John Rosenbek and Lynn Frazier Guest columnists to The Gainesville Sun
Defending our democracy by acting to support personal actions and governmental policy to preserve our environment is a principal mission of the League of Women Voters. Two of this mission’s challenges are choosing and prioritizing the individual actions and governmental policies to be supported.
These challenges are not shared by the world’s major oil and gas companies, which eagerly highlight the culpability of individuals for the climate crisis and the individual actions necessary to its solution. Typical is BP’s proud promotion of the “personal carbon footprint.” BP even provides a tool so each of us can calculate our footprint.
This campaign, like so many others created by big oil and gas, is a diversion. Companies hope to shift attention away from the massive CO2 emissions created by their products and onto the relatively small emissions associated with individual choice.
Such diversions are cynical. As Katharine Hayhoe writes in her recent book, “Saving Us,” if all U.S citizens concerned about climate change cut their personal carbon footprints in half, CO2 emissions would decline only 10%, hardly the solution to climate change.
These diversions are also successful. Sami Grover, in a piece called “In Defense of Eco-Hypocrisy,” reports that average people are more likely to identify vegetarianism and turning off the lights as appropriate responses to the climate crisis than they are to mention voting for leaders who will enact environmentally friendly policies.
Equally damaging to any full-scale effort to control greenhouse gas emissions has been diversion’s corrosive effect on unity within the environmental community. Plane-shaming pits those who don’t fly against those who do. Veganism divides meat eaters from those who blame critical methane accumulation on livestock belching and flatus. Tests of environmental purity abound.
Big oil and gas relish and even nourish these conflicts. A splintered opponent is a weakened opponent.
If we are to preserve a habitable planet, those who would divert and divide us must be drowned out, converted or defeated. Doing so begins with individual actions having nothing to do with the perfectly appropriate, even influential action of reducing one’s carbon footprint.
The first of these actions is to vote for leaders at all levels of government who share a passion for the environment. This action is relatively easy if one can navigate the increasingly byzantine, unequitable route to the ballot box and has not been disenfranchised for criminal activity.
The second is to engage with those leaders before and after their election so they know what you value. Face to face is best, but going to meetings, writing letters and e-mails, and making phone calls can also work.
Leaders need to know they have public support for enlightened policies. The greater and more respectful that support, the easier it is for them to resist dark money and angry attacks.
Never doubt the power of personal engagement. Even the rich and belligerent lose elections.
The third action is to unite with like-minded citizens. The force of an individual voice is amplified in a group, and the group needn’t be huge. Erica Chenoweth, Harvard political scientist, reminds us that 3.5% or so of a population, if united, can bring peaceful change.
For Gainesville’s concerned citizens, the timing for individual action could hardly be better. Mayoral and City Commission elections are scheduled for August 2022, and possible runoffs are scheduled for November.
Recruitment of a climate officer to coordinate the city’s integrated response to climate change is pending. Gainesville Regional Utilities is under new, acting leadership.
Vote your values. These elections will determine whether our city accelerates its movement toward sustainability and a 100% clean energy future; hunkers down to wait for a chimerical technological fix that will ask nothing of any of us; endures a reign of smug indifference or aggressive denialism; or fights to survive a return to the familiar, comforting, polluting past.
Don’t let your actions end at the ballot box. Advocate with elected leaders for policies that can transform the city and for the kind of climate officer and general manager of GRU capable of leading our city into a rapidly changing future.
Join with like-minded people. We get the government we deserve. Let’s show we deserve the best.
John Rosenbek is co-chair of Natural Resources Committee of the League of Women Voters of Alachua County and Lynn Frazier is chapter president.
As published by The Gainesville Sun, March 2, 2022
See the original article here: https://www.gainesville.com/story/opinion/2022/03/02/john-rosenbek-and-lynn-frazier-policy-not-purity-in-climate-fight/6940781001/
