November 13, 2017 (newyorker.com)<\/p>\n
By Bill McKibben<\/p>\n
Spare\u00a0a little pity for Jerry Brown. The California governor has been standing up admirably to Donald Trump on many issues, but especially on climate change\u2014even\u00a0threatening to launch<\/a>\u00a0scientific satellites to replace the ones that Washington\u00a0wants to ground<\/a>. This week, he\u2019s in Bonn, Germany, at the global climate talks, spearheading the drive to show that America\u2019s states and cities have not forsaken the\u00a0promises made last year in Paris<\/a>. On Saturday, barely a minute into his big prime-time talk, Brown was rewarded for his pains with booing. He was visibly startled when demonstrators interrupted his speech and began chanting, \u201cKeep it in the ground!\u201d<\/p>\n Pity him, then, but not too much. For one thing, Brown responded to the challenge Trumpishly\u2014\u201clet\u2019s put\u00a0you<\/i>\u00a0in the ground,\u201d he told the protesters, who were led by indigenous and climate-justice activists. And, for another, they were absolutely right; their slogans illustrated the contradiction at the heart of the planet\u2019s climate policy, one that Brown, if he wanted to, could play a key role in solving.<\/p>\n There are two halves to the climate dilemma: demand and supply. We use too much coal and gas and oil, and we\u2019ve begun to address that through the rapid adoption of renewable energy, the spread of conservation measures, and ideas such as a price on carbon. Brown\u2019s California has been a leader in much of this work. But we also\u00a0produce<\/i>\u00a0too much fossil fuel, and that endless production makes it harder to drive down demand. In fact, it will make it impossible to meet even the modest goals of the Paris accords. A\u00a0remarkable study<\/a>, published last year by Oil Change International, found that the world\u2019s developed oil and gas fields\u2014the ones we\u2019re already pumping\u2014contain enough carbon to carry us past the 1.5-degree-Celsius temperature increase agreed to in Paris. (Add coal to the mix and we go way past two degrees, without ever discovering another seam or field.) That\u2019s why campaigners from around the world, meeting in Lofoten, Norway, this summer, signed a declaration calling on governments to begin the \u201cmanaged decline<\/a>\u201d of the world\u2019s fossil-fuel-production zones.<\/p>\n Five hundred N.G.O.s\u2014including\u00a0350.org<\/a>, which I helped found\u2014have signed that declaration, but not many political leaders. In fact, heads of governments tend to fall into one of two camps. The first, populated largely by Trump and his followers, sees climate change as nonsense and aims to increase both supply and demand. The other, which includes everyone from Barack Obama to Canada\u2019s Justin Trudeau to Brown, offers inspiring rhetoric on fighting global warming but refuses to rein in fossil-fuel exploration and development. Trudeau, for instance, said at an oil-and-gas conference in Texas this year that \u201cno country would find a hundred and seventy-three billion barrels of oil in the ground and leave them there,\u201d a reference to Alberta\u2019s tar sands. Give Trudeau high marks for honesty\u2014he\u2019s\u00a0gone all out<\/a>\u00a0to build the pipelines necessary to drain that oil\u2014but low marks for math. There\u2019s no way to burn those hundred and seventy-three billion barrels without overwhelming the atmosphere; they would take us thirty per cent of the way to 1.5 degrees, and that from a nation with less than one per cent of the planet\u2019s population.<\/p>\n California is a big oil-and-gas producer, too\u2014the third largest in the United States\u2014and Brown has so far declined to curtail even fracking and urban drilling, the dirtiest and most dangerous kinds. In his Bonn speech, he offered the most tired of explanations: \u201cIf I could turn off the oil today, thirty-two million vehicles would stop, and ten million jobs would be destroyed overnight.\u201d But, of course, no one is talking about turning off the flow of oil overnight. That\u2019s the point of \u201cmanaged decline\u201d\u2014an orderly retreat from the fossil-fuel precipice. And, in truth, no one is better situated than Brown to lead it. California doesn\u2019t depend on oil and gas the way that, say, Russia or Saudi Arabia or Oklahoma does; the state is full of the world\u2019s most vigorous entrepreneurs, many of them making fortunes on the energy transition.<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s the fact that Brown is on the way out, term-limited and hence insulated from the political power of the fossil-fuel industry. He could do his successor\u2014and the rest of the world\u2014a huge favor by, for instance, announcing that California will no longer grant new\u00a0permits for exploration or major infrastructure development. Such a commitment would shut down nothing except the petroleum industry\u2019s\u00a0scientifically and economically flawed assumption<\/a>\u00a0that it can maintain its business model indefinitely.<\/p>\n The pressure is not just on Brown. Over the weekend, climate activists occupied a German coalfield, and there are increasing calls on Chancellor Angela Merkel to announce a phase-out of coal mining before the Bonn summit wraps up, at the end of this week. Merkel has been pretty steadfast on climate policy, so she might do it. But Brown is something different: he aspires to lead Earth\u2019s fight against climate change, having called a huge conference next autumn, in San Francisco, of governors, mayors, and other \u201csubnational actors\u201d from around the world. That could really be a turning point in the battle, and a way to bypass Trump\u2014but only if Brown and others are willing to get serious about supply as well as demand.<\/p>\n (Submitted by Ruthie Sakheim, OccupySF Environmental Justice)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" November 13, 2017 (newyorker.com) By Bill McKibben Spare\u00a0a little pity for Jerry Brown. The California governor has been standing up admirably to Donald Trump on many issues, but especially on climate change\u2014even\u00a0threatening to launch\u00a0scientific satellites to replace the ones that Washington\u00a0wants to ground. This week, he\u2019s in Bonn, Germany, at… Continue reading