“Think Globally, Act Locally.” An op ed in the Press-Citizen – November 5, 2021 by Miriam Kashia and others.
We have heard this phrase for years, but when it comes to global climate change, acting locally may be our best way forward. The United Nations International Panel on Climate Change has issued a Code Red for humankind on climate change.
This existential threat has been called a climate crisis, a climate emergency and many other things but it really doesn’t matter what it’s called. It’s time to stop talking about climate change and actually do something about it. Everybody talks about the extreme weather and the climate, but who is going to do something about it?
The United Nations is holding its latest climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland, from Oct. 31-Nov. 12. This climate summit is called COP26, which stands for the 26th Conference of the Parties and will be attended by the countries that signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change — a treaty that came into force in 1994.
The entire international community of nations has been setting goals for greenhouse gas reductions since then, but the concentration of carbon dioxide has risen well above the 350 parts per million that is considered a safe level for Earth. The current CO2 concentration is approximately 413 ppm, according to NOAA.
Working globally doesn’t seem to be producing the desired results we need to reach our stated goals. We can only hope that the world’s leading contributors of greenhouse gasses can somehow show the leadership needed to address the urgent crisis.
The United States has often expressed the desire to lead the world on climate solutions but hasn’t been able to muster the political will necessary to actually provide that leadership. With a political system that is often sold to the highest bidder, we can’t seem to stop burning fossil fuels even though we can build wind farms and solar arrays at breakneck speed.
President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Plan has plenty of climate-related plans but they may be removed to appease a senator from a coal-mining state who makes his millions from the coal industry. Again, we have to remember that the U.S. has the best political system that money can buy.
This opinion piece was written by Mike Carberry and Tom Carsner, Iowa City Sierra Club; Mike Wyrick, Cedar Rapids Sierra Club; Jason Snell and Scott Roland, Sunrise Movement Cedar Rapids; Ayla Boylen, Climate Strike/Fridays for Future Cedar Rapids; Miriam Kashia, 100 Grannies for a Sustainable Future Iowa City.