Draft GPUS Platform Amendment Climate Change
(Note from Marnie: The 2004 platform section is called Clean Air/Greenhouse Gases/Global Warming). We need to break this section in to two parts. This rough draft text was drafted by John Atkeison, a climate change activist. We are getting a more detailed draft with specific proposals from a Marin Green next week.)
Climate change caused by global warming threatens us all and demands immediate change to a happier, more sustainable way of life
Big changes already underway in Earth's climate systems make up the biggest challenge our species has ever faced and its consequences are upon us with a speed that is as unexpected as it is violent. There has been a strong scientific consensus for years that these climate changes are being caused by Global Warming caused, in turn, by greenhouse gas pollution and bad land use policy. The American Green response is comprehensive, from working vigorously for immediate cap-and-rebate legislation in Congress to advocating for a sustainable society for our near future. The same sets of solutions address multiple impending crises – in climate, the peaking of fossil fuel supplies, and the acidification of the world's oceans. We humans have less than a decade to begin big changes.
Principles In Action
Our most basic principles demand that Greens address Global Warming directly and with solutions that reflect our values and that offer realistic hope for the future. There has not been a more profound challenge to our species in all our thousands of generations. There is only one solution- we must stop burning fossil fuels like oil and coal and change how we practice agriculture. The only path out of this crisis is a political one-- policies embedded in law and custom must rapidly reform how our species lives. Half measures won't do. The most powerful elements of the social establishment oppose the needed changes. They have carried out a successful multi-billion dollar campaign of disinformation designed to confuse the public. At every opportunity they continue to deflect efforts at change and seek financial advantage. The inability of ruling elites to deal realistically with the climate crisis has left the question of survival in the hands of the world's common folk, who must be a vital part of solutions in any case. Greens should be able to best represent the future of our civilizations.
• The Green principles of grassroots democracy and social and personal responsibility intersect to show the way to the future even while democracy itself is threatened. Attempts to solve the climate crisis at the expense of ordinary citizens of the United States and the world must be rejected. Polluters must pay and our society must be mobilized around the goal of sustainable survival.
• Our principles of social justice and diversity demand that we shape our movements in a way that refuses the path of genocide by neglect and enlists the strengths of all peoples in creating our common future. The people most suffering the early effects of Global Warming tend to be those least responsible for its creation and much of the world's population knows this, even though many Americans do not.
• Never have the principles of ecological wisdom and future focus been more obviously and desperately needed. This is the core of sustainability.
• Non-violence is the opposite of the world-torturing process of Global Warming, and is even more urgently required in a world of nations and classes constantly on the edge of conflict while holding weapons more deadly than ever before.
• These principles and others like decentralization, community-based economics,and feminism also address other severe social issues such as tightening supplies of resources such as oil and coal as well as other needs to re-shape our societies in a way that results in communities that are sustainable for ourselves and the planet. Greens are called to make these principles ever more relevant and part of the leading edge of political thinking and action. The need is urgent and time is short.
The Crisis We Are In
The warping of our planet's climate systems by the trend we call Global Warming threatens the world's people today and the stability of our civilizations tomorrow. This problem has been caused by human action and must be reversed by human action. Scientific understanding is far more than good enough to know that we must act swiftly to have a chance of correcting the situation before it becomes impossible to stop. What is in our future, unless we change, is climate change that will re-make the planet into one that is very different than the one our civilizations developed on. One danger that is not well understood is the possibility that planetary climate systems may suddenly change without warning as they have in the distant past. Humanity is pushing climate systems faster than known at any time in the planet's history. Any uncertainty in our understanding of climate systems is a reason for caution and for fast action to reverse our reckless greenhouse pollution. Even in the near term, changing our societies and economic systems to more sustainable models will be much less costly and disruptive than waiting too long and paying the high price of delay in human lives, in wars, and social collapse. Humanity did not set out to change the world in this way, but we are changing Earth profoundly for all of the interdependent webs of systems upon which humanity depends for life itself. As yet another unintended consequence we threaten most of the species of life on our planet with extinction.
Today's Price for Global Warming
A process like Global Warming can only be seen clearly over a time span of at least decades, but we can no longer expect the effects to occur over centuries as was previously believed. In the most recent thirty years many events have made it apparent that climate changes caused by Global Warming are not only happening more quickly than anticipated, but these changes are accelerating and building on each other in feedback loops. For example, ice is melting from pole to pole, which means that instead of reflecting solar energy, more energy is absorbed, which in turn allows the release of more greenhouse gases on top of the gases humans release as pollution. For instance, the power of the Atlantic hurricane seasons have tripled and as a result Hurricane Katrina got the extra margin of power to break the New Orleans levees from the extra heat from Global Warming. In a very real sense, the catastrophic flooding of New Orleans was America's most obvious Global Warming wake-up call.
All over the world, patterns of heat and rainfall are changing and as a result climate-rooted wars such as the one in Darfur tear human communities apart. Avoidable deaths attributable to climate changes number in the hundreds of thousands already. As these effects of climate shifts become more pronounced, the destruction of people and their cultures accelerates. The peoples of the world have begun to organize to resist the business as usual approach that will doom many to extinction. Representatives of small island nations at the Copenhagen climate conference in December of 2009 said they they had no intention of presiding over the drowning of their homelands while the larger countries delayed. Americans need to make common cause with the islanders because we are all in the same boat – and there is no way only half the boat will sink.
Green Action for 2010
Our first legislative priority will be to replace the cap-and-trade approach with a simple cap-and-rebate design at the federal level. Grassroots pressure can rapidly change the assumptions on Capitol Hill and replace the complex bills designed to benefit big polluting corporations and Wall Street traders with legislation that simply and directly addresses the problem. For example, the CLEAR Act sponsored by Senators Cantwell and (D-WA) and Snowe (R-ME) charges for carbon use when it enters the economy, rebates 75% of the revenue to American citizens, and has specific ways to adjust its workings as the political situation permits.
Our first organizing priority will be to educate and and activate at the grassroots to demand and achieve an effective and just solution to the climate crisis. The key factor that is missing in this political battle is the presence of a massive movement that demands action and gets it, either from existing elected officials or by electing new ones. At every level of government an assessment of the “carbon footprint” should be made immediately and a plan made for replacing polluting activities with sustainable ones.
At every level of civic engagement every effort should be made to shift to a sustainable way of life, with reduction of greenhouse pollution as a central goal.
Every aspect of our lives and culture has been shaped or influenced by the rich energy of fossil fuels, and each of these will be affected as we move beyond them to a better, more sustainable, happier way of life.
• Energy – radically reducing how much electricity we need is not only required but will have many positive effects on air quality and household budgets. The way we make electricity must change greatly as well. Decentralized or “distributed” generation is essential.
• Where we live, where we work – “Energy Efficiency” through stronger building codes that are enforced can greatly reduce the need for both electricity and fuel for cooking and heating.
• Transportation – Emphasizing free, constantly available public transportation over automobiles is a way to reduce greenhouse pollution and improve the quality of life for Americans.
• Encourage Localization – Communities benefit from local agriculture, and it reduces greenhouse pollution as well. Goods and services provided locally encourage greater resiliency.
