario, and don’t make progress kicking the fossil fuel habit, Western New York could end up with a climate like South Carolina or even Georgia in 100 years.

For winter-weary Buffalonians that might seem like a great idea but be careful what you wish for. Imagine our beautiful summer weather scorched by many days over 100 degrees.

Climate change promises to be among the most serious environmental, social, political, economic and national security threats we have ever faced. Moreover, it is a moral and social justice issue of profound dimensions. Our use of fossil fuels is damaging the chances of a decent life by future generations. As the climate changes, it will become crystal clear that the energy-wasteful lifestyles of the rich are victimizing the poor, especially in many developing countries where climate change will make survival even more difficult for the desperately poor. And then there is the moral sin of destroying God’s creation, the natural world.

The good news about global warming is we know exactly what to do. We can slow it down and mitigate its worst effects by significantly reducing our consumption of fossil fuels through energy conservation and efficiency and by switching to clean, renewable energy sources which are carbon-free—like wind, solar, biomass and geothermal energy. We have the knowledge and the technology. What we need is the personal and political will.

In 2004, Ross Gelbspan, journalist and climate activist, spoke in Buffalo about the realities of taming global warming and climate change. He argued that many environmental groups have done the cause a disservice by stressing lifestyle responses to climate change. Yes, we need to conserve energy and switch to renewable energy technologies in our own lifestyles, but that will not get the job done and, Gelbspan argued, should not preoccupy us. Gelbspan said we don’t have a lot of time to bring about fundamental changes. Vested fossil fuel interests must be challenged. Old policies and politicians must be replaced. Big changes must occur now. Climate change must be addressed politically.

But this is not a partisan political issue. Both the Democrats and Republicans have let us down as well as helped us. The Clinton/Gore White House did little to address global warming and climate change. Even when they were stymied by a Republican Congress, they could have used the White House bully pulpit to greater effect to raise awareness and rally the public. Fortunately, both Clinton and Gore are now active—Clinton persuading billionaires to donate their billions to implement clean energy development and Gore with his powerful speeches and his An Inconvenient Truth movie and book.

For the last six years, the Bush administration has blocked all action on climate change. In 2001, Bush reneged on his campaign promise to cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and rejected Kyoto Treaty ratification. Given Bush and Cheney’s close ties to the oil and coal industries, it is not surprising that the Bush energy policy blocked energy conservation efforts while calling for the construction of 1,900 new power plants, most of them coal-fired.

The Bush administration even hired an oil industry lobbyist to edit out the science in scientific reports on climate change. At the same time they sought to silence federal climatologists from speaking out on the issue.

With progress on the federal level stymied, action has occurred at the state and local levels. The US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement signed up over 450 Democratic and Republican mayors who promised to implement the Kyoto provisions within their city limits. Republican Governor George Pataki enacted New York’s Renewable Portfolio Standard to decrease our reliance on fossil fuels. He also provided leadership for the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an eight-state pact to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants in the US Northeast.

New York’s current governor, Eliot Spitzer, appears to be prepared to expand New York’s commitment to climate stabilization. He will have to do a lot to equal what Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has done in California.

As a result of the 2006 midterm elections, the Democrats now control the US Congress and a number of good federal climate protection bills are being proposed, especially the Sanders-Boxer bill in the US Senate and the Waxman bill in the House of Representatives. These deserve strong public support.

We need to move quickly. According to James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, “The Earth’s climate is nearing, but has not passed, a tipping point beyond which it will be impossible to avoid climate change with far-ranging undesirable consequences.” Hansen has said that we have just one more degree of warming and just 10 more years to redirect our energy use away from fossil fuels or our planet will become unrecognizable.

These are strong words from one of the world’s foremost climate experts. There is an urgent need for political action to change government policy on all levels. We must implement large-scale greenhouse gas emissions reductions before it is too late. And it’s not too late if we act now.


Walter Simpson, a local environmental activist and 25-year energy professional, is a founder of the Western New York Climate Action Coalition, which can be reached by contacting wnyclimateaction@gmail.com or 839-0062.

Earth Day You Can Make a Difference
by Walter Simpson


Take Political Action

¡ö Lobby elected federal, state and local officials to sponsor/support legislation to effectively address global warming and climate change, e.g. the Sanders/Boxer bill in the US Senate and the Waxman bill in the House of representatives.

¡ö Support policies which promote en ergy conservation and efficiency and the development of clean, renewable energy technologies such as solar energy, wind power, biofuels and geothermal energy.

¡ö Advocate for forest protection, since trees draw carbon out of the atmosphere.

¡ö Challenge/protest elected officials who are aligned with the fossil fuel industry or refuse to act on climate change. For federal environmental voting records, see www.lcv.org.

¡ö Support candidates running for political office who will act vigorously to stop global warming. Publicly oppose those who are not. If there are no good candidates, find one or run yourself.

¡ö Organize public vigils, demonstrations and other visible, noisy community events to speak out and rally the community.

¡ö Ask opinion-makers, editors and journalists to cover global warming responsibly, recognizing that there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that this problem is real and getting worse.

¡ö Call on your city or town leaders to sign the US Mayors¡¯ Climate Protection Agreement (www.ci.seattle.wa.us/mayor/climate), and then help them develop and implement serious CO2 reduction plans. The City of Buffalo has signed on but not done much yet. Ask Mayor Byron Brown to develop programs to address climate change.

¡ö Encourage members of your community or religious group or professional or trade association to address the climate change issue through resolutions, public statements and direct action.

¡ö Work with businesses, schools, churches or temples, or any large institutions or organizations to develop and implement plans to reduce CO2 emissions by conserving energy and switching to clean, renewable energy resources. The Unitarian Universalist Church of Amherst meets its electric needs by buying 100 percent wind power.

¡ö Oppose plans for new coal-burning power plants (e.g. Jamestown) or the expansion of existing ones (Tonawanda) unless these plants remove and sequester carbon dioxide emissions. Coal is the most carbon-rich fossil fuel and burning it puts the most C02 into the air.

¡ö Demand the phasing out of existing coal-burning power plants (e.g. Tonawanda, Dunkirk, Somerset and Jamestown) unless they are retrofitted to sequester carbon.

¡ö Fight plans to build any new fossil fuel power plant and insist that energy needs be met through a combination of energy conservation and efficiency and clean renewable energy resources.

¡ö Demand that the New York State Public Service Commission create financial incentives for electric and natural gas utility companies so they will aggressively promote energy efficiency by their customers. Right now, the more energy ratepayers consume the more money the utilities make¡ªhence the last thing these companies want to do is encourage conservation.

¡ö Support sustainable economic development and oppose development which makes suburban sprawl worse.

¡ö Support legislation to double car/truck fuel economy in the next 10 years, phasing in alternative fuels.

¡ö Support plans to expand public transit.

¡ö Join e-mail action alert lists sponsored by major national environmental groups. Sign up for their global warming and clean energy alerts.

¡ö Put your money where your mouth is. Contribute generously to groups fighting global warming.


Become a Climate Educator

Start by educating yourself¡ªso you can educate others. See the Web sites listed below, which are loaded with up-to-date information about the causes and consequences of global warming and what we must do to stop it.

¡ö An Inconvenient Truth: www.climatecrisis.net

¡ö Climate Crisis Coalition: www.climatecrisiscoalition.org

¡ö David Suzuki Foundation: www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/

¡ö Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: www.ipcc.ch/

¡ö Natural Resources Defense Council: www.nrdc.org/globalWarming

¡ö Pew Center: www.pewclimate.org/

¡ö Ross Gelbspan: www.heatisonline.org

¡ö Union of Concerned Scientists: www.ucsusa.org/

¡ö Hand out literature (like this copy of Artvoice) to friends, family, neighbors, co-workers and colleagues, to school, church and temple, business, professional, trade and community groups.

¡ö Write letters to the editors of various publications explaining the dangers of global warming and calling for action.

¡ö Show videos and DVDs on climate change, e.g. An Inconvenient Truth, Kilowatt Ours, The End of Suburbia, etc., to raise awareness and motivate action. These can be easily purchased on Amazon.com or borrowed from the UB Green Environmental Library (829-3535).

¡ö Organize and/or give a talk on climate change to a school, church/temple or community group. The WNY Climate Action Coalition will provide a speaker or train you to be the speaker.

¡ö Explore ways to deliver information about global warming; if you are a teacher, explore ways to deliver this information through your lesson plans and teaching.

¡ö Help students form an environmental club to address this problem; perhaps you can be the club¡¯s advisor.


Reduce Your Own Greenhouse Gas Emissions

¡ö Conserve energy and maximize efficiency in everything you do. Strive to cut the amount of energy you use in half. See www.getenergysmart.org.

¡ö Drive less, carpool, use public transportation, bike and walk as much as possible.

¡ö If you must drive, try to switch to a smaller, fuel-efficient vehicle which gets 35-40 miles per gallon or more, e.g. Toyota Prius.

¡ö Meet as much of your remaining energy needs as possible with clean renewable energy.

¡ö Buy green power. See wings.buffalo.edu/ubgreen/greenpower/index.htm.

¡ö Generate your own clean electricity with photovoltaic (PV) solar electric panels etc. See: www.powernaturally.org.

¡ö Use solar energy for space and water heating if you can. Visit the UB Green Library for resources on passive solar design and solar hot water systems.

¡ö Purchase carbon offsets. See www.carbonfund.org, www.nativeenergy.com.

¡ö If you must build a new house, build it small, green and near where you work¡ªmaximizing energy efficiency and incorporating passive solar design and other solar and green technologies.

¡ö Consider becoming a vegetarian or eating less meat and dairy. Meat and dairy production use far more energy than eating grains and vegetables directly. Eating lower on the food chain also promotes better health by reducing consumption of saturated fats and cholesterol.

Earth Day Gore's Top Ten
by Walter Simpson


On March 22, 2007, Al Gore testified before Congress on climate change. Here are the policy recommendations he offered to solve the climate crisis:

1. An immediate “carbon freeze” that would cap US CO2 emissions at current levels, followed by a program to generate 90-percent reductions by 2050.

2. Start a long-term tax shift to reduce payroll taxes and increase taxes on CO2 emissions, i.e. institute revenue-neutral carbon taxes.

3. Put aside a portion of carbon tax revenues to help low-income people make the transition.

4. Create a strong international treaty by working toward “de facto compliance with Kyoto” and moving up the start date for Kyoto’s successor from 2012 to 2010.

5. Implement a moratorium on construction of new coal-fired power plants that are not compatible with carbon capture and sequestration.

6. Create an “ELECTRANET”—a smart electricity grid that allows individuals and businesses to feed power back in at prevailing market rates, i.e. extend net-metering to all clean energy technologies and all customer classes.

7. Raise CAFE standards to increase fuel economy for cars and so-called light trucks.

8. Set a date for a ban on incandescent light bulbs.

9. Create “Connie Mae,” a carbon-neutral mortgage association, to help defray the upfront costs of energy-efficient building.

10. Have the SEC require disclosure of carbon emissions in corporate reporting, as a relevant “material risk.”