Individual Action Not Enough

For a long time now, I've been concerned about the environment--worrying about my impact, worrying about the profligacy with which we burn through the natural resources of the earth, reading about climate change and conservation and all the implications of the millions of tons of carbon that we're sending up into the atmosphere with reckless abandon. This interest has led to, at times, some mildly obsessive behaviors,  including trundling all the recycling from the grocery store where I used to work to a collection point (picture it, the entire back end of a Jeep crammed with unsold newspapers and plastic strawberry containers). While I like to think that my behavior in this regard is a little less obsessive than it used to be, I still try to do my part. I'm fortunate that where I currently live I can mostly walk to where I need to go, so I'm happy to let my car sit while I walk to work and out for the occasional bite to eat. I still recycle as often as I can, and do sensible things like turning the tap off, trying not to waste food, and keeping the lights off when they aren't needed in the apartment. These behaviors aren't just friendly to the environment, they help save money as well.

However, as admirable and sensible as these behaviors are--I encourage recycling and walking whenever possible--it is foolish to think that personal restraint is any substitute for concerted action at the national and international level. For every person who walks to work there are a hundred or more who drive half an hour in large vehicles for their jobs. For every bottle that gets tossed into a recycling bin there are a million others that end up in the trash, or worse, get thrown out the window to litter up roadsides everywhere. The actions of individuals, while important, fade almost to insignificance when we look at the larger scale, as we inevitably must. The problems that face us are global ones, and must be addressed as such, because at the global scale it is the behavior of entire countries and industries that matters. Make no mistake, individual action will be necessary to help overcome these problems, but it is not sufficient in and of itself to solve them. 

An individual can choose to drive less and cut back on their personal carbon emissions. All well and good. A government can push for increased fuel economy in cars that will cut back on the carbon emissions of millions. An individual can choose to turn the lights off in their homes when they aren't needed. A government can push for power companies to switch from carbon-spewing coal to cleaner natural gas--or better yet, to demand energy from the sun or wind that can drastically decrease carbon emissions across the board. The cuts that an individual can make to their own carbon emissions pale in comparison to the drastic reductions that are possible with action at the state and national levels (to say nothing of action at the international level, which is what will really be needed to solve the climate crisis). 

What we currently lack in the United States is a national government willing to make even a token effort to reduce carbon emissions. While the Obama Administration is, I believe, committed to finding solutions on both the climate and energy problems that we face, the legislative branch of government remains intransigent. The Waxman-Markey Bill, designed to implement a cap and trade system to reduce emissions, passed the House of Representatives in 2009, but never made it through the Senate. Now, thanks to mid-term elections in 2010 that swept environmentally-hostile Republicans into power in the House, and a swathe of shameless gerrymandering that kept them in power after the 2012 elections, no legislation designed to address climate change is likely to make it through the House either. After all, while the GOP promised to focus on jobs and repeal the healthcare mandate, they focused instead on obstructing the President's agenda, halting any environmentally-friendly legislation, and limiting women's access to birth control and abortion, which we all know are terribly pressing issues, at least if you are a Republican (it is even worse at the state level). Denial of the reality of climate change looms large in the GOP, in spite of continuing scientific evidence that it is a fact, including the acceptance of this reality by the overwhelming majority of those scientists who have devoted their lives to studying Earth's climate. The poster boy of this denial is undoubtedly James Inhofe, a Senator from Oklahoma who asserted that snow is evidence that climate change is incorrect. Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't give a more recent example of this special kind of madness, and fortunately Joe Barton (R-TX) was happy to put his own ignorance on display recently when he claimed that Noah's Flood was evidence that humans aren't changing the climate. Nothing like citing a mythological story to prove how out of touch a person is with reality. 

So we have here two pieces of a puzzle. First, that action at the level of state and the national government is what is needed to address the climate problem. Second, that a branch of our government is currently controlled by members of a party that deny this problem exists, denial that is encouraged and subsidized by the fossil fuel industry. In order to ensure that action is taken by the United States, action that will encourage other countries to do the same, GOP control of the House must be broken. And, given the gerrymandering that kept the Republicans in power there, this process will not be short. However long it takes, it is a task that must be completed. We are already running out of time to address this issue, and the longer we go without taking action the more painful the consequences of our delay will be.