My son overheard me talking to my daughter about the dangers posed by climate change and a little while later I found him crying on the back steps. I asked him what was wrong and he told me he didn't want me and his sister and mom and the kids in class to die. I asked why he would think such a silly thing and he told me that the planet was dying. I asked who told you that and he replied with how his teacher had said the same thing that I did to his sister that climate change will cause a climate crisis. So I found it hard to convince him that a climate crisis and "save the planet" didn't mean anybody was dying but then and there I realized the true crime here; exaggeration and fear as environmental motivation. Not only do I feel like a bad parent, my confidence as an environmentalist has been shattered. How can I be a part of this climate emergency knowing full well that it's only an exercise in motivating with fear like the neocons did? I can't do this anymore. It’s been 25 years of climate crisis warnings and to be honest, I can only think of a handful of people I know in the movement that will vote for taxes to make the climate colder and lower the seas. All I’m saying is that you can count me out of the climate change movement but as far as energy and waste and pollution go, I’m 100% on board. But I can’t work side by side with those that look my children in the eyes and tell them they will die on a dead planet from human CO2. I realize now how insincere climate change belief was for if it really was true, I’d have been acting like it was the comet hit of an emergency the scientist said it was. And it’s clear to me that science and environmentalism itself has exploited and exaggerated climate change to the point that I can no longer be a part of this CO2 mistake but I will do whatever I can to be a good steward of the planet without condemning our children to a CO2 death. Climate change I see now wasn’t about sustainability; it was about neocon-like fear and mindless power. Count me out. I am a former believer and if anything climate change was completely unsustainable in voter support. THIS planet lover is happy that the science was exaggerated and a crisis for future generations was avoided. But until I see the countless thousands of scientists acting like it’s a real emergency by marching in the streets with us, count me out. I am a former believer in climate change and I will resist those that issue CO2 death threats to my family.

Then why is this law necessary? Why not just tax incandescent bulbs so that they cost as much as CFL lamps? Then people can choose which one they want. Under this scenario, the total cost (purchase and operation) of the incandescent lamp will be higher than that of the CFL lamp. If a person finds the quality of light produced by an incandescent lamp to be superior, he can pay the premium to enjoy what he considers a better type of illumination. The people that would choose to do so would form a distinct minority, so why not let them, as Joseph Campbell said, "Follow their bliss"? Oh, that's right - free choice is anathema to those in government.

You are a good parent and your son was on the right track. Humans prefer to think of ourselves as gods, but also inescapably we are animals who are dependent on the ecosystem for our survival. A life based on burning fossil fuels is not going to work over the long term. The science is not exaggerated and the crisis is real. Countless thousands all around you are responding to the crisis by changing their lifestyles and working for collective action.

I know what you mean about the scientists acting like it's a real emergency... every scientist I know seems to be hopping on airplanes all the time to go meet with all the other scientists.

"Conservatives believe in small government, reduced spending, and a go-it-alone foreign policy. But solving climate change will undoubtly (sic) require robust government, increased expenditures, and a great degree of international cooperation."

This statement assigns far too much rationality to conservative opposition to acknowledging human contributions to climate change -- particularly on the popular level. The comment from mememine69 is closer to the mark. Taking climate change seriously is fraught with fear: fear of untimely death; fear of having to sacrifice a profligately indulgent lifestyle; fear that the good old USA may not in fact be God's chosen utopia and thus not immune after all from the laws of growth and decline that have governed every other society since the beginning of time. We are dealing with a process of psychological denial, pure and simple. People don't want to acknowledge the reality of climate change because its implications frighten them.

But this is not to say that there isn't also a big government issue. There is. Combating climate change within the current policy framework can mean an increase in top-down mandates determined and administered by government agencies. Nobody wants this. Nearly everyone prefers employing market-based incentives to the maximum extent feasible. This is why most people who think seriously about the problem prefer a carbon tax to cap-and-trade. It is simple to understand, simple to administer and difficult game or manipulate. But of course it's not pain-free. At this late hour there are no pain-free solutions. Only folks in the denial camp imagine otherwise.

Climate change, global warming, whatever you want to call it is a fact. How it started is up for debate, it may be man caused or natural. We do know that it is happening and all indicators point to the idea that man is accelerating the event. However, our hubris thinks we can stop this event and save the world. We cannot. Mankind as we know it was on the path to extinction the day Adam or whomever, first set foot on this earth. We cannot change the evolution of our earth, Geology tells us that.

We as reasonable people may be able to slow it down so our immediate offspring might not have too much difficulty, but we are just postponing the event. We see arguments about coal here in Crosscut stories. The proper solution is to stop all coal mining and tell perhaps a quarter of a million people that they do not have a job anymore as to better our civilization in it’s waning days. Nobody wants to do that, since I am probably one of that number, neither do I. Dithering around peripherals does not solve root problems like coal. We need to address the root problems.

It goes back to our hubris, we think we know everything and can solve everything. Personally, I plan to just keep plugging along, hope for the best, and in a unpopular vein, put my faith in God (or whichever supreme being you choose) that God will care for the people we know.

Good grief people!

CO2 death? That's not what this climate change is about. It's about releasing too much CO2 which warms the planet, which warms the tundra which releases methane, which warms the planet.... Making the area we are currently growing crops unsuitable... Scaring little kids with "planet" death is stupid plan. The planet will be here. So will humans, maybe far fewer than those living here now, but some will remain. We are a highly adaptable species.

SeattleLifer - If mankind has triggered this event, we can certainly stop doing what we are doing. There is no "god given right" to burn all the fossil fuel that we can get our hands on. You may be resigned to your fate because it's easier than changing, but I'm changing. And I'm helping other change as well.

As for climate change, folks, go read a Climatologists take on this weather. http://cliffmass.blogspot.com Yes the weather has been weird, but it's not totally out of synch with the past.

First, the author gets paid for promoting global warming fears.

Second, environmentalists are promoting solutions that actually ADD to the total global warming effect. In the NOAA press release http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110803_nonco2.html they discuss trying to tackle methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O).

Methane emissions are dramatically increased when biomass is left to rot in the forests, such as what happens when we are not allowed to harvest fallen timber in national forests as lumber mills want to do. This also prevents use in biomass combustion power generations. By encouraging biomass rot, much more methane is released, and less CO2. Methane is 28 times more effective as a GW gas. Burning turns it directly into CO2.

Further, 40 million acres of marginal farmland were added to production to grow feedstock for biofuel. That's 40 million acres of fertilizer, pesticide, and herbicides and irrigation. 3% of the fertilizer used goes into the air as N2o, which is 296 times worse than CO2.

The author refuses to admit that he and his ilk are advocating solutions that actually make the problem much worse.

And he doesn't differentiate the issues. Climate changes, we all know that. There is NO dispute. The real issue is whether mankind can significantly affect the climate.

"We need to get some broad based support,
to capture the public's imagination...
So we have to offer up scary scenarios,
make simplified, dramatic statements
and make little mention of any doubts...
Each of us has to decide what the right balance
is between being effective and being honest."
- Prof. Stephen Schneider,
Stanford Professor of Climatology,
lead author of many IPCC reports
"We've got to ride this global warming issue.
Even if the theory of global warming is wrong,
we will be doing the right thing in terms of
economic and environmental policy."
- Timothy Wirth,
President of the UN Foundation
"No matter if the science of global warming is all phony...
climate change provides the greatest opportunity to
bring about justice and equality in the world."
- Christine Stewart,
former Canadian Minister of the Environment

Randy,
"40 million acres of marginal farmland were added to production to grow feedstock for biofuel. "

Don't blame environmentalists for that fiasco. Blame "Cargil" and "Monsanto" and Arther Daniels Midland". These are the corporations raking inn the profits from growing corn based ethanol. The best that can be said about this fuel additive is that it beats MTBE. But it's not sustainable.

"Methane emissions are dramatically increased when biomass is left to rot in the forests,"
This doesn't actually matter. The carbon that was sequestered in the forest is at most 100 years old. The problem is that we are releasing carbon from fossil fuel that was sequestered millions of years ago all within the last 100 years.

"The real issue is whether mankind can significantly affect the climate."
We can alter this problem but it requires us to stop releasing million year old carbon without re-sequestering it. We have been relying on the ocean and that's not working out so well. However organic and no till farming do a great job of sequestering carbon and lead to less herbicides to grow the same amount of crops. Read "Dirt The Erosion of Civilizations" by David R. Montgomery

GaryP

You misread my response, I think we should stop burning coal; I do not want to be the one who tells everybody they have no job.

Secondly, I suspect that man did not start this process, but we have certainly accelerated it though. And yes, we should do what we can to decelerate the process.

Extinction is a natural process, look at geology. If we think we as humans can stop extinction, we are sadly mistaken. The primary argument I see in many stories is that we have this foolish idea mankind, as we know it is immortal, and all we need to do to maintain our immortality is to stop climate change / global warming. We as a specie will disappear, it is hubris that says we will not.

There are a lot of moving parts to this situation and there are no silver bullets, but major changes are required.
But we are in a political situation in this country where beliefs are more powerful than facts.
Where politics are more important than solving real problems of ANY sort.
For a serious problem, we can hardly deal with the snowfall on an iceberg.
We haven't even addressed the financial crisis yet, and well on our way to another big recession!!!

Even China, the only other world power holdout, has the environment as one of its top 5-year objectives for investment and improvement.

Who is the #1 consumer of oil in the world?
The U.S. military.
We need a smaller military, not one larger than the rest of the world combined.
All the military might and intelligence didn't help on 9/11, nor in Afghanistan, nor does it stop a President from invading Iraq for his legacy.
Who says our "national security" would be less?
Refocus all of this money and technological prowess to green ventures and advances, like we did with the space program in the 60's.
The additional spinoffs and jobs would be incredible.

mememine69, as a father too, we have a choice about how we present this to our children.
I think you're wrong to abandon the cause.
Tell your children that their lives are going to be much different than yours - not that they are going to die.
Financially, they are less likely to have as much as our generation - less affluence as the top 2% now have 90% the money.
The environment is going to be very different, and many people around the world will suffer far more than us.
There are famine's, natural disasters and death in our world today, and it's only going to get worse.
We all have a choice, to watch from the sidelines or help create a better future.
I looks to me that by giving up, you really don't care about your children's reality.

Here:
http://seattle.uli.org/Sponsorship.aspx
http://seattle.uli.org/Network.aspx

are the folks behind ULI Seattle.

Here:
http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/watchVideos.asp?program=councilBriefings
(Council Briefing July, 7, 2008, Minute 43)

three months before the Great Recession, ULI Seattle Quality Growth Alliance explains how climate change environmentalism has been the most successful means they have ever used to bring EVERYONE around to the virtue of their motto— "don't just accommodate growth, make it happen:" Hempelemann, Minute 72; LIcata, Minute 78; Callahan, 85; Kreager, 87.

Not exactly "Sustainable Seattle."

Meanwhile

http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2011/08/15/brrrrr-snowy-summer-setting-records-at-mount-rainier/

Actually, if Al Gore had not made Global Warming his issue, more people may have accepted it as a real concern.

and for Gary P who said: "Blame "Cargil" and "Monsanto" and Arther Daniels Midland". These are the corporations raking inn the profits from growing corn based ethanol." These evil, profit making corporations were attracted to the ethanol business by large government subsidies composed of 40% borrowed money.

clearfogblog.wordpress.com

It is interesting how so few of those who profess concern about climate change seem inclined to make any personal changes to slow their contributions to it. Likely none of us are without sin, but one almost hopes there is a special circle in hell reserved for those who make a big show of proclaiming that they care but spend half their lives on airplanes.

Please, God, make me good - but not quite yet.

Woofer,
Seriously, you want us to "control" the temperature of the planet? At least have the honesty to admit what climate change is. It's sustainability. It is a specific CO2 death threat of catastrophic climate chaos and could be worse if a comet hit the planet.
You don't believe it yourself Woofer for if you did, you would act like you think it’s the crisis your scientists that you bow to say it is. The worst disaster and planetary emergency so far is climate change. Now get a sign that says THE END IS NEAR, start marching and warn the world of the worst crisis ever, catastrophic climate change crisis. Until then, we see right through you.

sorry, should say NOT sustainability of course.

To my way of thinking the problem isn't whether climate change is a valid theory. The issue for most rational people is the proposed remedy. Climate models that purport to predict conditions decades or a century in the future are inherently unreliable. What can be readily ascertained now is the economic cost of the proposed regulatory and redistributive policies the political left continually advances as the proposed remedy. No rational person would accept current costs for future speculative benefits, especially when the avocates are politically motivated.

And while I'm not a Republican, their denial of climate science is no more alarming than that of Democrats who insist there is no problem with entitlement programs in this country. At least in the case of climate science, the data is complex in the extreme. Whereas, understanding enitlement spending is a simple matter of understanding addition and subtraction.

Just think. In the 1970's we were told we were all doomed because of global cooling. Now it's global warming.

Hysteria never really works.

common1sense: You are wrong about the 1970s: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/

afreeman: Thanks for posting info/links about ULI and City Council briefing. I'll add an anecdote:

At a conference last fall, Richard Conlin made a brief growth management presentation. He used maps showing the increase in our development footprint on Puget Sound region from 1950 to 2000. In the Q & A, I asked if he believes there are limits to growth. His response was, Yes but we don't need to worry about it for the current GMA planning horizon (20 years). In a follow up email exchange confirmed that in his opinion the limits to growth concept is "not very useful."

Clearly, Richard Conlin is not alone: As a society we are (almost) incapable of thinking more than a few years out. Our actions (dig up that coal! turn tar sands into fuel! burn it all up!) have consequences, but we refuse to act on the known or likely results unless they will happen within the current elected officials' terms of office.

Of course hysteria doesn't solve problems, and scientists flying all over the place is not helpful. But if we don't start focusing on the real core problems we are inevitably going to create a series of crises that will make the worst horrors of the Twentieth Century pale in comparison.

Many believe a core problem is that we have an economic/social structure ("global capitalism") that relies on growth. Unless and until we accept that there are limits (to primary production of biological mass, to human population, etc), and act on them, we won't solve our long term problems. The problems will solve themselves, in scenarios such as D.Engle's comment spells out.

I listened to Sally Clark (in the July 7, 2008 briefing at 80) speak about the PSRC growth projections for 2040. PSRC made no attempt to consider the possibility that such growth might not be such a great idea. John Hempelmann calls it "the regional vision." Sounds like business as usual.

p.s. The scary consequences of carbon pollution are real and happening: http://www.onearth.org/article/oyster-crash-ocean-acidification?page=1

Republican or not, we all know the CO2 science of unstoppable warming was a tragic exaggeration and 25 years of needless panic has made fear mongering neocons out of all of us. Let me make this clear; climate change wasn’t “sustainability ”. It was a specific Human CO2 END OF THE WORLD death warrant to all of us and dressing it up as anything else is the real lie that has left climate change being our Iraq War of climate WMD lies and fear mongering. The proof is that thousands of scientists that strongly outnumbered the protesters refused to march in the streets with us and are not acting like it’s the danger they said it was even after Obama never even mentioned the “crisis” in his State of the Union Address. We and the thousands of scientists should have all been acting like this was the comet hit of an emergency that we all cried it was. Fear is always unsustainable.
We have condemned billions of children to a catastrophic CO2 demise with such childish glee and selfish flippancy that I can no longer look my children in the eyes and tell them to SAVE THE PLANET from evil Human CO2 or they will experience the worst disaster imaginable; climate crisis.
I am a former believer and this planet lover will continue stewardship of the planet but without the CO2 mistake. Face it; nobody was going to vote YES for taxing the air to make the weather colder