Attention to rising temperatures and sea levels is generating positive and negative reactions, depending on which side of the climate change citizens, organizations, and governments are on.
An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, the new film on climate change from former U.S. Vice President and presidential candidate, Al Gore, opened at movie theaters August 4, 2017.
In her current book, No Is Not Enough, Naomi Klein reports current U.S. Secretary of State and former head of ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson, expects humans to adapt to an overheated planet by moving crop production around as they have in the past, when weather patterns changed. Yet, ExxonMobil's oil and gas drilling equipment has arrived in the Arctic before the world's farmers, who can't work long outdoors even if their crops and livestock could survive in blistering heat.
Although James Hansen, who formerly headed NASA's climate research team, expects melting polar ice caps to keep temperatures cooler than some suggest, he believes the melting cannot help but cause a rise in sea levels. He further notes a mass inland migration of people from flooded coastal cities could cause ungovernable chaos.
Klein's book reveals Exxon's scientists knew as far back as 1978 there was general scientific agreement that humans burning fossil fuels released the carbon dioxide that influenced climate changes, and only five to 10 years remained before a serious decision to transition from fossil fuels to clean energy sources was needed. A report by the Climate Accountability Institute found 25 investor-owned corporate and state-owned fossil fuel producers, including ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, and Chevron, are responsible for half of all global greenhouse gas emissions since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was established in 1988.
In California, three communities already have filed law suits for compensation from oil, gas, and coal companies for current and future costs of property damage from and adapting to rising sea levels. San Mateo, Marin, and San Diego counties claim that instead of working to reduce the impact of fossil fuel emissions that they had known about for up to 50 years, they launched a campaign to discredit scientific findings about climate change.
Members in the U.S. House of Representatives, according to insideclimatenews.org, have been voting to prevent regulatory agencies from evaluating future damage from greenhouse gas pollution, to streamline environmental reviews of pipelines and electric transmission projects that cross state borders, and to sponsor legislation supporting federal coal leasing. In contrast, a bipartisan House caucus of 6 Democrats and 7 Republicans introduced the Climate Solutions Commission Act of 2017 (H.R.2320) to establish a National Climate Solutions Commission. By appointing Commission members, the President and Congressional leaders from both parties would acknowledge climate change is "real, human caused, and requires solutions." Based on the latest scientific findings, Commission members would recommend to the President, Congress, and the States policies and actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Environmental organizations, such as the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, are warning investors in publicly traded fossil fuel producers that they are jeopardizing the value of their stock holdings, since auto makers are moving toward electric and hybrid models and companies, such as Apple, Facebook, Google, and Ikea, are leading the way to a corporate culture committed to the use of 100% renewable power.
Finally, the Arbor Day Foundation (arborday.org) has a program to help homeowners absorb air pollution and reduce the need for fossil fuel-generated energy. To find out if there is a nearby active U.S. program to select trees and determine the best location to plant them to provide shade around homes, go to arborday.org/est.
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