Changing the Climate re: Climate Change

I am of the opinion that the GPCA has lost much of the focus that it once had on some of the values we claim, specifically ecological wisdom and sustainability. There are a number of indicators that this has happened, not the least of which is the fact that the three seats on the national GP Eco-Action committee are as of right now, unfilled. I have volunteered to fill one of them. I would encourage others to volunteer also.

Right now is the time that we should be taking action on this. On Wednesday, May 24, a new documentary film will be released in select theaters. An Inconvenient Truth by Davis Guggenheim aired at the Sundance Festival and almost made a movie star of Al Gore.

With wit, smarts and hope, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH ultimately brings home Gore's persuasive argument that we can no longer afford to view global warming as a political issue - rather, it is the biggest moral challenges facing our global civilization.

Even environmental skeptics are changing their view, as Michael Shermer writes in the June 2006 issue of Scientific American.

Then, Al Gore also discussed the formation of a new "Alliance for Climate Protection" with Grist Magazine's Muckraker. This group is not fully funcitonal, but has enlisted even Carol Browner (head of the EPA under Clinton) and Brent Scowcroft (National Security Advisor to Bush I.)

What is GPCA doing? What should we be doing? Is this truly, as Gore suggest, a moral issue or just environmental politics?

I don't think that GPCA, as an organization is doing much. We should be taking the at least the same level of leadership here as he have done with the Fair Wage Initiative and the Clean Money Campaign.

And yes, it is a moral issue. I have been reading the Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney. The duplicity of some member of Congress is apalling. The ignorance of others is remarkable. This is unfortunately not as partisan an issue as Mooney claims, though those who would control congress for their own ends have focused on the Republicans. There are also Republicans like Roscoe Bartlett of MD and the retiring Sherwood Boehlert of NY who have stood up for doing what is right, not what is politically expedient, but their number are too few.

It is time to demand more from our lawmakers and policy brokers and to continue to be tellers of the truth. That is part of what being Green means.