Skip to content

Our Boiling Point Climate Chage Policy
Take Action with ‘The Citizen’s Guide to Climate Policy’ Take Action with ‘The Citizen’s Guide to Climate Policy’ Take Action with ‘The Citizen’s Guide to Climate Policy’ This is a pivotal moment in the fight against our world’s most
critical environmental challenge ever: climate change.  These two
words have historically rendered reactions ranging from dismissive eye
rolling to impassioned name-calling.  However, the debate has finally
progressed from whether climate change is real and whether humans are
responsible to what we now need to do about it.  Unfortunately though,
the debate about what action we must take right now in reaction to
climate change has become a political monster, both in the United
States and throughout the world.  Because climate change is such a
long-term challenge and because the political inertia of the world
(especially in the U.S.) makes it so difficult to move past the status
quo until faced with an immediate emergency, substantive action
against climate change has been little or none.  This is unfortunate
because the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
reported in February 2009 that climate change is likely to be more
devastating than originally predicted (see
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090214162648.htm).

2009 is a pivotal year because of the potential opportunities to take
meaningful action against climate change.  The House of
Representatives just passed the first U.S. bill aimed at climate
change.  In Fall 2009, the Senate will deliberate on a similar bill to
the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act.  In the
international arena, the world’s leaders will gather in Copenhagen,
Denmark in December 2009 to negotiate an international climate treaty
that will transition the world away from carbon-emitting industry,
protect those most vulnerable to the impacts of a changing world, and
set a trajectory for the future of our planet.

Like any major political issue, the climate change debate has largely
been steered by special interest lobbyists.  For instance, The Center
for Public Integrity reported that more than 770 companies and
interest groups hired an estimated 2,340 lobbyists to influence
federal climate policy in 2008.  The problem with special interest
lobbyists is that they often do not accurately represent the consensus
opinion of average U.S. citizens.  And although citizens have
potentially the most powerful voice for change, average citizens often
have a difficult time engaging in debates such as climate change.
This is either because citizens do not know how to take action and
make their opinions heard, or because the subject matter/policy talk
of climate change is so difficult to understand in the first place.

Thankfully, two students from Middlebury College in Vermont have
stepped in to fill that gap.  As part of what has been coined the
“youth climate movement,” these two students have authored The
Citizen’s Guide to Climate Policy.  As they describe, this guide “sets
out to help engaged citizens join the climate policy debate without
having to wade through the wonky policy talk of Washington.”
Basically, this guide gives the average Joe a very understandable, but
thorough, description of climate change policy.  It provides a
commendable pro/con analysis of many of the most debated climate
policy issues, such as carbon tax vs. cap and trade, offsets, economic
cost, etc., from both a U.S. and world perspective.  But most
importantly, this guide is meant to inform and inspire average
citizens to take action on one of the most important challenges
civilization has ever faced.  As one commentator writes, this guide is
“not for passively sitting by and watching the game, it’s an
invitation to get in the game, to become passionately involved while
there’s still some hope of affecting the outcome.”

The Public Trust urges you to take action!!  Begin by downloading your
copy of The Citizen’s Guide to Climate Policy at:
http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2009/07/10/introducing-the-citizens-guide-to-climate-policy/.

Sean McDermott
Summer Intern
Public Trust Environmental Legal Institute of Florida
 
< Prev   Next >

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




Click To Donate!

Public Trust Environmental Legal Institute of Florida, Inc
2029 North Third Street
Jacksonville Beach
Florida 32250
(904) 247-1972 x418