Notes from the Desk Slow down, Global Warming (activists)

Author: Brian Fung

The inauguration of Bill McKibben's Step It Up environmental campaign will be marked this week by over 1,000 demonstrations across the country. Step It Up's primary goal - to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 80 percent nationwide by 2050 - has even received the support of U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT). As exciting as McKibben's movement is, however, legislators should be wary of endorsing a proposal that is both overzealous and unrealistic.

According to a report last November by the Energy Information Administration, total carbon emissions in the United States reached 6,008.6 million metric tons (MMT) in 2005. Step It Up's campaign would see emissions reduced by 4,806.88 MMT over a period of more than 40 years - but to succeed, the U.S. would be required to reduce its carbon output by an annual 111.78 MMT. And these numbers assume that emission levels will remain steady in coming years, which they most certainly will not.

Since 1990, CO2 emissions in the U.S. have risen at an average rate of roughly 67.9 MMT per year, with little in the way to limit that output. Considering the task ahead, I fail to see how Step It Up expects to reach its objective without eventually moderating its position. To even approach the annual target of 111.78 MMT would require still greater, perhaps Herculean, efforts to offset the additional 67.9 MMT of carbon currently being added to the atmosphere every year.

Then there are the politics of actually pushing the carbon bill through Congress. Suddenly slamming legislators with a number as high as 80 percent will likely turn away conservatives who believe in the primacy of other priorities. Meanwhile, critics of the bill will castigate its supporters for being alarmist and overly dramatic in their crusade to save the planet.

"An 80-percent cut in carbon emissions by the year 2050," wrote incredulous LaRouche Youth Movement member David Dixon in a recent Executive Intelligence Review article. "Precisely the deindustrialization and genocidal scheme presented by Al Gore to a credulous U.S. Congress on March 21."

This political brinkmanship will likely have the additional consequence of stifling into submission potential moderate backers - and does little to help the environment, anyway. While the urgency of global climate change cannot be adequately underscored, the reality is that, unpalatable as it may sound, McKibben and Step It Up may have to settle for compromise.


Brian Fung is a Freshman News editor who hails from Rockville, Maryland.