
Maggie L. Fox
“You can resist an invading army; you can’t resist an idea whose time has come.” —Victor Hugo
Last week, I watched President Obama stand up to the fossil fuel industry and all their friends in Congress and for future generations as he outlined his national Climate Action Plan. The speech was clear sighted on both the core problem of carbon pollution and the fact we’re already paying for it in spades. It was bold in following through on a promise to take action if Congress failed. Most important, though, this was the first time in a generation when a U.S. president officially broke the silence on climate change with a real plan.
Yes, other leaders have broached the subject in public and President Obama had spoken of the climate crisis during his second inaugural address and the State of the Union speech this winter. This was different. This wasn’t a speech designed to energize just an engaged environmental community or a section of the base with promises. This was a speech for the nation singling out the greatest existential threat we face and laying out a vision for how we confront it. Together.
More than fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy challenged us to put a man on the moon, and we did it. Last week, President Obama challenged us to step up and create a future we can be proud to give our children. And we will. Because if I had to summarize all of the speech’s moments of leadership and moments of publicly shaming climate deniers in one simple thought, it would be this: getting serious about solving carbon pollution and climate change is an idea whose time has truly come.
As for the specifics of the speech, there were a lot of great ideas and policy tools, but the four most important steps the president put forward were these:
Setting standards for power plants to reduce carbon pollution. Power plants are the single largest source of our greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for nearly 40 percent of our carbon pollution. The president’s plan calls for new standards lowering the rate of carbon pollution to be in place for all power plants by January 2016. We’ve already seen this approach work with fuel-efficiency standards for cars: the government set goals and industry has exceeded them.
Setting standards for energy efficiency. Increasing energy efficiency is the easiest, most inexpensive, and most immediate way to reduce carbon pollution. The president recognizes this and his plan increases funding and federal incentives for energy efficiency, including $250 million in loans for rural utilities.
Expanding renewable energy. Increasing use of clean energy means reducing carbon pollution. It also means creating economic opportunities and jobs, jobs, jobs. The president’s takes advantage of this win-win situation to expand renewable energy development on public land and double our solar and wind energy use by 2020.
Renewing our commitment to international agreements. Climate change is a challenge we can only solve together as a planet. The president’s plan calls for the U.S. to engage with nations around the world through multilateral and bilateral climate negotiations to spur global action on climate change. The recent agreement with China on phasing out hydrofluorocarbon greenhouse gases through the Montreal Protocol is an example of the power of these agreements and the seriousness of the president’s commitment.
The policy prescriptions are critical, but to my mind, the most important point in the speech came at the end:
“What we need in this fight are citizens who will stand up, and speak up, and compel us to do what this moment demands.
Understand this is not just a job for politicians. So I'm going to need all of you to educate your classmates, your colleagues, your parents, your friends. Tell them what’s at stake. Speak up at town halls, church groups, PTA meetings. Push back on misinformation. Speak up for the facts. Broaden the circle of those who are willing to stand up for our future.”
To put it another way, it’s up to us. If we want to solve climate change, we have to stand up and get involved. We have to talk with our friends, families and networks, and help them understand the truth of the crisis, how it affects them and what we can do to solve it. Then, together we have to make our leaders listen.
This message rings true to me and is an important one to focus on the Fourth of July. Let’s not beat around the bush: as Americans, we are strong willed and independent minded. After all, the nation was founded because we didn’t want someone telling us what to do and taxing us for the privilege. Never mind the audacity of rebelling against a global empire or the practical costs of fighting a war against a well-trained, professional army. We wanted the freedom of self-determination. And we embraced a challenge to get it.
As a nation, we’ve always risen to the challenge, and today, this looks to be one of the greatest of them all. Our freedom to make the life we want really is at stake here, threatened by seas that would swallow towns and extreme weather that’s hitting us harder, more often, and with higher costs than ever before.
Make no mistake: we have a lot of work to do. We have to connect the dots for people so they understand the things they hold dear are at risk. Then we have a fight with a caged bear, as on the other side, Big Coal and Big Oil and their denier friends are doing everything they can to stop us. But if we believe the freedoms we have and the things we love intimately are worth protecting, we have to stand up and together cut carbon pollution. It’s an idea whose time has come.
Visit EcoWatch’s CLIMATE CHANGE page for more related news on this topic.
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At first glance, you wouldn't think avocados and almonds could harm bees; but a closer look at how these popular crops are produced reveals their potentially detrimental effect on pollinators.
Migratory beekeeping involves trucking millions of bees across the U.S. to pollinate different crops, including avocados and almonds. Timothy Paule II / Pexels / CC0
<p>According to <a href="https://www.fromthegrapevine.com/israeli-kitchen/beekeeping-how-to-keep-bees" target="_blank">From the Grapevine</a>, American avocados also fully depend on bees' pollination to produce fruit, so farmers have turned to migratory beekeeping as well to fill the void left by wild populations.</p><p>U.S. farmers have become reliant upon the practice, but migratory beekeeping has been called exploitative and harmful to bees. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/10/health/avocado-almond-vegan-partner/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported that commercial beekeeping may injure or kill bees and that transporting them to pollinate crops appears to negatively affect their health and lifespan. Because the honeybees are forced to gather pollen and nectar from a single, monoculture crop — the one they've been brought in to pollinate — they are deprived of their normal diet, which is more diverse and nourishing as it's comprised of a variety of pollens and nectars, Scientific American reported.</p><p>Scientific American added how getting shuttled from crop to crop and field to field across the country boomerangs the bees between feast and famine, especially once the blooms they were brought in to fertilize end.</p><p>Plus, the artificial mass influx of bees guarantees spreading viruses, mites and fungi between the insects as they collide in midair and crawl over each other in their hives, Scientific American reported. According to CNN, some researchers argue that this explains why so many bees die each winter, and even why entire hives suddenly die off in a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder.</p>Avocado and almond crops depend on bees for proper pollination. FRANK MERIÑO / Pexels / CC0
<p>Salazar and other Columbian beekeepers described "scooping up piles of dead bees" year after year since the avocado and citrus booms began, according to Phys.org. Many have opted to salvage what partial colonies survive and move away from agricultural areas.</p><p>The future of pollinators and the crops they help create is uncertain. According to the United Nations, nearly half of insect pollinators, particularly bees and butterflies, risk global extinction, Phys.org reported. Their decline already has cascading consequences for the economy and beyond. Roughly 1.4 billion jobs and three-quarters of all crops around the world depend on bees and other pollinators for free fertilization services worth billions of dollars, Phys.org noted. Losing wild and native bees could <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/wild-bees-crop-shortage-2646849232.html" target="_self">trigger food security issues</a>.</p><p>Salazar, the beekeeper, warned Phys.org, "The bee is a bioindicator. If bees are dying, what other insects beneficial to the environment... are dying?"</p>EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
Australia is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. It is home to more than 7% of all the world's plant and animal species, many of which are endemic. One such species, the Pharohylaeus lactiferus bee, was recently rediscovered after spending nearly 100 years out of sight from humans.
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