President Donald Trump is right; there is a national security emergency. It is a public health crisis, and it is ruining big swaths of our economy. Local communities like ours feel the impacts daily. If we don’t fund billions of major construction projects, this emergency will only get worse and worse.
The only problem with Trump’s pronouncement is he’s outlined the wrong emergency. This epochal threat is not waves of invading aliens at our Mexican border. The real threat is climate change, which is no longer a concern of the future; it’s happening now, and it is happening here.
We are living one of those “think globally, act locally” moments. Climate change is a planetary problem of violent weather incidents like hurricanes, polar vortexes and historic wildfires. Thousands of our Earth’s species are facing extinction; ice caps are melting; famine is spreading; and the oceans are rising and getting too warm.
That’s the global view, but there is a very local view as well. We no longer doubt that we are living a “new normal” that includes year-round threats of wildfires and extreme weather. The ocean off our Sonoma County coast is in serious eco-collapse with the loss of starfish, abalone and other species. The dominant kelp forests are disappearing.
Human inhabitants of Sonoma County also face daily climate change impacts that are both environmental and economic. Our largest utility, PG&E, is now in bankruptcy due to the disruption and costs of the last year’s wildfires. Our electric energy future is changing and uncertain. Our carbon-based economy has shaped our communities, housing patterns and costs, traffic congestion and overall livability.
Local Congressman Mike Thompson (D-Napa) is one of the primary proponents of a Green New Deal. The congressional resolution introduced recently outlines a series of bold and bodacious goals to create a zero carbon economy in just 10 years. The plan calls for spending trillions of dollars on new technology, more renewable energy resources, green jobs and a series of social, educational and health programs to catapult America into a “next” economy.
The plan is being attacked as a socialist folly and an impractical “green dream.”
But is it really? If mobilizing against climate change can be likened to this generation’s version of putting a man on the moon, then bold and bodacious is exactly what is needed.
We think our choice is clear and obvious. We can continue living with our carbon-based habits, and we will continue to heat up, dig up, choke up and use up our small pieces of this planet. Or, we can wise up and get healthier, wealthier and more sustainable in all that we do.
Acting locally, there are many points included in Congress’s Green New Deal that we can launch right here, right now.
These include switching to renewable energy sources, including solar, wind, hydro and geothermal. Local building codes should require zero-net construction. Older houses and buildings should be made energy-efficient and be heated with heat pumps. Our transportation fleet should be converted to all-electric.
We are on our way, but we need to move faster.
We can further shrink our carbon footprint by changing our daily schedules and reducing traffic jams and unhealthy commutes. We can carpool, convert to four-day workweeks, adopt staggered work hours and support more telecommuting.
The Green New Deal is not a socialist plot. We see it as a better form of capitalism where we take away fossil fuel subsidies from Big Oil. We can make America great again by leading the inevitable global transition to a new post-carbon economy.
Like Roosevelt’s original New Deal that brought America out of the Great Recession, spending trillions on a Green New Deal could save many more trillions in a healthy planet, economic security and happier people.
— Rollie Atkinson
