Time for action on global warming 
By Mark A. Dunlea
Green Party of New York State 

	"It is important for Greens to remind the media and the public that inaction on global warming has been a bipartisan effort by the Democrats and Republicans." Mark Dunlea

As the arctic tundra thaws, the arctic ice melts, heat waves kill thousands in Europe and hurricanes batter the Gulf and Florida coasts, Congress and the Bush administration continue to move at a glacial pace in addressing global warming and climate change. 

It is important for Greens to remind the media and the public that inaction on global warming has been a bipartisan effort by the Democrats and Republicans, with the Clinton-Gore administration as committed to stonewalling as is the Bush-Cheney administration. 

The recent hurricanes have made clear to the public, if not to politicians, that there is a link between global warming and the power of hurricanes. There is also a clear connection between climate crisis and the war in Iraq. The United States, with 5% of the world's population, is responsible for 25% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. The invasion of Iraq is the natural outgrowth of America's addiction to oil. 

The dangers posed by climate change-coastal flooding, damage to agriculture, mass extinctions, famine, hundreds of millions of refugees, increased war and conflict and increased disease-seem so immense that I can't comprehend how the Democratic and Republican parties have joined with Corporate America to block even such limited action as the Kyoto Protocol. (Greens agree with the overwhelming majority of scientists, who assert that the original Kyoto goal of a reduction of 5% to 1991 levels is severely inadequate and urge a 70% reduction.) 

Economists argue that the devastation produced by climate change will only make a slight disruption of the annual GNP in the United States. American politicians believe it will be cheaper to deal with the problems created by climate change than to make the investments needed to change industrial, agricultural and transportation practices to reduce global warming. Corporate America understands that it is cheaper to have taxpayers pay to clean up its problems after the fact than to make businesses pay up front for the environmental damages they cause.

Greens should make addressing global warming a central issue in election campaigns. We must be clear that conservation is the first step. The U.S. cannot continue its obscene pattern of gobbling up the planet's resources. Energy efficiency doesn't do much good if consumers and businesses drive their cars further distances or run their appliances more often. Additional power in the new hybrid cars has not been used to increase mpg but to improve acceleration and other performance measures. 

We must intensify our calls for creating a sustainable economy based on greater conservation, efficiency, and the development of clean, renewable energy sources like the sun, the wind, the tides and geothermal heat. Greens need to educate people that such investments will mean millions of new jobs. Ironically, some multinational companies, like General Electric, are already targeting the new environmental markets that they realize must develop in response to global warming. 

In the northeast, Governor George Pataki of New York has taken the lead in developing a Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to reduce emissions by creating a cap and trade program for carbon emissions. The tradable carbon permits, which I oppose, will be worth billions of dollars annually. Despite the involvement of large environmental groups in recent years, the proposals are so timid that they will not actually create reductions. Many politicians and environmental groups want to give these permits away to the polluters so that the corporations won't be funding the program. Greens in the northeast need to work together to critique these proposals and to demand that any such permits must be auctioned, and the revenues raised must be invested in green energy programs. 

Greens can promote a green energy agenda at the local level in many ways. In New York State, with modest success, we organized a Green Energy Buying Club to promote the purchase of wind power. I am working with the town supervisor in my hometown of Poestenkill to explore the feasibility of creating a municipal wind generator that would help reduce local property taxes. Alice Green, our candidate for mayor in Albany, released a green city agenda that endorsed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, calling for the enactment of a Global Warming Action Plan similar to the Portland, Ore. plan. Greens could also create green energy companies to promote renewable energy systems, which would provide employment for green activists, raise money for the green movement and help transform our society into a green world.

The planet will survive climate change; many species, however, will not. The solution to global warming is a green world. It is time for Greens to stand up and demand action. 

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