The article that ran last month about ocean
acidification, and how it is disproportionately affecting our own
California coast, was deeply distressing to me. While I certainly don’t
make my living from the ocean, my devotion to it extends far beyond my
love of seafood. Even if I only put my feet into the Pacific three or
four times per year, it’s always a homecoming. The idea that our ocean
is sick and getting sicker because of human-caused climate change is
unbearable.
We’ve looked to our precious ocean to absorb the
consequences of our poor stewardship for long enough. As Osborne was
quoted in the article, “There’s no question that the answer is to curb
our emissions.” We must start that process by passing H.R. 763, the
Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act. This resolution is the real
deal. Even at this late date, it offers a chance to set us on the path
to a livable future, on land and in the water. Take care of your ocean
by supporting this critical piece of legislation.
Rebecca Paterson, Three Rivers
January 26, 2020
https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article239609873.html
Read more here: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article239609873.html#storylink=cpy
Drastic changes are needed if California is to win the climate-change challenge
By Kevin Hall
When Gov. Gavin Newsom delivered his keynote speech
at the recent California Economic Summit
in Fresno, he failed to say two keywords: climate change. Conversely, he
said a lot about our economy while at a climate change summit held in New York
just weeks earlier:
“The [California] economy is growing; a fully
functioning cap-and-trade program; the most audacious low-carbon green growth
goals in the United States of America. There’s nothing left for me to sign —
it’s 100 percent across the board, in every category,” he boasted at Climate
Week NYC held in support of the U.N. Climate Action Summit in late
September.
Speaking on the eve of wildfire season, Newsom seemed
to be tempting fate itself. Conflagrations were soon exploding around the state
as if an invading armada were shelling it: Sandalwood, Caples, Saddleridge,
Kincade, Tick, Getty, Easy. People fled for their lives — some died — in war
zones of flame, smoke, sirens, panic and confusion.
And if Newsom needed another call to arms, two days
before the first wildfire hit, San Francisco-based nonprofit think tank Next 10
issued its 11th annual California Green Innovation Index. The report warns,
“California will meet its 2030 climate targets more than three decades late —
2061... if the average rate of emissions reductions from the past year holds
steady.”
But California and the world must cut emissions by
half before 2030. If not, tipping points will be crossed that set in motion
irreversible, ever-increasing releases of naturally stored carbon and methane,
according to the October U.N. report on a 1.5 C increase in global average
temperature.
Yet there stood Newsom in Fresno on Nov. 8, one year
after the Camp Fire, the deadliest, most destructive fire in state history with
at least 85 victims, talking about the state’s economy without once mentioning
climate change.
When pressed by The Bee and KFCF radio afterwards,
Newsom explained California is now in the implementation phase of its climate
change response, echoing his New York remarks.
Indeed we are.
California’s cap-and-trade program, dominated by oil
and gas interests, encompasses 450 businesses emitting 85% of the state’s
greenhouse gases and along with two Canadian provinces comprises the world’s
fourth largest exchange for carbon credits. Since 2013 it has generated $11.9
billion for reduction efforts.
High speed rail has received a fifth so far — $2.5
billion — but the concrete-intensive project will never offset its carbon
footprint, and its construction spews asthma-irritating dust and cancer-causing
diesel exhaust continually on West Fresno residents already hard hit by
industrial polluters.
Another $2.2 billion has gone toward low carbon
transportation. Primarily for alternative fuel programs, these largely serve to
extend dependence on fossil fuels and combustion technologies. For example, more
than $800 million is slated for a dairy methane program best described as the
HSR of agriculture: it offers dubious benefits but negatively impacts vulnerable
rural communities, according to an April working paper from Fresno-based
Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability.
Finally, in late September the state Air Resources
Board approved the California Tropical Forest Standard, a potential carbon
credit source for fossil fuel companies, over the objections of indigenous
opponents from around the world who decried the move as “carbon colonization” of
their natural resources.
Newsom must address these policies’ shortcomings head
on. Because, as the Next 10 report lays bare, cap-and-trade and other
market-based solutions won’t work in time. They have not worked in time.
Unfortunately, Newsom and the rest of his generation
now in power came of age in an era of market-as-solution, government-as-problem
philosophy. Since the 1980s, most California politicians have drunk deeply from
that Reagan-with-a-twist-of-Clinton policy cocktail; with it comes considerable
financial backing from industry, particularly oil and gas extractors.
Consequently, the state government’s climate change
programs are rooted in outdated strategies warped by fossil fuel lobbyists like
former state legislators Henry T. Perea of Fresno, now with Western States
Petroleum Association, and Chevron’s Michael Rubio of Bakersfield.
The urgent response appropriate to the scale of our
climate emergency will remain out of reach unless Newsom and the state
Legislature change direction dramatically. To push them, youth climate strikes
will be held on Black Friday. People of all ages will challenge the status quo,
fighting against its genocidal outcomes.
Read more here: https://www.fresnobee.com/article237771754.html#storylink=cpy
The Trump administration is formally withdrawing
the United States from the Paris Climate Accord. Meanwhile, we face
utilities shutting off power to prevent massive wildfires of the sort
that destroyed property and claimed lives last year, wildfires breaking
out in places where the utilities are not shut off, and increased
damage and deaths from a larger and stronger hurricanes. Then, of
course, there’s the flooding that is beginning to damage coastal
communities. The costs of allowing climate change to continue are
mounting. And yet we keep hearing that reducing emissions will somehow
destroy the economy.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions will not
destroy the economy, but is the only thing that will save the economy.
That is why I have called my congressman’s office and asked that he
support HR763, a bill that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions through
market mechanisms while putting more money into the pockets of the
majority of citizens. That really is our choice — a little extra money
in our pocket and less damage, or financial catastrophe caused by
climate catastrophe. The smart money is on acting, not denying.
Matt Armstrong, Fresno
November 15, 2019
https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article237339169.html
Read more here: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article237339169.html#storylink=cpy
