The left is an obstacle to climate action, too

Many environmental activists hold fast to unrealistic solutions, which sets back the cause, writes Pitt/ CMU physicist and engineer

Each of us is a test subject in the greatest science experiment of all time. We have known since the 1860s that gases like CO2 absorb heat radiation, so they act as a thermostat when released into the atmosphere. We are now turning that thermostat very hard.

The Paris accord marked the first meaningful global effort to turn down the thermostat. But far more remains to be done to avert profoundly damaging climate change. The United States worsened the situation when its president withdrew from the agreement, saying, “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”

Why is it that effective climate action remains such an elusive goal?

The conventional answer is the shrinking but vocal community of climate-change deniers. But disagreement among activists over competing climate solutions is also a serious impediment — one that undercuts the political will for action. We saw this clearly in last

November’s vote in the state of Washington on ballot Initiative 732.

Initiative 732 would have placed a price on carbon and decreased taxes to offset the revenue, including rebates for working families so that taxes in aggregate would not necessarily go up.

To be sure, there was opposition from expected parties. But what arguably swung the balance was opposition from social-action and environmental groups, including the Sierra Club.

For many, putting a tax or fee on carbon is the most straightforward and effective way to mitigate climate change. Distributing the collected proceeds back to all citizens makes the plan revenue-neutral, which appeals to economic conservatives. This “fee and dividend” approach minimizes the need for regulation and leverages natural competition in the marketplace to spur innovation in low/zero carbon technologies. It also incentivizes energy consumers to conserve and use alternative energy sources.

Fee and dividend has been advocated for a decade by the nonpartisan organization Citizens’ Climate Lobby. Early this year, a group of prominent former conservative leaders, including James Baker and George Schultz, advanced a similar solution to the new administration.

But the seemingly sensible step of pricing carbon meets stiff opposition on the left from those who view the marketplace as inherently flawed — amoral at best, corrupt and evil at worst.

In her book, “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate,” Naomi Klein argues that “we have not done the things that are necessary to lower emissions because those things fundamentally conflict with deregulated capitalism, the reigning ideology for the entire period we have been struggling to find a way out of this crisis.” She speaks for many who believe that we need a fundamentally new socio-economic system rather than relying on the “magicof the market.”

Even among those who support a carbon price, there is sharp disagreement about how to use the collected proceeds. A Yale Program on Climate Change Communication survey finds that most people want to use the funding in ways they find more ethical or effective than a dividend.

Some advocate targeting the proceeds to the historically disadvantaged who stand to suffer first and most from climate change. Others favor infrastructure investment or reduced income taxes. Still others want to help coal miners whose jobs arebeing displaced.

Another strong point of contention among climateaction advocates involves energy production in a future decarbonized world. Mark Jacobson at Stanford has outlined in detail an energy future he limits to “pure” renewables — solar, wind and hydro. Nuclear energy is also a near-zero carbon option supported by some, including climate scientist James Hansen. But it is rejected by Mr. Jacobson and others due to nuclearproliferation and environmental concerns. Natural gas is often spurned as a bridge fuel, even though it produces half the CO2 of other fossil fuels.

These and other issues that divide climate activists spring from genuine desire for a safe and just world. But they must be balanced against the overriding goal of a livable world for our children and their children. The sometimes cruel competitiveness of unfettered capitalism is an ongoing ethical challenge. But is overhauling the economic systems of most countries in the world — whether that is a good idea or not — feasible on a timescale that addresses climate change?

The amplified climate suffering of those who are already downtrodden is very troubling. But who will help the disadvantaged when nearly everyone on the planet is suffering the devastating consequences of climate change? Energy sources such as solar and wind do seem like the best long-term solutions. But why eliminate any possible solution in the face of impending catastrophe?

Sadly, the quest for competing perfect climate solutions is transforming potentially powerful allies into bickering adversaries. However ethical and wellfounded each of our preferred solutions might seem, we would do well to think back to that biggest of science experiments — the one we’re conducting on Planet Earth, where we all live. Perhaps then we can come together, heeding the words of poet Archibald MacLeish, whochallenged us ...

To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats …to see ourselves as riders on the Earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold — brothers who know … they are truly brothers.

Robert R. Mitchell is a retired engineer and physicist who has taught courses on climate change for the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University’s Osher programs (rrmitchell350@gmail.com).