Pirate's Cove

Excitable Bill McKibben is very excited over the prospect. Can you guess what’s missing in his recommendations?

We can battle climate change without Washington DC. Here’s how

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Winning those elections is crucial in other ways – it will help the effort to play defense on issues including the environment – but since global warming is an immediate battle with enormous consequences, we dare not wait for Washington to return to sanity.

And happily, we don’t have to.

The strategy that’s been evolving for US climate action – and for action in many other parts of the planet – bypasses the central governments as much as possible. That’s because the oil industry is strongest in national capitols – that’s where its money is most toxically powerful. But if frontal attack is therefore hard, its flanks are wide open.

And here we go

It has three main components.

The first – joining in work pioneered by groups like the Sierra Club – is to persuade towns, cities, counties, and states to pledge to make the transition to 100% renewable energy. This is now easy and affordable enough that it doesn’t scare politicians – cities from San Diego to Atlanta have joined in, and they will help maintain the momentum towards clean energy that the Trump administration is trying so hard to blunt.

Job two is to block new fossil fuel infrastructure. In some places, that will be by law: Portland, Oregon, recently passed a bill banning new pipes and such, over the strenuous objections of the industry. In other places it will take bodies – tens of thousands have already pledged to journey to the upper midwest if and when TransCanada decides to build out the Keystone XL pipeline that Trump has permitted.

And third is to cut off the money that fuels this industry – by divestment, which has now begun to take a real and telling toll ($6tn worth of endowments and portfolios have joined the fight, and studies show it is cutting the capital companies need to keep exploring for oil we don’t), and by the kinds of lawsuits that New York, San Francisco and a host of other cities have already filed.

Interestingly, there’s no mention of Cult of Climastrology members giving up their own use of fossil fuels. It may get tedious reading that same thing. It’s tedious writing it. Yet, it is a very important idea. Warmists want Everyone Else to be forced to comply with something they themselves refuse to do. On Wednesday, 350.org, McKibben’s organization, held a Climate State Of The Union rally, with their push for a Fossil Free US. How many Warmists took fossil fueled trips from all over the U.S. to attend?

Look at Portland: they may not be allowing new pipes and such, but, they aren’t banning fossil fuels. The city itself continues to use fossil fuels. Look at McKibben: he takes fossil fueled flights all over the world. Why should we listen to these people? Would you listen to your doctor who smells like cigarettes if he/she was telling you to quit? If your doctor was telling you to lose weight when it was clear they themselves were vastly overweight?