Climate Sunday: Petitioning the White House to Declare War on Climate Change

Actor Mark Ruffalo, who I've admired for his strong opposition to fracking, has started a petition for the White House to declare a war against climate change. The petition is right here, and I signed it, and think it's a really good idea. Here's the gist:

We, the people, demand the President of the United States and it's legislative body recognize Climate Change as great and Grave a threat to this nation as they would any other aggressive enemy. We demand that the President and Congress act against Climate Change as they have acted against Saddam Husein, Bin Laden, and Hitler for that matter. We demand a National Energy Policy that quickly begins to ween us off of Carbon Based fuels and expedites the inevitable and necessary transition to Clean Energy. We demand that our leaders act on the recommendations coming from an overwhelming majority of the scientific community to halt Climate Change and save the lives of untold millions.

 Now, it is true that, post Superstorm Sandy and post 2012 Elections, President Obama has been addressing climate change a bit more, with the suggestion of the White House hosting a climate change summit in the air.  As a tried and true Obamabot, I've expressed that I think Obama has to weigh his choices in that (as in so many arenas) against guaranteed opposition and overreaction from congressional Republicans. But in addition to noticing that the above petition says "ween" for "wean", I can't help but notice that it suggests something that really needs to be repeated--action against the thing we know to be the root cause of the man-made aspect of climate change--carbon emissions.

Seriously. Just address the "known knowns". Even if there may be some "unknown unknowns" afoot. If we know that fossil fuels are dirty, we need to treat them like that. I genuinely wish it could be a grassroots, bottom-up transistion, but folks at the bottom just don't have the money power to choose clean renewable energy efficiency needed to change the course of our environment. We stop addressing the economics on an individually transactional level and just deal with the science and broadly as we can.

Why? Sheer necessity. Because the market can't fix our short-sightedness. Because no individual humans have the right to poison or harm all the rest of us, or to economically be complicit with actions that do just that. Because we need a visibile, not an invisible hand, steering us into a safer and saner path.  I think the time for lip-service to environmentalism and acceptance of climate change is past, and that's what a summit could very well look like. We need action.

If you're reading this, go on along and sign that petition, if you haven't already. I want to see how the White House addresses it. I really do.