Letter below was submitted to the Bernardsville News. It was posted on line on December 6 and in the print edition on December 8.
EDITOR:
Much has been said about the recent election. A frequent word from environmentalists is “disaster.” I am a volunteer for the national organization Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) and for me a fitting phrase is “game changer.”
Increasing greenhouse gases (GHG)—primarily carbon dioxide–are warming the world, changing the climate, and contributing to sea level rise and ocean acidification. I use the term “climate change” as shorthand for all these things.
Momentum for action to slow climate change has been building, helped by President Obama’s Clean Power Plan and the agreement with China’s President Xi Jinping to cooperate to limit GHG.
In Paris in December 2015, 195 nations signed an agreement to work to limit GHG and global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. In Marrakech this past November, they agreed to finalize the rules in 2018 and to submit action plans in 2020.
Our CCL mission has been to build support in Congress for government action to slow climate change. We have assumed that the White House would continue to lead, and that, with our help, bipartisan majorities would form in both the Senate and House of Representatives to follow and adopt appropriate legislation.
We must now revise our plan and persuade the Republican controlled Congress to lead. Will this be possible? For the sake of my grandchildren and children everywhere, I pray that it will be. Will this be difficult? Yes. Will this take more time? Yes, and we have no time to waste.
History gives us many examples of Republican environmental leadership.
President Theodore Roosevelt protected 230 million acres of public land, including what is now Grand Canyon National Park, and he established the National Forest Service.
President Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and strengthened the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.
Former Governor Christine Todd Whitman served as George W. Bush’s first EPA administrator and pressed for action to slow climate change.
Senator John McCain joined eleven of his colleagues to co-sponsor the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act of 2007.
Former Secretary of State George Shultz is on CCL’s advisory board of directors.
Our local Republican governments were environmental leaders in the 1970s.
Bernards initiated a recycling program at Pill Hill in 1972.
Bedminster was the first in our region to build a natural resource inventory. Long Hill followed soon afterwards.
All established environmental commissions and revised development regulations to require environmental impact statements, detention basins, and sediment control measures.
In the 1990s, ten mostly Republican governing bodies in Morris and Somerset formed the Ten Towns Committee to coordinate efforts to protect the water entering the Great Swamp.
A comprehensive survey published last year showed that majorities in the nation, in our state, and in Morris and Somerset believe that “global warming is happening” and that government should act to slow it.
Majorities of voters in the nation, in our state, in Somerset County, and in my own Bernards Township, voted for Hillary Clinton. She proposed aggressive action to slow climate change. I find no evidence that those who voted for Donald Trump did so because he denied the risks from climate change.
The Republican Congressmen that I know have good environmental records and listen to their constituents. Those of us who want to leave a world for our children, in which they can survive and thrive and do the same for their children, must persuade them and their colleagues to lead and act to slow climate change.
Let’s all join in that mission.
Bill Allen 12-05-16