Climate Change: addressing the momentum problem [op-ed CCT 14 May 2013]

I recently attended a forum on “Planning For Climate Change” at the Audubon Sanctuary here in Wellfleet. There was emphasis on both reducing and coping with climate change effects on this vulnerable town, the encroaching seas, the battering storms. Worse-come-to-worst, we were told, we may at some point have to put some of our houses up on stilts or move them inland.

Much of this was well-intentioned preaching to the choir. Despite the dire scenarios being presented, most of us seemed pretty comfortable.

 

Left out was the real problem, the 800 pound gorilla in the room: why, 15 years or more into accelerating climate change concern, here in a t own that regards itself as forward looking, does this well- advertised forum draw only about 60 (my rough count) mostly grayhaired usual suspects?

 

The problem isn’t that we’ve lacked solutions. Most of those proposed at the meeting have been around for years. The Audubon Nature Center we were sitting in—with its passive solar construction, photovoltaic array and composting toilets– is a very attractive example.

 

The problem is that we haven’t had the motivation to employ these solutions on a wide scale, here or elsewhere.

 

Why, in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, being treated as a CC event, and a near miss for us, are we not more exercised in our own behalf? One clue: an early speaker at the forum emphasized several times that CC is a problem that requires grassroots, individual action . But almost certainly that’s part of the problem. Clearly current individual efforts such as recycling or for those who can afford it, buying a hybrid or electric car, are not getting the job done. “Every little bit helps.” is part of the problem.

 

It would seem that what we really need to deal effectively with CC is leadership of the sort required in establishing such national priorities as surviving the Depression and winning World War Two. If Obama had on re-election made the sort of inspiring commitment to leading the charge against CC that JFK made in creating the national goal of putting a man on the moon, there’s no telling how we would be thinking about it now.

 

Yes, CC denial is still a factor. But perhaps less of one than lack of inspiration on the part of believers, who in a town like this can be assumed to be in the substantial majority. What we may need is less creeping up on timid goals, than inspiring ourselves with an allout effort. (Our hesitating progress toward “green community” status doesn’t seem to be doing a whole lot to turn us on.)

 

What we might need to do to become less comatose about the oncoming disaster, in this town that thinks so highly of itself, is to commit to the radical commonsense of transforming the whole town according to the most obvious sustainable practices within, say, five years. Namely, following the lead of the exemplary Audubon Nature Center: passive solar construction (i.e., glass placement and superinsulation) for all new houses, retrofit where practicable. Require photovoltaic panels on all properties where it makes sense, starting with an array at the landfill.

 

Overthrow the tyranny of Title 5 septic thinking with the no-brainer of composting toilets. Henceforth, not a drop of septage in the ground to threaten our drinking water or harbor.

 

A sheet of righteous quotes handed out at the forum included this quote from Obama: “we cannot afford more of the same timid politics when the future of our planet is at stake.”Obama himself seems to lack sufficient boldness at the federal level. But perhaps in this town meeting town, where we citizens and our friends the selectmen are the leadership, local politics could get it done.

 

Radical solutions, to be sure, but it might take no less to wake us up to the impending climate future.

 

Sounds to me even more inspirational than putting a man on the moon.

 

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