To seek solutions, identify the problems

• Claiming ownership. Framing the debate. Why do public opinions matter? Why might there be a sense of urgency? Who has the access to the media to get across their viewpoint(s)? Why are so many Americans unsure or indifferent about climate change and its effects?
• Who has professional and scientific credibility?

Craven (2009)

Greg Craven (2009) suggests a spectrum or continuum of credibility (above). Most credible are professional societies with reputations to uphold and leaders who are held in the highest regard at the top of their professions. Least credible are individuals, especially those well outside of their area of expertise (you can see above that the ‘skeptics’ column has many individuals, few professional societies, the ‘Warmers’ column is the inverse).

• Social movements — there are groups of scientists, (e.g., UCSUSA), groups of activists (such as 350.org), and advocacy groups.
• Technologies
  • Smart growth
  • Stabilization wedges — What kinds of measures will ‘flatten’ out the yearly global increases in greenhouse gas production of industrial societies?
  • Biomimicry (Design principles that follow Nature’s laws)
  • Supply-side versus demand-side policies–new fuels, or conservation?
    • ‘Supply-side’ would mean new power production from renewable sources–solar, geothermal, wind, tides, etc.
    • ‘Demand-side’ means tackling conservation. Less electricity used ‘saves’ energy and reduces the need for new plants
  • Geoengineering — technical means of addressing symptoms (for instance, increase the ‘white’ surface area in the troposphere to reflect more solar radiation, or ‘iron fertilization‘ to stimulate growth of carbon-fixing plankton, or experiments to increase cloud reflectivity)
  • Measures by category (from the book Drawdown):
    • Energy–switching from non-renewable to renewable fuels (solar farms, rooftop solar, wind turbines (on land and offshore), geothermal power, wave and tidal action, biomass, using ‘micro grids‘ instead of centralized electricity grids (which also have posed fire hazards), etc.
    • Food—shifting diet, producing meat in a non-factory setting (e.g., eliminating confined animal feeding operations), reducing food waste, permaculture (that requires less chemicals and conserves precious and non-renewable topsoil), agroforestry (growing crops in layers, vertically, not just annual field crops on the ground), composting, etc.
    • Buildings and cities–some covered under ‘smart growth’ above, but also: heat pumps, LED lighting, ‘green’ rooftops, more bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, etc.
    • Transportation—mass transit, electric and hybrid vehicles, electric bicycles, trucks, more rail vs trucks, carpooling, aviation, shipping, etc.
    • Materials–recycling (household and industrial), materials recovery, ‘upcycling,’ eliminating plastics, methane recapture from landfills, water conservation, alternatives to cement and refrigerants, etc.

• Changing behavior (because technology does not guarantee adoption)
  • Personal changes (carpooling, conservation, etc.–‘reduce, reuse, and recycle’)
  • Consumption–Inherently a problem, but some level is essential to life, and if we’re going to consume, we can make ‘greener’ choices (some information sources)
  • Cultural changes
    • (in  schools, etc.)–‘ecological literacy‘ (imagine if everyone understood the first and second laws of thermodynamics …)
      • Ecological literacy addresses public knowledge deficits (which leave some vulnerable to curriculum from the Heartland Institute)
    • A big obstacle: Human exemptionalism (the notion shared by many people in many societies that humans are somehow exempt from natural laws)
  • Institutional changes – mass transit, economics, energy policy, ‘smart growth‘
  • International cooperation–agreements, treaties governing carbon emissions (the White House is withdrawing the US from the Paris Climate Accord)
  • Political behavior–voting??
  • Market– versus government-based solutions–pricing/taxing goods and services to change behavior. Who benefits? Who pays?
    • Carbon tax–this would be a more market-based solution to the problem (more conservative, versus a liberal approach that would entail more government regulation)
    • Cap and trade–the goal is overall reductions (does it help communities near heavy polluters?) How to enforce?
    • Ever heard of an ecotax? What if we reduced taxes on things we valued, like people’s labor (income tax), and increased them on things like environmental ‘bads’ (driving Hummers, using inefficient lighting, coal-fired electricity generation)?
    • The BlueGreen Alliance is an effort to find common ground between business, government, and citizens

You don’t need to memorize all of these. But it would be wise to have a sense that, first, humans–largely thanks to science–already have a pretty good idea of what needs to be done. Second, there are specific actions and measures to consider, each responding in some way to the problems of industrial societies with massive carbon footprints.

And then there was the Trump Administration. Very much pro fossil fuel exploration, development, and ‘energy independence.’ We are entering an era of renewed and expanded fossil fuel production (tempered with some changes from the Biden Administration that develop some areas for fossil fuels, but close off others). Framed 1) as a way to create new jobs; 2) the data on climate change are inconclusive (sound familiar?). The people in charge of environmental policy in the Trump Administration mostly came from the fossil fuel industries, and many were working to reduce environmental regulation in private industry prior to their public positions. Again, Biden has changed course somewhat, his administration speaks about a ‘green economy,’ but at the same time they opened up a large area in Alaska for oil exploration and LNG production. Since 2017 we have seen

• new oil pipelines,
• re-opening the Continental Shelf to oil drilling (Biden tried to close it, Trump re-opened on day 1 of his 2nd term),
• more ‘fracking’ for natural gas on public lands in the West, the claim (in 2024) of eminent domain to seize property with value for fossil fuel exploitation,
• renewed production of oil in North Dakota (very expensive extraction, so only active when global prices are low),
• relaxing of emissions regulations on coal-fired power plants,
• relaxing of fuel efficiency standards for vehicles (or possibly elimination in 2024),
• tariffs on solar panel imports that will reduce their adoption,
• increased coal production for electricity generation

Few of these projects are based in science and the potentially harmful effects of billions of additional tons of CO2 in the atmosphere. But as we’ve discussed, social problems persist because groups, often very powerful groups–like the oil and gas industry, utilities, etc., and their investors, but even the public through lower gas prices–have political clout, connections, money, constituents. For instance, those working in these industries or those who have bought into climate change as a ‘culture war’ issue.

Greg Craven. 2009. What’s the Worst that could Happen? NY: Perigee.

Paul Hawken. 2017. Drawdown: The most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reduce global warming. NY: Penguin.