By Terry Hansen
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier recently joined a coalition of 23 states supporting President Donald Trump’s initiative to produce more energy with “beautiful, clean coal.” The group’s letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum asserts, “Harnessing fossil fuel energy, including coal-fired power, is the only way for America to confront 21st Century challenges.”
However, stopping Earth’s warming is not consistent with the Trump administration’s agenda of “Drill, baby, drill” and “American energy dominance.” While it’s true that some forms of fossil fuel generation are cleaner than others, they are all increasing the concentration of heat-trapping carbon in the atmosphere.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “Limiting global mean temperature increase at any level requires global CO2 emissions to become net zero at some point in the future.”
This means reducing carbon dioxide emissions enough that they are balanced by CO2 removal, such as being absorbed by forests and dissolved in the oceans. Otherwise, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will continue to grow.
Disturbingly, the Earth has already warmed to the point that, instead of absorbing and storing carbon dioxide, the planet’s carbon sinks are becoming sources of CO2 emissions. Warmer oceans are less able to take up carbon dioxide. Moreover, permafrost is thawing and forests are burning.
These climate feedbacks indicate that we are losing our allies in nature that are essential to the climate fight. In the words of Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, “Nature has so far balanced our abuse. This is coming to an end.”
Climate change threatens the foundation needed for human thriving, and it disproportionately affects the world’s poorest nations and their most vulnerable citizens. A report by the United Nations Children’s Fund states: “The climate crisis is the defining human and child’s rights challenge of this generation, and is already having a devastating impact on the well-being of children globally.”
One billion children are deemed to be at “extremely high risk” from climate hazards such as heat waves, drought and water scarcity. The majority live in nations in Africa and South Asia that have contributed very little to this global problem. The 10 countries where children are most at risk are responsible for only 0.5% of the world’s emissions.
According to the report “The Age of Consequences: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Global Climate Change,” “The overwhelming message is that early steps to limit or mitigate climate change are essential, because longer-term efforts to adapt or anticipate may not be possible.”
Notably, the United States is the world’s greatest cumulative emitter, with historical emissions that are 71% more than second place China. Furthermore, about half of the CO2 humans emit stays in the atmosphere for centuries or more.
Consequently, the U.S. Fourth National Climate Assessment concludes: “Climate change resulting from anthropogenic CO2 emissions and any associated risks to the environment, human health and society, are … essentially irreversible on human time scales.”
In his book, “A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change,” Stephen M. Gardiner writes that, although climate change is usually discussed in scientific and economic terms, “the deepest challenge is ethical.” According to Gardiner, “What matters most is what we do to protect those vulnerable to our actions and unable to hold us accountable, especially the global poor, future generations and nonhuman nature.”
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, protecting forests and wetlands because of their ability to store carbon, and funding adaptation are among humanity’s greatest moral obligations. Even small changes in the trajectory of Earth’s warming could mean better lives for decades for millions of people.
As the world’s most significant emitter and most powerful nation, America has a responsibility to embrace a leadership role in addressing the climate crisis.
Terry Hansen is a retired educator who writes frequently about climate change. He lives in Milwaukee. Banner photo: Smoke streams from a coal-fired power plant in Florida (iStock image).
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