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| Obama's Climate Speech (Reuters) |
Yesterday, President Obama finally
addressed the problem of climate change in a 45-minute speech at Georgetown University
in Washington DC Alaska and the drought and heavy rains of the Midwest .
From there,
he discussed how these effects have costs for all of us and said that, because
the science was sound, we had to act. He wondered if we had the courage to act before
it’s too late.
To his
credit, he proposed limits on pollution from power plants and mentioned ending
fossil fuel subsidies. However, though he still did not come out against the
Keystone Pipeline and instead left himself some wiggle room, saying that it
would only be approved if it was in the nation’s best interests.
It was a
speech that was heavy on new technologies, as if renewable energies can solve
our problems. Unfortunately, though he talked about using energy more
efficiently and wasting less energy, he made no mention of actually using less
energy, which also needs to be part of the solution. If we’re to transition off
fossil fuels to 100% renewables, we simply can’t keep consuming energy the way
we have been. Either that, or we’ll have to give up pristine wilderness and
public lands for wind farms. I’m all for wind power, but not at any cost.
Factoring
consumption into the equation is also important to bring home the message that
we are over-consuming the environment. One of the main causes of species loss
is habitat destruction, usually from land converted to agriculture (typically
cattle). In fact, if we developed a silver bullet and solved our energy
problems tomorrow, we would still have the biodiversity crisis to solve.
Obama said, “We all share a
responsibility for keeping the planet habitable,” and this means we’re going to
need to do more than transfer to renewable energies. We have to examine our
entire environmental footprint and reduce it.
