The needed action on climate change
Here is the future: More heat waves, more floods, more forest fires, more hurricanes and less land as the seas rise.
That’s if human beings take climate change seriously, which we are not.
Let things slide and there will be all of that, and more, including profound consequences for agriculture and human health.
Those are some of the conclusions of the sixth report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Report on Climate Change.
The IPCC issues a report every six or seven years based on a review of the current research done on our warming planet.
The report issued this month — considered its most comprehensive — states things plainly: “The role of human influence on the climate is undisputed.”
The UN’s General Secretary, Antonio Guterres called it a “Code Red for humanity.”
So how will humanity respond?
“I think people are getting it,” said Mitch Wagener, professor of biological and environmental science at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury. “The droughts, the fires, the smoke in the sky.”
Wagener has spoken more than 120 times to community groups about climate change and its implications. He acknowledges it’s a selective audience — people who want to learn about global warming. It’s the people who aren’t listening that need to
be reached.
“What will matter is when things happen that don’t go as planned,” Wagener said.
“It’s complicated,” said Theodora Pinou, Wagener’s colleague in Western’s biology department. “People like the narrative. But we haven’t moved to the point of getting them into action.”
That action can mean individual things — consuming less, winterizing your house, buying energyefficient appliances, driving a cleaner, more high-mileage car.
“They’re all good,” Wagener said. “But they’re not sufficient.”
It’s also an economic issue. Pinou said when towns and cities opt for more development — less open space, more asphalt, more polluted storm runoff — they ignore environmental issues.
“Look at the decisions we’re making,” she said. “We’re not looking at things like forest fragmentation.”
Wagener said to make societal changes, people have to get involved on that level — voting for candidates that will address climate change, and shifting investments toward clean energy and away from oil, gas and coal.
“Every dollar you spend is a signal to the economy,” he said.
Politics does make a difference. Because the US Senate has passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, Connecticut is in line to get $5.4 billion in new funding
for transportation projects. That will mean regional funding for rail projects, money to improve the electric grid and $106 million to build resilience to climate change in Long Island Sound.
“It’s a significant increase in funding,” said Rebecca French, director of climate planning for the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
Because sea level rise is a given — even if the world makes major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions — French said the state has to plan for that, looking forward to what towns will need to deal with those rising waters.
“A lot of the focus has been about Sandy,” she said of the 2012 storm that flooded the Northeast. “Now, we’ll have funding not based on the last disaster.”
DEEP commissioner Katie Dykes said the infrastructure funds will help the state’s environment.
But it also means jobs. It will be a different economy. But it’s still the economy.
Dykes said one thing the entire Northeast region must do is install a lot of charging stations along major highways so that people who buy electric cars can get to where they want to go.
“Think about the jobs and the electricians that will be needed to build that system,” she said.
The move to a new environmental future — necessary if people want to stave off future catastrophes — will not be easy.
This year, the state General Assembly refused to approve Connecticut’s participation in the Transportation and Climate Initiative — a multi-state attempt to reduce auto emissions, which are the largest contributor to air pollution in the state.
The stumbling block was a cap-and-trade system on fuel suppliers that would have increased fuel prices while bringing hundreds of millions of dollars to the state to fight pollution. That cap-and trade system was dubbed a gas tax, and legislators ran from it.
Dykes said for people living in our major cities, more air pollution means more children with asthma attacks, more health problems and millions spent on medical care. That’s the cost as well.
“It’s a choice we’re making,” she said.
This year, the state General Assembly refused to approve Connecticut’s participation in the Transportation and Climate Initiative — a multi-state attempt to reduce auto emissions, which are the largest contributor to air pollution in the state.