Dems Build Momentum For Climate Change Action Ahead Of 2020 Elections
Credit to Author: Carolyn Fortuna| Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2019 18:00:47 +0000
Published on August 16th, 2019 | by Carolyn Fortuna
August 16th, 2019 by Carolyn Fortuna
Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) wants to talk about the need for climate change action.
Senator Jack Reed, photo retrieved from senate.gov
He says with the effects of greenhouse gases emitted by the burning of fossil fuels are all around us, and he offers evidence.
“Building a clean energy future will require hard work, but it also presents many opportunities,” Reed argues in an email correspondence, “to support local communities, create green jobs, protect the environment, and improve public health. Please be assured that I will continue working toward these important goals, so as to ensure that our children and grandchildren can inherit a clean and livable planet.”
Reed is one of the Democrats who is keenly awaiting the 2020 election, with the goal to defeat Trump, reestablish control of the Senate, and maintain their hold in the House of Representatives. And then they can think about passing climate legislation.
But can the US afford to wait?
Reed says he has been so outraged and disheartened by the misguided and irresponsible actions of the Trump Administration and Congressional Republicans to undo important environmental protections and increase the domestic production of fossil fuels. Organizations like Sunrise concur, maintaining that the political and media establishment have kept climate change at the bottom of the national agenda. As young people who will live through climate catastrophe unless “bold and immediate action is taken,” they’re concerned that the US is running out of time to address this existential crisis.
So Sunrise is demanding a #ClimateDebate. The Democratic National Committee promised a while back that climate would be foregrounded in the Miami and Detroit debates. So what happened? The 15 minutes and half of the field answering a question on climate change was a bare start. Sunrise calls this approach to the emergency of climate crisis “downright irresponsible.”
Sunrise photo by Carolyn Fortuna, CleanTechnica (available freely for reuse if correctly attributed).
A majority of Americans are worried that extreme heat, drought, flooding, or water shortages might harm their local area. Those concerns emerged during the “Climate Change in the American Mind: April 2019″ survey conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. Here are some of the most interesting findings from the survey.
The numbers of individuals in the US who are thinking about climate change personally are rising quickly. “We’ve not seen anything like that in the 10 years we’ve been conducting the study,” Anthony Leiserowitz, a researcher at Yale, reflects.
The Senate Democrats’ Special Committee on the Climate Crisis is in place to examine how climate change is affecting the country and the planet and to mobilize action and support for bold climate solutions. The Special Committee’s duties are to:
Are investigations, meetings, and hearings enough to challenge US policies that enable the climate crisis to worsen daily? The Dems’ track record on climate action has been mediocre at best. After the tense negotiations to pass the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the Senate faced a prolonged and nasty legislative session in their attempts to pass significant climate legislation, so they postponed the effort — indefinitely.
Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, who chairs the Senate Democrats’ Special Committee on the Climate Crisis, outlines that upcoming climate legislation must include labor union endorsement. “We just can’t do this and say some pablum about a just transition,” he told The Atlantic. “That’s offensive, honestly. If you work in power generation, or pipeline laying, or electricity transmission, you want to know, how is this going to impact your ability to provide for your family?” Schatz has been brainstorming with Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, since his appointment to the Special Committee.
Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes” were needed to keep the Earth’s temperature from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Progressives are pushing Democrats to embrace the Green New Deal at the same time many Republicans are ridiculing the idea as socialism. “While some of my colleagues would prefer to ignore or deny climate change,” Reed outlines, “I am proud to support a resolution affirming that climate change is real, that it’s caused by humans, and that the United States and Congress need to take immediate action to address it.”
To combat what Reed terms “this real threat to our environment, economy, and national security,” he’s advocating for a national energy policy that limits carbon pollution, holds big polluters accountable, and invests in the clean energy technologies of the future. He acknowledges that changing how we meet our energy needs will not be easy, but the long-term benefits of doing so are clear, as are the dangers of doing nothing.
Reed has long supported clean energy incentives and strong investments in renewable energy technologies. He cites his “strong record of standing up to those who want to go backwards,” and Reed has voted to fund the expansion of clean energy, cap carbon emissions, increase efficiency standards, and invest in resilient infrastructure.
Can Reed and the other Senate Dems make a difference in the next couple of years? Will the shift in public sentiment result in concrete policy proposals? Will Senate Republicans who have embraced “innovation” as a possible solution to climate change join in bipartisan efforts to save humanity from the dire effects of climate change? Can the solutions framed in the Green New Deal move climate conversations to actions?
All eyes are on the Dems.
Carolyn Fortuna Carolyn Fortuna, Ph.D. is a writer, researcher, and educator with a lifelong dedication to ecojustice. She’s won awards from the Anti-Defamation League, The International Literacy Association, and The Leavy Foundation. She’s molds scholarship into digital media literacy and learning to spread the word about sustainability issues. Please follow me on Twitter and Facebook and Google+