“Our climate is changing… it’s changing in ways that threaten our economy, security, and health — and this isn’t opinion, this is FACT.” – President Barack Obama
I’m not going to sit down and type an impassioned soliloquy pleading for you all to open your eyes to the realities of our situation. That would be, quite frankly, pointless. Those who agree with me and a vast majority of the scientific community that climate change is happening and indeed caused by human activity don’t need any further convincing. And those that don’t agree with that assessment will continue disregarding the innumerable studies and memos presented on the matter for reasons beyond me. In fact, the latter will go on to curse my liberal agenda (which is an outrageous insult to my tried-and-true political leanings) in the comment section as well as scream and shout for us to “stick to surfing!” Those commenters are ignorami, especially if you don’t see the incredible effect climate change has on surfing. However, as I mentioned before, this isn’t said impassioned soliloquy; this is, instead, a simple public service announcement pointing everyone to a new initiative that President Barack Obama and the government are undertaking in the final year of this present administration.
According to Obama and the team of scientists he and his administration have worked with: climate change is no longer theoretical, it is here; human activity are changing the climate in dangerous ways — levels of carbon dioxide are higher than they have been in 800,000 years; 2014 is the warmest year on record, following a decade of records, with 2015 on track to beat the record yet again; even the pentagon is declaring climate change a risk to national security.
How has this manifested itself? Stronger storms. Deeper droughts. Longer wildfire seasons. Flooding in Charleston and Miami at high tide. Shrinking ice caps causing the biggest change to the National Geographic atlas since the Soviet Union broke apart. And the doubling of asthma rates this past few decades. Obama goes on to paraphrase a governor: “We’re the first generation to feel the impact of climate change, and the last generation that can do something about.”
The most profound part of his announcement might have been his assertion in his belief that there is a “too late.” He continues by describing the problems that come across his desk as largely “temporally bound” which we’re able to generally “anticipate things getting better if we just plug away at it.” But climate change is the rare circumstance that presents itself in which if we don’t get it right, then there is, indeed, as said before, a “too late.”
“Science,” Obama proclaimed in 2013, “accumulated and reviewed over decades, tells us that our planet is changing in ways that will have profound impacts on all of humankind… those who are already feeling the effects of climate change don’t have time to deny it — they’re busy dealing with it.”
And therefore, in the final year of this administration, he is presenting America’s Clean Power Plan, which “will help states, cities, and towns build stronger communities and infrastructure, protect critical sectors of our economy as well as our natural resources, and use sound science to better understand and manage climate impacts… The Clean Power Plan sets achievable standards to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. By setting these goals and enabling states to create tailored plans to meet them, the Plan will: protect the health of American families; save the average American family nearly $85 a year on their energy bills in 2030; and boost our economy.”
The gist is, let’s stop being ignorami and deal with the problems in front of us, whether you believe we are directly responsible or not.
Anyway, here is the press release in full, and below is the live announcement made yesterday.
For more on climate change and America’s Clean Power Plan, check out whitehouse.gov.
