People. PEOPLE! I woke up to the news that President Barack Obama and Premier Xi Jinping jointly, formally joined the international climate agreement reached in Paris last year. It is so FREAKING AWESOME and inspiring that I finally got THE steroid shot of inspiration to get off my duff to blog again...which isn't to say that SO MUCH isn't happening that's already awesome: getting to laugh about extreme weather this summer, getting full-on optimistic by the insanely high adoption of clean energy and getting Republicans to be so supportive of wind it would get removed "over my dead body". Wow.
But that wow ain't nothing compared to this: having the two largest greenhouse gas emitters JOINTLY agree that their countries have met the necessary requirements and set reductions targets...this my friends is the turning point for our planet and a turnaround that has been 20 years in the making.
As someone who's been in this space since 2003, there's two certainties if you find normal people with whom to chat about this topic (not the flipping weirdos who argue with me about climate change...but I digress)...they will say "there's no way Congress will pass this" and "well why would we do anything if China won't." Which were decent points well made until about 5 years ago...particularly because China has become a world leader in the green energy revolution and received absolutely no credit from everyday Americans for this huge successful pivot. Which means I have spent a ENTIRE DECADE of my life having to argue something that today's joint agreement makes totally irrelevant in the most amazing way. Let me break this down for you...
But that wow ain't nothing compared to this: having the two largest greenhouse gas emitters JOINTLY agree that their countries have met the necessary requirements and set reductions targets...this my friends is the turning point for our planet and a turnaround that has been 20 years in the making.
As someone who's been in this space since 2003, there's two certainties if you find normal people with whom to chat about this topic (not the flipping weirdos who argue with me about climate change...but I digress)...they will say "there's no way Congress will pass this" and "well why would we do anything if China won't." Which were decent points well made until about 5 years ago...particularly because China has become a world leader in the green energy revolution and received absolutely no credit from everyday Americans for this huge successful pivot. Which means I have spent a ENTIRE DECADE of my life having to argue something that today's joint agreement makes totally irrelevant in the most amazing way. Let me break this down for you...
In 1997, when America's Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning, climate-explainer-extraordinaire Al Gore was our sitting Vice President Al Gore, he gave a speech at the international climate talks in Kyoto. And that year, more than 150 countries took part in the negotiations for setting a legally binding treaty with emissions targets and reduction timelines. The treaty that came out was called the Kyoto Protocol and when Gore came back and it went to Congress for ratification it was refused at every turn and so went nowhere. The U.S. not taking part in Kyoto Protocol meant it was basically useless as an international tool for progress by any other country. By the time I was studying environment in undergrad, this was the huge cautionary tale to never let Congress touch a climate deal and more painfully for those like me, it was an unavoidable big statement that said to the world the U.S. would never take part in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. We were going to be assholes unapologetically from here til the actual doomsday for the world thanks to our actions, now go away leave us alone. Damn, that's hard when you're like me and trying to prevent doomsday from coming. Ammiright?? It didn't help that President George W. Bush actually stated his opposition and continued to refuse to do anything for climate for eight. loooooooonng. years. (How I lived less than 2 miles from that man for 4 years and kept my sanity I don't know....actually I DO know...I was overdosing on The Daily Show and The West Wing...but I digress. Again!) Meanwhile for the 18 intervening years between Kyoto and Paris, we and the planet we depend on continued to choke ourselves and reap the negative impacts: CO2 emissions climbed 50 percent, climate-related natural disasters increased 42 percent, and global sea levels rose 2.5 inches.
Lessons sometimes need to get learned the hard way...and what's beautiful about the Paris Accord is that it was written such that it doesn't need ratification by Congress. Masterful stroke of genius, thank you MY President Barack Obama! So to the person who says "but Congress will never pass it"...I now get to say "you're right, and it's thankfully irrelevant!" Those idiots seem to take pleasure and successfully get re-elected for literally doing nothing. I "can't wait" to see how the partisan gerrymandering leads to even less progress next session. Here's looking at you Census 2020...let's fix this situation, shall we?
So onto the second thing people say...that China is the biggest emitter and we'd never agree without them...and they would never agree because "obviously" they are not eco. Here's the interesting thing that's been happening the last few years over in China when it comes to renewable energy and climate change: China has become the world leader on taking action on this issue. Yes, CHINA IS THE WORLD LEADER ON ACTION TO COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE. I know, I know. It's easy for we Americans to think we run things and it's easy to judge China's environmental record for lots of good reasons, including the 2008 Beijing games. But people, they have been en fuego for helping get their emissions down for these last few years and uncomfortable as it is for our American egos to be challenged to our being the best at everything...they've been doing it better and faster than we have. They've curbed plans for coal plants, built significantly better plants for fossil fuel to burn cleaner, installed so much wind energy their grid can't keep up, invested more on renewable energy than the US and Europe combined, and reduced it's overall greenhouse gas emissions by 1% (and this is all while the overall U.S. emissions keep climbing). Last year, China announced a nationwide cap-and-trade program to provide a market-based solution to continue to curb greenhouse gas emissions and incentivize clean energy investment. China receiving expertise from the best and brightest climate minds from the U.S. on how to potentially do a carbon tax. In short, China is dominating and we are so far behind now it's laughable to even try to compare our actions. Yeah, we suck by comparison. Let that feeling of inadequacy stick with you and spur you into action. That's the Rasty and environmentalish way!
Here in the U.S. we have some regional cap-and-trade systems and the Clean Power Plan by President Obama has helped shutter coal burning power plants (or maybe not). But the climate denial-ists have so far continue to win the fight...they've gotten so many people so confused about this issue there is no political will to act....which means so far they've been winning. We're basically acting like fifty small children where some are throwing spaghetti at the wall and some are saying there is no spaghetti with the looming possibility of no food EVER AGAIN under a under-minded and small-handed Donald Drumpf...meanwhile China is owning the entire culinary and restaurant space like a BOSS.
So in summary...September 3 2016 will forever be the turning point day that the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases came together and jointly agreed in front of the world that they are acting to combat climate change. It's a really, really, really big deal. And while China gets the "LIKE A BOSS" award for not getting enough respect for their leadership on climate change - give 'em some major props my people! - no one can surpass my Prezzy in Rezzy, the POTUS with the MOSTUS. Thank you President Barack Obama for giving the future of our planet this moment, and for giving this long-suffering environmentalish environmentalist the largest dose of HOPE ever. I went door-to-door for you in 2008 and I phone banked for you in 2012, and this right here, right now is the moment I have been waiting for. Bless. To quote your indomitable wife the FLOTUS with the MOSTUS, I will continue to work to prove even and especially when it comes to climate that "this right here is the greatest country on earth."
Lessons sometimes need to get learned the hard way...and what's beautiful about the Paris Accord is that it was written such that it doesn't need ratification by Congress. Masterful stroke of genius, thank you MY President Barack Obama! So to the person who says "but Congress will never pass it"...I now get to say "you're right, and it's thankfully irrelevant!" Those idiots seem to take pleasure and successfully get re-elected for literally doing nothing. I "can't wait" to see how the partisan gerrymandering leads to even less progress next session. Here's looking at you Census 2020...let's fix this situation, shall we?
So onto the second thing people say...that China is the biggest emitter and we'd never agree without them...and they would never agree because "obviously" they are not eco. Here's the interesting thing that's been happening the last few years over in China when it comes to renewable energy and climate change: China has become the world leader on taking action on this issue. Yes, CHINA IS THE WORLD LEADER ON ACTION TO COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE. I know, I know. It's easy for we Americans to think we run things and it's easy to judge China's environmental record for lots of good reasons, including the 2008 Beijing games. But people, they have been en fuego for helping get their emissions down for these last few years and uncomfortable as it is for our American egos to be challenged to our being the best at everything...they've been doing it better and faster than we have. They've curbed plans for coal plants, built significantly better plants for fossil fuel to burn cleaner, installed so much wind energy their grid can't keep up, invested more on renewable energy than the US and Europe combined, and reduced it's overall greenhouse gas emissions by 1% (and this is all while the overall U.S. emissions keep climbing). Last year, China announced a nationwide cap-and-trade program to provide a market-based solution to continue to curb greenhouse gas emissions and incentivize clean energy investment. China receiving expertise from the best and brightest climate minds from the U.S. on how to potentially do a carbon tax. In short, China is dominating and we are so far behind now it's laughable to even try to compare our actions. Yeah, we suck by comparison. Let that feeling of inadequacy stick with you and spur you into action. That's the Rasty and environmentalish way!
Here in the U.S. we have some regional cap-and-trade systems and the Clean Power Plan by President Obama has helped shutter coal burning power plants (or maybe not). But the climate denial-ists have so far continue to win the fight...they've gotten so many people so confused about this issue there is no political will to act....which means so far they've been winning. We're basically acting like fifty small children where some are throwing spaghetti at the wall and some are saying there is no spaghetti with the looming possibility of no food EVER AGAIN under a under-minded and small-handed Donald Drumpf...meanwhile China is owning the entire culinary and restaurant space like a BOSS.
So in summary...September 3 2016 will forever be the turning point day that the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases came together and jointly agreed in front of the world that they are acting to combat climate change. It's a really, really, really big deal. And while China gets the "LIKE A BOSS" award for not getting enough respect for their leadership on climate change - give 'em some major props my people! - no one can surpass my Prezzy in Rezzy, the POTUS with the MOSTUS. Thank you President Barack Obama for giving the future of our planet this moment, and for giving this long-suffering environmentalish environmentalist the largest dose of HOPE ever. I went door-to-door for you in 2008 and I phone banked for you in 2012, and this right here, right now is the moment I have been waiting for. Bless. To quote your indomitable wife the FLOTUS with the MOSTUS, I will continue to work to prove even and especially when it comes to climate that "this right here is the greatest country on earth."
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