The Cow Has Been Tipped

We need to tackle global warming with a project on the same scale as the space race, the war on cancer, or even the cold war. That was the message from Andrew Revkin, who writes the Dot Earth blog for the New York Times, when he spoke Saturday at the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries. The program here was part of the Global Day of Action, a series of events and demonstrations around the world, usually held on the Saturday midway through the U.N. climate talks. The Beacon program was hosted by a heavy-hitting posse of organizations including Beacon Institute, Beacon Sloop Club, Clearwater, Climate Crisis Coalition, Garrison Institute, Mid Hudson Progressive Alliance, Philipstown for Democracy and Scenic Hudson. The event was coordinated by CCC steering member Connie Hogarth.

Revkin referred to the last 150 years of human development, where we learned to extract and burn fossil fuel on a scale that led to the industrial revolution, as our “cow-tipping frat boy phase.” But with a projected world population of 9 billion souls by 2050, all clamoring for the good life, there’s no more time for fooling around. He emphasized the need for reducing our individual footprints and creating green jobs including science teachers, entrepreneurs and engineers, but that these efforts would amount to little more than a pleasant-looking “green screen” if it wasn’t accompanied by the focused effort and massive funding that characterized the large scale projects we undertook in the previous century.

But even all the best and brightest technology won’t make things whole again if we don’t also look at our values. “We have this grab it and go instinct. How much is too much? The answer to that question is vital. Suppose we invent cheap solar panels, greatly increasing the technology alone. We’re in trouble if we don’t start to examine religion and ecology and attempt to build a new relationship with our planet.”

After a musical interlude by Linda Richards (with some assistance from the jack of all trades Revkin on guitar and back-up vocals), Dan Rosenblum, an energy and environmental attorney at the Pace Energy Project who launched the Carbon Tax Center almost two years ago tried to engage a somewhat fading crowd on the benefits of revenue-neutral carbon taxation. He explained the difference between that and the carbon cap and trade. Rosenblum said it was a regressive tax, but with refunds and other assistance, it would not place an undue burden on the poor.