I. Clean Economy Optimism
The Paris accord and the Kigali agreement, the global divestment movement the spread of carbon-pricing mechanism, legal cases trying to hold fossil fuel companies liable for the harm they've caused -- climate policy is at its most fundamental core the question of how much we'll leave in the ground." "When the carbon bubble pops, the ability of fossil fuel industries to set political agendas will be deeply compromised." "The clean economy is getting exponentially more competitive. Clean energy and batteries, in particular, are on steep learning curves. As we build more, the price drops; as the price drops, the number of situations in which wind and solar outcompete coal and gas grows." [1]
II. Clean Energy Pessimism
The other side of the coin on clean energy optimism are cautionary notes about the difficulty of holding global warming below two degrees, as called for in the Paris agreement. Elizabeth Kolbert of the New Yorker magazine throws some cold water on the nations in the Paris agreement "pursing efforts" to limit temperature increase to 1.5 degrees. She cautions that at the current rate of emissions, "the world will have run through the so-called carbon budget for 1.5 degrees within the next decade or so." She worries that "the Supreme Court for its part, appears unlikely to challenge the Administration's baleful reasoning. Last week [in early October], it declined to hear an appeal to a lower court ruling on hydrofluoro- carbons, chemicals that are among the most potent greenhouse gases known. The lower court had struck down an Obama-era rule phasing out HFCs, which are used mostly as refrigerants. The author of the lower-court decision was, by the dystopian logic of our times, Brett Kavanaugh." [2]
"To have a reasonable chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, the I.P.C.C. said, global CO(2) emissions, now running about forty billion tons a year, would need to be halved by 2030 and reduced more or less to zero by 2050." According to the I.P.C.C., between 1.5 and two degrees of warming, the rate of crop loss doubles. So does the decline in marine fisheries, while exposure to extreme heat waves almost triples.
III. The Wilderness and Civilization Debate
[The] divisions over Isle Royale's wolves are emblematic of more-high-stakes debates about how, when, and whether human desires should override the need to keep some places free from civilization." "For some, the wolf is a totem of wildness; for others, it's a menace. Since wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park in 1995, these divisions have typically fallen along ideological lines." "Can we resist the temptation to turn every last terrain into a vehicle for human wants?" [3] (Isle Royale is an island in Lake Superior, just off Michigan's Upper Peninsula.)
IV. Protecting Arctic Wildlife
In 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower protected nearly 9 million acres as the Arctic National Wildlife Range, later to be expanded and reamed a national Refuge. "Sure, the idea of keeping one last one was nice, but that was never how America had treated the frontiers of the past; frontiers, by American definition, were for developing." "And then last December, in the midst of a chaotic administration, a historically unpopular president signed a major tax bill with a largely overlooked rider. Just like that, after almost 50 years of passionate debate, U.S. law would require oil leasing on the Arctic prairies." [4]
ADDEDUMS:
*"Across both wind and solar, women make up just under 30 percent of the workforce. The percentage of women in administrative and paralegal roles is around 90 percent, but it's rare to see more than one female wind technician on any given site." [5]
*"The borderlands [between the U.S. and Mexico] are home to more than 1,500 native plants, ocelots, antelope, bisons, and wolves." [6]
Footnotes:
[1] Alex Steffen, "The Last Dinosaur," Mother Jones, November/December 2018.
[2] Elizabeth Kolbert, "Global Warming," The New Yorker, October 22, 2018.
[3] Jason Mark, "Let It Be," Sierra, November/December 2018.
[4] Brooke Jarnie, "The Last Stand," Sierra, November/December 2018.
[5] Wendy Becktold, "Wind Beneath Her Wings," Sierra, November/December 2018.
[6] Michael Brune, "Mr. Trump, Tear Down This Wall," Sierra, November/December 2018.
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