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This pandemic is priming us for the urgent battle against climate change. Beyond the coronavirus horizon we will find a community with strong “cultural antibodies” against global threats.
Imagine a world collectively in favor of climate actions that don’t jeopardize planetary health for greed or partisan gain. COVID-19, through fear and tragedy, is allowing us to rise above such attitudes and is changing the minds of millions of skeptics and leaders. Will we respect climate scientists as we respect Dr. Fauci? Will we realize that a carbon tax is an urgent mitigating measure? Such changes have never been more likely.
There are three “cultural antibodies” that can reshape the climate discourse: a) belief in early mitigation, b) trust in science and c) confidence in economic solutions.
Decisive climate action has heretofore been crippled by an attitude of procrastination, with vague hopes for technology breakthroughs; post-coronavirus we will be reluctant to wait passively for an unlikely “carbon vaccine” in the face of this existential threat. Instead, we’ll choose early mitigation to quickly flatten the curve and save lives.
Scientific advice is necessary and reassuring in a crisis. The pandemic has seen the spread of data and charts and a new appreciation for experts — even a “Fauci fever.” We don’t lack experts on global warming, but we need leaders that consistently point to and esteem them. Coronavirus is teaching us to trust experts because we are safer when we heed their knowledgeable advice.
Carbon pricing is the most widely endorsed lever to turn the tide of climate change. And there is already a bipartisan bill in Congress: the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (HR 763). It will reduce carbon emissions by 40% in the first 12 years and return all carbon fee revenue to American households, but it has nevertheless remained unpopular in some quarters. This is about to change. Millions of Americans are now receiving stimulus checks (up to $2,400) — an important precedent that will boost the political acceptance of carbon pricing with its attendant dividends. This measure will protect us from price increases, provide an economic stimulus and rebalance the carbon economy.
If we fail to act, the consequences will be dire. When sea level rise starts washing over coastal cities and storms and heat ravage the country, “shelter in place” will have a new meaning. If a global mandate of “carbon distancing” becomes necessary, it will likely last decades. What extreme and unpredictable impacts would such eleventh-hour measures have on our future?
With an increased desire to mitigate risk, a renewed trust in science, and confidence in economic levers, the world has never been better poised to tackle the climate crisis. From this era of COVID-19 we see a stronger global community emerging with the ability to come together for a safer future. What can each of us do to flatten the climate curve? Call your local representatives to tell them that climate action matters to you. Advocate for specific measures such as carbon pricing (e.g. HR 763). Vote for candidates who will step up to confront the climate crisis. And use your passion to help spread the “cultural antibodies” of urgency, climate science, and economic solutions.
Fausto D’Apuzzo is a research scientist at HP Inc. who lives in Mountain View, and Lanier Poland is a junior at Mid-Peninsula High School who lives in Portola Valley. Both are volunteers with Citizens’ Climate Lobby, a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy organization focused on national policies to address climate change.
The Voice will publish guest opinions online every weekend while the publication of our print edition is suspended. Submit signed op-eds of no more than 600 words to letters@mv-voice.com by Wednesday at 5 p.m.
The Voice will publish guest opinions online every weekend while the publication of our print edition is suspended. Submit signed op-eds of no more than 600 words to letters@mv-voice.com by Wednesday at 5 p.m.
The Voice will publish guest opinions online every weekend while the publication of our print edition is suspended. Submit signed op-eds of no more than 600 words to letters@mv-voice.com by Wednesday at 5 p.m.
Very thoughtful and well written. When businesses and government act to maximize profit and protect vested special interests, the environment and the well-being of humans tend to be sacrificed. Even in the current viral pandemic, the rich are angling to get richer and more powerful. At the start of the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918, there were about 2 trillion humans. In three waves, that pandemic infected a third of humanity and kill over 50 million. Oblivious to the environment, the world population has grown to almost 8 billion. Corporations and many governments treat humans as a replaceable resource. Hence the term “human resources.” And most humans work for neither. They are largely slaves with few choices – living in poverty and desperation. The mainstream press keeps quiet. The USA cannot single-handedly save the planet or significantly reduce the plight of humankind – especially beyond our national borders. But a better nation and world will surely require new political officeholders who will place the health of the planet and the well-being of Americans and other humans above the profit and power of existing special interests.
What we have in common with the C-19 models and the climate change models, put garbage in and you get garbage out.
Both models continue to be wrong, yet there is no accountability in that, only excuses and attack those that point it out.
> Both models continue to be wrong, yet there is no accountability in that, only excuses and attack those that point it out.
Yet it is the Deniers that continually fail to offer a solution, or even acknowledge the severity of the problem.
@interesting: care to share with us the 10 hottest years in recorded history?
WE HAVE TO GET IN REVERSE GEAR NOW REGARDING REMOVAL OF STAY AT HOME!
Friday the WHO proved that being positive for ANTIBODIES of COVID 19 is NOT PROTECTION against REINFECTION.
And look at all the money now WASTED on the development of the ANTIBODY tests. Now that they do not provide protection against REINFECTION.
What this prove unfortunately is that COVID 19 has a short MUTATION perion, meaning it changes rather rapidly. The REAL problem with that is one infection and one VERSION (version 1.0) of ANTIBODIES do not necessarily work on VERSION (version 2.0).
Now if it mutates the GOOD way, it is lesser deadly, but it also can become a worse dangerous version.
THIS MAY FORCE STATES LIKE GEORGIA TO REVERSE COURSE.
BOY ARE WE ALL IN A SERIOUS SITUATION.
Good luck passing a carbon tax at a time when the global economy is in the toilet. Fighting climate change is a laudable goal but politicians won’t go for it now.
The carbon tax and dividend doesn’t cost much money but has a huge impact on gradually moving the world to a more sustainable future. It only correct a huge failure in pricing fossil fuels where they pass huge hidden costs in pollution, climate degradation, environmental damage and huge health cost for us to pay for. Studies show we can significantly lessen climate change damage with a carbon tax with no change in GDP but a huge improvement in health of our planet. The WTO estimated the subsities for fossil fuels was $5.1 Trillion in 2015. We need to stop subsidizing something that is killing our planet.
I doubt that even the Citizen’s Climate Lobby volunteers who authored “Cultural antibodies’ to help fight climate change” (4/25/20) would dispute that HR763 is the ONLY way to mitigate the devastating effects of continuing to rely on fossil fuels to power our economy, but the irony is that Economists and Climate Change: Consensus and Open Questions describes and analyzes the results of a survey sent to 289 economic experts on climate change” which “selected from authors of research published in one of the top twenty-five economic journals” and found that “84% of the respondents to the poll said that the effects of global warming will create significant risks to important sectors of the United States and global economies. There was near unanimity—98%—that a price on carbon will increase incentives for efficiency and innovation.” (https://policyintegrity.org/publications/detail/economists-and-climate-change/)
HR763 is already in Congress with over 80 co-sponsors. Isn’t it worth trying so we don’t suffer any more from the carbon-demic of rising sea levels and superheated land?
It is clear that the public has gotten a real lesson on interpreting exponential curves, and that’s very good. I wonder if climate scientists understand exponential curves, though.
The whole purpose of the Paris Accord seems to find a technical fix hoping to make the earth safe for endless exponential economic growth. That is dreamy thinking.
We simply can’t substitute ever-doubling renewable energy for ever-doubling fossil energy. It’s a fool’s errand, a waste of our time, an incredible distraction from the real job of making the economy comfortable as one of the ecosystems of the earth.
If interested in my writing see: http://synapse9.com/signals
> of making the economy comfortable as one of the ecosystems of the earth
Wow. That’s something. Meanwhile:
“2019 Was The 2nd-Hottest Year On Record, According To NASA And NOAA”
Hope you’re ‘comfortable’. The rest of us aren’t.