OPINION
Climate delayers are climate deniers
Are you feeling a little more than pissed that so much said and written about climate change is about the problem but not the solution? I am. How BIG is the problem? The International Panel on Climate Change Report, here’s a key section of the policy makers’ summary: “The report finds that limiting global warming to 1.5°Celsius would require “rapid By Arn Menconi and far-reaching” transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport and cities. Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching "net zero” around 2050. This means that any remaining emissions would need to be balanced by removing (carbon dioxide) from the air.” You can find the IPCC Report here: https://www.ipcc.ch. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres believes we have one year to change course and get started. "If we start today, when global emissions are still growing, the necessary rate is 10 percent. If we delay another decade, it will require us to cut emissions by 30 percent each year,” wrote David Wallace Wells in his New York Times best seller "The Uninhabitable Earth". In order to stop climate disaster, we need policy changes on world, federal, state and local levels. Here are 10 policies that should be put in place to meet the call to action to a clean energy future for our children's children: 1. Get rid of government hand-outs to the fossil fuel industry. 2. Give incentives to the renewable energy instead. 3. Start a works corps to build America’s renewables programs.
4. Enact a carbon tax to raise funds to invest in renewables and slow the growth of fossil fuels. 5. Stop future fossil-fuel development through banning drilling, fracking, etc. 6. Require utilities to produce all their electricity from zero-carbon sources — such as wind and solar. 7. Set energy efficiency standards for new homes and commercial buildings. 8. Curb methane emissions from oil-and-gas operations. 9. End the use of hydrofluorocarbons, powerful greenhouse gases used in air-conditioners, refrigerators and foams from the reduction in future emissions. 10. End endless wars for oil and profit and cut the 800 U.S. military bases and trillion-dollar-a-year budget by a third and redirect the spending to renewables, clean jobs, electric transportation and new research and innovation. We are only 12 years away from locking in extreme warming. The IPCC report released last October had a huge impact on leaders around the world and ignited the Green New Deal. The Report outlined how little time we have and how much destruction is expected over the next 50-100 years during our children’s and grandchildren's lifetime. It showed how global warming will be 50% worse if we strive to keep on track of the 2 degrees Celsius goal of the Paris Climate Summit as opposed to 1.5 Celsius. If we put sustained policy and options in place, we can avoid the crisis. We have the technology in place. Solar is 90 percent cheaper than it was 30 years ago. China has surpassed us in development and implementation. By 2050 70-90 percent of our energy could come from renewables. In the next 10 years, countries like Norway will ban combustible engines. We need 85 percent of electric to come from renew-
Coping with Columbine April 26, 1979 The Carbondale Spring Talent Show was officially becoming an annual event, with acts sought for the second such extravaganza. Several acts — such as Brad Hendricks and his shadow figures — had already signed on to vye for the grand price of $100 “and the lasting adulation and prestige that goes with it.” The Clapo-meter was slated to return, and Ramon and the Moanettes would be featured from the pit at the Crystal Theatre. The whole thing was slated to be recorded by Basalt’s Valley Vision TV (and we hope that whoever has that tape will upload it to YouTube and send us the link). In other news… Gas prices were going up an average of a penny a week, with the Roaring Fork Co-op at 77.9¢ a gallon as of press time. April 27, 1989 A giant reunion was planned for Carbondale Union High School classes 1919
to 1960. The event was expected to include around 500 folks from the era before the short-lived merger with Basalt High School and the subsequent name, mascot and color change. The Blue and White Bulldog banner would thus fly over the event. “Most of the time the classes were so small, we didn’t have enough boys to make an 11-man team,” organizer Jeanne Rey recalled. “But we had a great band.” In other news… Basalt & Rural Fire Protection landed Ron Theiring as its first paid chief. April 25, 1999 In the aftermath of the Columbine High School shootings, Roaring Fork and Basalt high schools were raising funds to assist the victims’ families, with Alpine Bank
ables by 2050. We can do this on just solar alone. This is an attainable goal. The oil and gas industry has spent nearly $2 billion dollars to stop climate solutions, buy off politicians and tell us that it’ll cost over $50 trillion dollars and millions of jobs to save their industries. “We need $2-3 trillion per year in investments. We spend money on fossil fuel energy and methane emitting technology now. The U.S. spends about $300 Billion dollars on renewables already. If we increase that by 15% each year for 12 years that's $10.5 trillion dollars to fix the problem,” explained Jigar Shah Co-founder and President of Generate Capital a ‘resource revolution’ venture capital firm. “There are now more jobs in renewable energy in the state of Pennsylvania than coal, natural gas, and oil combined,” said Bill Peduto, mayor of Pittsburgh. We have the evidence. If there's going to be a Green New Deal, cities, counties and states need to adopt ways to become Carbon Neutral. 108 cities have adopted a commitment to Net Carbon by 2030-2045. Your community can too. Climate justice is good for our economy, people and environment. Start demanding our politicians, journalists, leaders and teachers on the strategies and tactics to get the problem solved. My kids will be 46 and 44 in 2050, when we need to be at zero carbon emissions as a Planet to postpone long term climate destruction. Next month I turn 60. I don’t have hope, I have kids. Let’s work as a nation like our grandparents and great grandparents did during World War II to protect the destruction to our Democracy, economy and planet. Arn Menconi was former Eagle County Commissioner and had run for U.S. Senate and Congress.
From the archives of the Valley Journal and The Sopris Sun providing matching. “We really just want to get off the helpless and hopeless and into ‘what can we do?’” RFHS Principal Wendy Moore said. “Anything like this is very difficult, but the magnitude of this particular incident, involving people their own age while they were at school, it really makes you meet yourself coming around the corner.” Meanwhile, both schools were reviewing their own safety plans and considering the possibility of instating school resource officers. In other news… Karl Terry urged Garfield and Eagle county residents to push for home rule rather than continuing to follow the standard format supplied by the state.
April 23, 2009 An extensive Roaring Fork Valley Forest Health Guide was inserted into The Sun just in time for Arbor Day, with a significant focus on the impact of the Mountain Pine Beetle. “These are times of both challenges and opportunities,” Pitkin County Land Manager Crystal Yates-White wrote. “Disturbances are part of a forest’s longterm life cycle.” A lot of the onus was on public land management, but the guide also suggested how locals could help — by having any infected trees removed and not using beetle-kill logs as firewood, but potentially treating it and using it as a building material. The outlook was less optimistic on Aspen decline, as managers were still not entirely sure what was even causing it. In other news… The Garfield County Library Board had narrowed down potential sites for a new Carbondale Branch Library to two: kitty corner from Town Hall or next to Bridges High School.
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14• THE SOPRIS SUN • www.SoprisSun.com • APRIL 25 - MAY 1 2019