Articles by Ken Ward

The Climate Policy Paradigm has reached its endgame

It takes effort to suit up in the quasi-business/academic garb of the professional environmentalist and enter the lion's den of DC politics or the state houses. Our beliefs are so fundamentally at odds with the very fabric of civic life that it requires an effort of will, particularly in the early years, not to scream bloody murder and run for the door.

Over decades, layers of accommodation and polite behavior have built up by accretion, while our rough edges have been worn down. The net result is a worldview -- we may call it the "Climate Policy Paradigm" -- that is so universally accepted that it goes unnoticed, yet its power is so great that we have abandoned the precautionary principle, environmentalism's central guide for action, with barely a murmur when the two came in conflict.

Two hundred people turned out to hear Ross Gelbspan speak at the Jamaica Plain Forum a couple months ago. He gave us an hour of unvarnished truth, summarized recent climate science, and drove home the reality that nothing short of immediate, transformative, global action is sufficient.

Climate campaign staff followed up at a "Global Warming Café," presenting our standard three-part story:

• first, we can turn things around, indeed we are already starting to do so;
• second, sound energy policy is good for America, because it will reduce dependence on foreign oil and create green jobs; and
• third, there are two things individuals can do: urge members of Congress to support emissions reduction bills and reduce our own carbon footprints.

The audience joined in small group discussions, contributing their own tips on mulching and insulating hot water pipes, but the disparity between the terrible picture Ross painted and the flimsy action activists were invited to take left a palpable pall in the auditorium.

By caring for God’s creatures, we avert a second flood

This is a speech I delivered on Earth Day, April 20, 2008, at the Unitarian-Universalist First Church in Jamaica Plain, Mass. A software glitch prevented its publication on that day, but I believe it's still worth sharing.

As Kurt Vonnegut once said, "I wish I could bring light ... but there is no light. Everything is going to become unimaginably worse. If I lied to you about that, you would sense that I'd lied to you, and that would be another cause for gloom, and we have enough causes already."

It is true that there are fewer bald-faced lies being told about the state of the earth -- even our president now admits that climate change is, well, shucks, kind of a problem -- but fewer lies does not mean that there is more truth.

Jim Hansen, the world's foremost climate scientist, is circulating a draft paper arguing that the climate "tipping point" must be reset at 350 ppm of atmospheric carbon, a point we passed two years ago.

If we do not immediately return below that level, Greenland and Antarctic ice shelves will collapse, with a catastrophic rise in sea levels. From the study of ancient ice cores and sea sediment, we now know that sea level change is episodic and quick ... measured in feet per decade, rather than inches per century.

Neither civilization nor global ecosystems can adapt to change this rapid.

Hansen sketches a solution of appropriate scale: immediate halt to burning coal; crash Marshall program to replace it with renewables; limit oil and gas use to known, economically viable reserves; full-scale reforestation and adoption of carbon-storing agricultural practices.

Nothing that we are doing, nor even seriously contemplating, comes anywhere near such massive a transformation, yet every actor on the political stage -- including major environmental organizations, "green" corporations, and presidential candidates of both major parties -- downplay the terrible realities and trumpet small-scale solutions wrapped in upbeat rhetoric.

We are racing toward the end of the world and have no plan of escape, but it is considered impolite to acknowledge that fact in public.

Why this is the last election, and another look at McCain

This is the last U.S. election. Have we taken stock of the implications? There is no room for incremental thinking. The storm will fall on whomever we elect president (and isn't there a case for McCain?). Among the startling implications of breaching the 350 ppm limit is the likelihood that this is the last U.S. presidential election during which there remains a slim opportunity to take decisive global climate action.

All the ordinary rules and habits of elections and campaigning have been summarily and unexpectedly tossed out the window. Building party power, advancing political careers, and addressing climate incrementally are no longer plausible strategies. We must now concern ourselves with electing leaders of character who will rise to the challenge as the crisis begins to unfold and political systems are stressed.

Comparing campaign climate policies, in this context, is not the best measure of candidates. The differences between Clinton, McCain, and Obama on climate are minuscule compared to the gulf between the state of U.S. civic debate and the scale of response required to avert cataclysm. Furthermore, a simple head-to-head comparison of policy takes no account and gives no credit for the key indicators of political grit and integrity: context and history.

John McCain may espouse the weakest platform of the three, but he adopted his position early and at high potential political cost. Both Clinton, who logged more dinner time with Al Gore then almost anyone, and Obama, a N.Y. PIRG college intern who credits LCV with his surprise victory in his first Senate race, were positioned to be strong climate action advocates but did not do so.

Twelve simple things green groups can do about climate change

Hey, environmentalists! You passed the energy bill -- what're you gonna do now?

Here are 12 things that could be undertaken with present resources: