How Biden Will Address the Climate Problem

Re: the photo here, a reader notes: The president-elect has included those with climate experience across a wide swath of federal agencies.  I hope they are experts that think outside the business as usual box.

I hear you, though I’m not sure I agree.  The only problem with the “business-as-usual box” is that no one to date has implemented any real part of what is contained in that box.  If humankind is to avoid the worst effects of climate change, it will have to do the following, all part of our planetary repertoire, and nothing more.

• Stand up to the oil companies and make an energy policy that phases out fossil fuels at the maximum feasible pace.

• Put a price on carbon (preferably the oft-discussed Carbon Fee and Dividend) that facilitates this phase-out.

• Implement some version of the “Green New Deal,” investing in cleantech generally and putting millions of people back to work.

• Use the developments that come out of that effort to export clean energy solutions to the countries whose carbon pollution is ruining our planet far faster than we are ourselves.

• Put pressure on countries like Brazil to preserve the “lungs of the planet,” i.e., the Amazon rainforests, a task that, given all the nationalism and right-wing populism, may be even harder than our standing up to the oil companies in our own country.

• Support plant-based and laboratory-grown meat, insofar as our demand for beef is the only real reason that the rainforests are under threat in the first place.

Plenty to be done here, but nothing more than “blocking and tackling.”