Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of

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206 farther horizons
system. Theories of laissez-faire, however useful for short-term
wealth creation, have proved to be ecologically ruinous. Henry
David Thoreau in our circumstances would have asked what good
is a growing economy if you don’t have a decent planet to put
it on.
Few have even begun to reckon with changes of this magnitude;
instead, we place our faith in better technology and
incremental changes at the margin of the status quo, hoping to
keep everything else as it comfortably is. There is much to be
said for better technology and particularly for measured policy
changes and doing things piecemeal, mostly because we are
often ignorant of the side effects of our actions. Revolutions
generally have a dismal history. But in the age of consequences,
we have no real choice but to transform our conduct of the public
business in at least three ways. First, and most fundamental,
as a matter of public policy we must quickly stabilize and then
reduce carbon emissions. To do so will require policy changes
that put an accurate price on carbon-based fuels and create the
incentives necessary to deploy energy effi ciency and renewable
energy technologies here and around the world on an emergency
basis. Success in this effort requires that the president and
his successors regard climate policy as the linchpin connecting
other issues of economy, security, environment, and equity as
parts of a comprehensive system of policies governing energy
use and economic development. The details of such a policy
were recommended to President Obama’s transition team by the
Presidential Climate Action Project (www.climateactionproject.
com) immediately after the election of 2008, and many of the
recommendations subsequently appeared in the president’s climate
policy. Beyond the policy details, the president will need
to establish some mechanism by which to reliably coordinate
national policies across federal and state agencies whose missions
often confl ict with the overriding goal of reducing carbon
emissions.