BY WILLIAM S. BECKER – A former official at the U.S. Energy Department and founder of its Center of Excellence for Sustainable Development during the Clinton administration.
Excerpt:
We know from decades of scientific research, and now from brutal experience, that global climate change is real. Few, if any, places in the U.S. are safe from its many consequences. They are as quick as flash floods and as slow as rising seas, but they are undeniably real and growing worse.
They are the physical consequences of political decisions and a physical act — namely the burning of fossil fuels. Nevertheless, we still rely on fossil fuels to meet 86 percent of the world’s energy needs. Our lack of political will to change this puts us at odds with nature, ourselves, one another and our children.
One result is personal and society-wide cognitive dissonance — the mental and emotional discomfort we feel when our actions clash with reality or beliefs. a recent Gallup poll shows that 63 percent of Americans believe global warming is underway, and that 48 percent — a record — believe it will seriously threaten their way of life. Yet more Americans are moving into places with high risks of climate-related disasters rather than out of them.
Fifty-two percent of us, according to another survey, want global warming to be a high priority for the president and Congress. Nearly 70 percent support America’s transition to 100 percent clean energy by mid-century. And almost 80 percent want the U.S. to participate in the Paris climate agreement.
Yet we tolerate a national government whose climate and energy policies are diametrically opposed to what most Americans say they want.
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As Psychology Today points out, “We can affirm without doubt that anthropogenic climate change is a real phenomenon that is already apparent and will, if not mitigated, cause terrible suffering and destruction before this century is over.”
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Oregon Health Authority found in 2020 that its young people felt stress, anxiety, isolation, frustration and depression because adults weren’t taking sufficient action to prevent climate change.
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No nation is healthy when floods are sweeping children away, fires are burning families alive in their homes, and tornadoes are leveling entire towns as its people do nothing of consequence to keep those tragedies from becoming normal.
