Climate Action Day 4 – Be Privy to the Politics of Climate Change

Starting and Sustaining Your Climate Action Journey

The Frog will explore The Climate Action Handbook: A Visual Guide to 100 Climate Solutions by Heidi Roop in the first 100 days of 2024

In the first `100 days of 2024 we will explore 100 climate solutions that may “empower you to evaluate, engage, and act” to address on-going climate change as an individual on your terms.

What does it take for you to contact your elected officials on something that you feel strongly about? Maybe it never occurs to you to do it. Myriad reasons may prevent you from taking this action – too busy, not sure how to do it, don’t think it will make a difference, not interested.

If you accept the premise of this series – that individual action is important, but the scale of the issues requires governments and corporations to lead – then you must address the disconnect between what you want as a voter and your expectations for what your elected officials must do. There is a significant majority of voters (70%) that recognize the problem of climate change and want action but an even greater percentage (90%) that have not contacted their elected officials. Meanwhile growing partisanship fueled by cynical special interests is increasingly hindering government action on anything important.

The polarization is extreme, just witness how divided we were on what to do in the face of a global pandemic. Scientists will tell you that addressing a viral pandemic involves logical steps to prevent the spread of the disease while a vaccine is developed and distributed. The response in the US was anything but logical. Climate change is subject to just as much irrational vitriol, and the magnitude of the problem promises ultimately to cause far more suffering and death than any pandemic we’ve experienced so far.

January 2021 is a memorable month for many in the US, mostly the one day where our democracy almost failed. Exactly three weeks later, on January 27, 2021 the Biden Administration issued the Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad. This rational blueprint provided context for and spelled out the needed actions that a united Congress controlled by Democrats in narrow majority quickly worked to execute.

The following year, the passage of the H.R.5376 – Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 galvanized the US Department of Energy to invest heavily in the needed technology to address climate change, including decarbonization of US industry, establishing a hydrogen economy, carbon capture, utilization and storage, and other key mitigation strategies.

The vote was strictly along party lines in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Not a single Republican voted to address climate change when given the chance.

The Democrat-controlled congress also passed H.R.3684 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also based on the Biden executive order, which is motivating, in part, the build out of critical infrastructure needed to enable a robust, energy efficient economy driven by batteries and hydrogen. Oddly, the bill is most commonly known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, despite the fact that only a few Republicans voted for it.

The current Congress has not done a damn thing on anything, let alone the important job of accelerating and amplifying the climate action of their predecessors. It is likely that the 2024 election, if it goes badly, will result in an actual roll back of the progress we have made in the last few years. Remember, the FY2018 budget initially proposed by the Trump Administration called for cutting the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy programs by as much as 82%, and it was only the intervention of Republican lawmakers that lessened the blow to the EERE’s budget.

And please remember that this happened: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord after Trump Stalls Global Warming Action for Four Years.

I am desperate in hoping that the momentum built by the previous Congress will be difficult to reverse or even slow. At the Congressional level, nothing is currently happening on climate change. Meanwhile, the work of the Department of Energy continues at great pace, not only technology development programs like the Energy Earthshots Initiative, but equally importantly the critical work of the Office of Energy Justice and Equity.

In all fairness to Heidi Roop, I embellished the message of this chapter a bit with my own passion. The firm message is Vote Climate, continue to educate yourself to flatten the bipartisan rhetoric, and figure out how to make your voice heard to those who can make a difference. As Heidi points out, no matter what the politics of someone you engage with on the climate crisis, you can confidently state that “something you care about is at risk from climate change”.

Next Up: Climate Action in 2024 – Day 5: Beware the Corporate “Anti-Climate” Campaign

Howard Creel

#rescuethatfrog
Email: rescuethatfrog@gmail.com