Your comment is awaiting moderation. bit.ly/no-jfk-my-take July 20, 2013 at 5:41am ET Mr. Kerry, what has changed since December 22, 2012? This is an excerpt from one commentator’s view entitled John Kerry’s Climate Change Statements Show Force & Nuance at bit.ly/JFK-before: “We no longer have the luxury of engaging in a debate that does not lead to action. We must put an end—an immediate end—to any discussion other than the one that will lead us forward. We simply have no choice but to face the facts, regardless of how unsettling they are. This is not just an ‘environmental’ issue; it is a moral issue and a matter of life and death.” … and this was the author’s conclusion, then: “In other words, Kerry brings to the Secretary of State position not only decades-long experience in operating at the top levels of political power and a passionate determination to support scientific knowledge, but also an acute sensibility of the power of ordinary individuals to determine their own fate.” Seems there has been some compromise in the meaning of “action”, “forward” and “face the facts” … or at least clarification of what we assumed was meant before. The measures mentioned are neither proven nor effective in overcoming the conundrum laid out in bit.ly/LetsGetGoing … Kerry’s staff needs to bone up on the stark reality of what we are facing. It won’t be pretty, but let’s get cracking. Let’s compel industry to shift investments to capital projects that expand carbon-free energy technology and dismantle carbon-based fuel infrastructure. Start now. Let’s tolerate no more investing in drilling, fracking, producing, transporting, refining, burning, etc. Invest in retiring and dismantling carbon infrastructure. Let’s demand investments only in wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, storage and technologies that we know work now (irrespective of pay-back or return on investment), continue the development of countless new discoveries and accelerate research to find yet-unknown technologies (ARPA-E). Let’s change the paradigm. Not replacing a coal plant with a 625-megawatt wind farm or solar-thermal array and not installing roof-top solar heating, cooling or electric systems because they give an unacceptably low “X-year” pay-back should no longer be tolerated, given the unquantified costs of inaction. I believe we will pay the piper one way or another, and denying this just as immoral as denying that our burning fossil fuels is changing the climate, weather, oceans, ecosystems and civilization at an unforeseen rate. I also believe Congressional Republicans and Democrats alike realize this. It is up to us. bit.ly/NYT-Rev2
Posted on: Sat, 20 Jul 2013 09:49:44 +0000
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