Pocket Change

Global warming strikes our front yard

Leonardo DiCaprio and I have a lot in common.  Besides both being American men with feet, we also believe it is high time somebody does something very serious to save the planet.

"We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters or the big corporations, but who speak for all of humanity,” DiCaprio told us in his recent Oscar acceptance speech, imploring us to “not take this planet for granted.”

The problem, apparently, with Mr. DiCaprio making such comments lies somewhere hidden inside a giant walk-in closet in one of his six, giant, walk-in mansions.

“He has six mansions!” Many people shouted in the days following his acceptance speech.  “How dare he tell us to stop polluting?”

This is a common rebuttal often heard whenever a celebrity tells us to stop polluting.  People point out that the celebrity has no real moral foundation to make such a declaration because, after all, their particular carbon footprint is much larger than the average person and so they should just go shut up.

This argument does have merit.  After all, if I was to make the much-needed declaration to my own children that “Hey, we need to stop eating so much sugar” while simultaneously pouring syrup on their pancakes, something would be lost in translation.  It’s not that Mr. DiCaprio is being disingenuous about his concern for the environment, or that I am not sincere about the need to limit sugar, it’s just that pancakes taste good.

This, then, is the rub. How can we even meet to discuss limiting carbon emissions when such a meeting, like the one in Paris this past year, in itself creates more carbon emissions?

One place we could start is to simplify the “debate,” as much as possible, by accepting something very obvious:  the planet is getting warmer.  It just is.  The ice caps are melting and the average ocean temperature is rising. These are simply quantifiable scientific facts.  A person can argue about why the ice is melting all they want, but at the end of the day, it’s still melting.

Just look at a satellite image of the North Pole taken over the course of the last twenty years.  Better yet, ask an insurance actuary living in Miami what his spec sheet looks like for 20 years out.  These guys are hardly tree-hugging environmentalists eager to social engineer this place into a hippie compound.  These are people mostly driven by data, not political schemes, so if they are hedging their bets on higher sea levels by mid-century, why wouldn’t we?

Now let’s ask another question.  Will a warmer planet be a plus or minus for our way of life?  Well, unless you’re a Russia president trying to get easier access to your tremendous Artic oil reserves, a warmer planet is not really in your best interest.

So, if the planet is getting measurably warmer and that is to our detriment, the next logical question to ask is, so what?  What are we going to do about it, if anything?

One solution is to basically do nothing.  Earth will be fine regardless.  Earth is not going anywhere.  A warmer planet will be better for many Earth species, in fact, it’s just that humans are not one of them.

 Another idea, however, is to use the situation as a catalyst to make our quality of life better.

Before elaborating, it’s important to understand that climate change will not be fixed by driving less, walking more, or turning off your lights when they are not in use, although those are all great habits to get into.  We are not going to solve this by forcing people to change their behavior.  Every polar bear on earth will drown before we stop driving.  Remember, we are the species that let’s our own people drink lead-saturated tap water.  Do we honestly think enough of us would do anything to make our lives even remotely less comfortable for the sake of polar bears we will never meet?

This does not mean inaction is reasonable, however. 

The United States had the potential to do something quite reasonable in 2009.  For a brief moment, we lived in that rarest of political seasons: obtuse plurality.  Not only did one party control the White House, the Democrats enjoyed comfortable margins in both branches of Congress.   Perhaps just as importantly, President Obama was still fairly popular with most Americans and he had a mandate to fix a very real problem:  the tanking economy.  With wise leadership America could have used this opportunity to begin the process of alleviating numerous dilemmas and done so in a way that could appeal to people from both political persuasions.

We could have invested our enormous resources into rebuilding outdated and thus inefficient infrastructure.  We could have invested heavily in research and development toward the creation of renewable energy sources.  These moves would have created jobs, helped the economy, and would have made us less beholden to foreign energy sources.  As “pie in the sky” as these ideas might seem, they are certainly no more idealistic than stopping Hitler sounded in 1940, or reaching the moon seemed in 1961.

Had America dedicated itself, seven years ago, to becoming energy independent, our military would be able to rest at least a little easier.  Had we truly committed ourselves to renewable energy, we could have grown our own economy while lessening the strain we place on an increasingly fragile environment.  These are laudable goals for conservatives, liberals, and everyone in between.

Unfortunately, that opportunity was mostly squandered on unpopular domestic legislation, as evidenced by the 2010 mid-term elections.

Regardless, much of the world is making strides toward these ends for both environmental and economic reasons already.  Much of America, particularly at the state and local level, is also making strides towards these same ends.

Energy sustainability just makes good sense, which is why, when it comes to leadership on the issue from Washington, we should probably just expect more hot air.