Raise Your Voice On Global Warming
As world leaders meet in Paris this week to try to agree on a meaningful strategy to combat global warming, those of us who live on the East End should pay close attention. Eastern Long Island is especially vulnerable to sea level rise, one of the byproducts of a hotter planet. Current and future officials will face budget-busting challenges in the years ahead, as well as painful choices about whether to protect private property at the expense of common assets such as the region’s beaches and public waterfronts.
The conspiracy enthusiasts and lonely Internet prognosticators who insist the science behind the crisis is wrong are not to be taken seriously. The vast majority of expert opinion is consistent and daunting. In fact, the language used to describe the predictable effects of climate change is increasingly blunt.
Even if the Paris talks were successful in holding warming to 6 degrees Fahrenheit, Coral Davenport, who covers climate change for The New York Times, observed, “Scientists say that that level of warming is still likely to cause food shortages and widespread extinctions of plant and animal life.” But even 6 degrees would be regarded as positive since current trends would push the planet’s increase to a “far more destructive temperature increase of more than 8 degrees Fahrenheit.”
Certainly there are individual, government, and corporate steps that should be taken. Individuals can choose electric and hybrid vehicles to eliminate tailpipe emissions. Households and businesses can reduce consumption of fossil fuels. East Hampton Town has set a 100-percent renewable energy goal for 2030. It has also sought to promote large-scale solar power facilities on two town-owned sites. And yet the reality is that greater steps will be required, and this will take national leadership.
It is quite shocking that the United States negotiators in Paris have conceded that there would be no way to get a two-thirds majority in the Republican-controlled Senate for a climate treaty. Instead, they hope to set voluntary goals. Meanwhile, Republicans in the House of Representatives are trying to block several of President Obama’s measures to curb domestic carbon emissions.
New York’s senators, Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer, both Democrats, could reliably be expected to vote in favor of a climate deal. As for Representative Lee Zeldin, however, there is reason to doubt his commitment to turning the tide even though his congressional district is among those most likely to see severe flooding, erosion, and coastal inundation as a result of sea level rise. “I’m not sold yet on the whole argument that we have as serious a problem with climate change as other people,” he told Newsday last year. This is not only wrong, it is dangerous.
Then, too, looking at what is being said in the run-up to the Republican presidential primary, there is little hope of anything approaching a national consensus on climate change. This is a shame because divisions within the United States diminish the prospects for a successful outcome in Paris.
With Mr. Zeldin irrationally questioning the science and with New York’s senators’ positions more or less assured, to be effective on a larger scale, East End residents must use their voices — and perhaps dollars — to try to move public opinion. It is in both our local interest and that of the planet on which we live.