Healthy Indoors Magazine
Issue link: https://hi.iaq.net/i/509496
Healthy Indoors 19 More News Continued warned of "severe, pervasive, and irreversible im- pacts" should the world continue burning fossil fuels at a rate exceeding political efforts to reign them in, according to a version obtained by the New York Times. When scientists are scared, you know shit is get- ting real. The Times followed up that story with one disclosing the Obama administration's new strategy for negotiating a global climate agreement that won't need the approval of a Republican-led Congress. September could signal a further shift. What's being billed as the largest climate march in history will take place in New York during the run- up to a special UN forum designed as a primer for world leaders before next year's climate treaty talks in Paris. Around 50,000 people are expected to show up, about as many people pack themselves in to watch baseball at Yankee Stadium on an average Wednesday. Organizers are hopeful there could be a lot more than that. A documentary called "Disruption" is being released in early September to coincide with the protest, which links the climate movement with some of his- tory's most well-known episodes of popular outrage. The week before the big protest, Naomi Klein will release her new book on climate change. Its title? "This Changes Everything." What are the demands of this movement? Many countries face a nearly existential risk even in best-case scenarios. As Americans, our climate impacts will probably be comparatively light. In a sense, those taking the streets are agreeing to take a relatively small hit now so that those in the devel- oping world might be able to avoid catastrophe. New York City will be a protest by proxy. Recent polling shows the majority of Americans are on board with this: Americans now favor action on climate change, even it if means prices will go up. The people in the streets are not alone. But we can do more. A recent Bloomberg investigation asked Re- publican leaders their private views on climate change, off the record. The results were strik- ing: not only do many believe global warming is a serious issue, they also largely support action to address it. With an election approaching, cli- mate change is increasingly becoming a wedge issue. Hansen has argued that a single step would go a long ways toward solving climate change: a bilateral price on carbon between the world's two biggest economies, the US and China. A revenue-neutral progressive carbon tax would motivate a quick shift to a renewable energy economy and place the burden for paying for it on those that can most afford to do so. Plus, it works. A recent study showed that such a tax could create 2.8 million jobs and actually grow the economy. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to happen anytime soon. The truth is, there's no way of knowing when or where a spark will ignite Americans into an irreversible social movement on climate, lead- ing vast sections of society to eschew their daily lives to take their place in a movement bigger than themselves. The only certainty, in my mind, is that it will happen eventually: the status quo is simply unacceptable. Maybe we're already seeing the start of this movement. Are we up for it? http://motherboard.vice.com/read/climate- change-has-an-outrage-problem