Political Will and Love of Place: The West’s Climate Change Secret?
Daniel Kemmis contemplates how the West will cope with climate change and how Westerners react to change.
By Guest Writer, 3-02-10
“Drought, extreme weather events, catastrophic wildfires, disruption of natural systems” –combined with “longer periods when streams are dry, with serious consequences for wildlife, natural habitats, and water supplies.” That’s the scenario for my region of America in a provocative recent Lincoln Institute of Land Policy report, “Planning for Climate Change in the West.”
And political will to address these challenges? The report notes that the Mountain West “has lagged behind other regions in pursuing aggressive planning strategies to reduce [greenhouse gases],” largely because of a conservative political culture and insufficient political will.
It is true that the region has tended to be politically conservative, and there may well be an above-average level of climate change denial among westerners. But there are also significant historical vectors at work here that could supply the political will this historic challenge demands.
It’s true that with climate change, western landscapes, historically hard to inhabit, will now become even more of a challenge. But let’s not miss the hopeful side. This hard country has always attracted and retained a hardy, resourceful set of people. From native tribes through homesteaders to western city-builders, a capacity to adapt to challenging conditions has been a baseline requirement for survival in these majestic but forbidding landscapes.
That adaptive capacity has been strengthened recently by a rise of cross-ideological, collaborative problem solving, especially around natural resource issues. No region of the country has produced more examples of loggers and environmentalists, farmers and fishermen sitting down together and hammering out mutually beneficial plans for managing particular watersheds or ecosystems. As climate change creates new challenges, that collaborative experience, now shared by thousands of westerners, will be a major political resource.
Another hopeful trend is the political realignment that has swept across the region over the past decade. The Lincoln report notes, “With views on the need for national climate action basically split along party lines, garnering political support for local efforts can be difficult in the largely conservative and traditionally Republican states.”
It’s true that by 2000 the interior West had become the nation’s most Republican region, with no Democratic governors, only three Democratic U.S. Senators, and only New Mexico voting for Al Gore in that election. By 2008, however, five of the region’s eight governors were Democrats, as were seven of 16 U.S. Senators. And Obama carried three mountain states.
This realignment has reflected a growing restlessness with an ideological brand of politics that bore little relevance to the region’s real challenges. Centrist Democrats like Colorado’s Salazar brothers, Wyoming’s Dave Freudenthal, and Montana’s Brian Schweitzer have been winning by offering a non-ideological, thoroughly pragmatic approach to the region’s challenges.
Many of those challenges arise from the fact that the Mountain West has been the nation’s fastest growing region since the late ’80’s, its economic center of gravity shifting from resource extraction to the increasingly attractive livability of western communities. Now, this center-staging of livability is contributing to the West’s capacity to address the challenges of climate change.
It’s still true–climate change is not yet something that keeps a majority of westerners up at night. The economic viability of their communities is another matter, though. Significantly expanding ranks of westerners, including business leaders, now understand that prosperity and livability are intimately linked. As the Lincoln Institute report notes: “An array of familiar smart growth strategies for creating healthier communities now double as climate solutions.”
A prime example–Utah, where the citizen- and business-supported Envision Utah process of recent years helped to set new, land- and community-conserving priorities. So it was no surprise when Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becket said in his 2010 State of the City address: “If I were to sum up … our goals for 2010 in one word, it would be ‘livability.’”
True, the words “climate change” don’t appear in Becker’s speech. But I found a long list of accomplishments and aspirations, all aimed at making Salt Lake City more livable. They range from bike lanes, street cars and expanded light rail to downtown revitalization and programs to promote eating locally. All these initiatives contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. But that’s not why most Salt Lake City residents welcome and support them. They support them, and provide the political will to make them happen, because they love living in the hard, beautiful, mountain-and-desert landscape they call home, and they are willing to do what it takes to live well there. Most westerners join them in a rugged, pragmatic love of this place we call home. In that rootedness lies the West’s best hope to meet the challenges of climate change.
This column originally appeared on Citiwire.
NewWest.Net welcomes guest columns of all stripes. Submit yours to editor@newwest.net.
[End of article]Thanks for a great, insightful piece, Daniel! After leaving my post as founding Director of Greenprint Denver in 2007, I developed and edited a collection of essays on the same topic (actually many topics), entitled How the West Was Warmed: Responding to Climate Change in the Rockies, that explores many related topics from 40+ authors around the region (journalists, policy-makers, pollsters and scientists, as well as elected officials). It was published by Fulcrum in October, 2009. Here's a link: http://www.howthewestwaswarmed.com . I'd welcome your feedback on it! - Beth Conover
Comment By SueNami, 3-02-10What climate change?
Haven't you been reading the papers lately? This climate change scare has been one big scam.
Go back in geologic history far enough and the west was mostly under water at the bottom of the sea. But for the last million years except for a few notable floods, the inter-mountain west as been a pretty dry place. So naturally, one of westerner's favorite sports is fighting over land and water regardless of the climate.
Comment By bluelight, 3-04-10Dose any body remember the big dust bowl of 1919, through out the ages the west as gone through these dry spell`s and worst. Forest and grass fires swept Montana and the whole Pacific northwest.By July of 1919 the fire damage had reached $20,000,000 ,that was a big sum of money back then. If you look back in history you will see that this has happened before many times. I know this was in a time of bad cultivation, but the dry spell of 1919 last`ed for ten years. Our life is short, the Earth`s is long.
Comment By Pete Geddes, 3-04-10"The report notes that the Mountain West “has lagged behind other regions in pursuing aggressive planning strategies to reduce [greenhouse gases],”
This lack of action is due to the fact that climate change is the mother of all collective action problems. This is a problem that can’t be solved by a single individual or member of a group; it requires the cooperation of others who often have different interests and incentives.
The biggest myth about the climate system is that it acts like a "greenhouse". That's nonsense. The climate systems actually acts like a heat pump removing heat from the earth upward and poleward. The evaporation (relative humidity), condensation (clouds), precipitation (rain & snow)of H20 along with the winds created by hot air raising and the earth's rotation have an overall cooling effect on the Earth, overwhelming any theoretical warming effect of anthropogenic "greenhouse gases". Anthropogenic global warming caused by anthropogenic CO2 is nonsense.
Comment By jwscotch, 3-04-10Goreble Worming has run its course.
Comment By Monty, 3-04-10Bill Gates, recently, gave a major speech on climate change wherein he says that we have until about 2050 to deal w/this issue. He says, in part, that we have 20 years to develop new clean energy technology & 20 years to implement it. He discussed all of the new potential energy sources. Gates says that we have to go to zero CO2 emmisions. For those interested in reading his speech "Goggle" TED!!!!
Gates was asked what he though about the climate change skeptics wherein he said that they have about a one in million chance of being right. Who are you going to believe Bill Gates or Glenn Beck?
Hey JWScotch: Good comment!!
Comment By Mickey Garcia, 3-04-10You should not believe in something based on who endorses it or who rejects it. You should educate yourself enough about the facts so that you can make your own judgment. I think Glenn Beck is an idiot and that Bill gates is a software and marketing Genius. Looking into the actual geologic record of climate change during last million years and last 400 million years including temperature and CO2 levels indicates that nature is continually and drastically changing the climate and C02 levels. Temperature changes over time, long term and short term, is related to how much sunlight reaches the earth not how much heat is captured by C02.
Comment By Monty, 3-05-10Mr. Garcia: The science of climate change is very complex and like many I have read about this subject and also take note of who is pro and con on this subject. If I have a health problem, I will seek the advice of the best doctors in the particular disease that I am dealing with. If 95 doctors advise treatment A and 5 recommend treatment B, one would be wise to go w/the majority. The consequences of being wrong about about climate change are so severe it is foolhardy to continue to stick your head in the sand. Bill Gates is a very smart man who has the IQ and resources to study and understand this complex subject as contrasted with Sara Palin or Pat Buchanon. The majority of people who believe as you do are "layman" while I listen to the PHD's and venture captalists in the Silicon Valley. The consequences if I am wrong is that we will have clean energy. What are the consequence if you are wrong?
Comment By Tom Klumker, 3-05-10Monty,
Very interesting. I just watched a video on you-tube where Bill Gates in a speech last month on CO2, advocated that one solution was to eliminate a huge segment of human population on this earth by vaccines, health care and reproductive health services. Pretty scary on how this big mover and shaker will solve the earth's problems. I personally think the Good Lord and ole Mother Nature still rule. The scientists can't even agree, and now it has gone from Global Warming to Climate Change.
I think JWScotch's theory rates pretty high in the debate.
Plenty of scientists think anthropogenic global warming is a crock. I agree that eliminating toxic compounds from the air we breath is a necessity but CO2 isn't a toxic compound. Humans and plants need more C02 in the air not less.
Comment By Patia, 3-06-10Ample scientific evidence exists to show that global climate change is real and largely caused by humans. But in any case, I would prefer to err on the side of caution when it comes to the livability of my home planet. Let's not wait for the skeptics to join us.
Comment By Mickey Garcia, 3-06-10http://www.petitionproject.org/ Not these scientists.
Comment By Todd, 3-06-10Anyone who says we need to eliminate all CO2 is gravely mistaken, it is necessary for life. Gates is smart enough at what he knows, that obviously is not science if he says we must stop producing CO2. In the first place that isn't possible as long as there is life on earth. We all exhale CO2.
Comment By Mickey Garcia, 3-07-101. During the last 50 years increasing C02 has increased plant growth about 20%. 2. According to the geologic record atmospheric CO2 levels are the 2nd lowest they've been in the last 400 million years. 3. During the last 400 million years C02 levels have remained at above 2000ppm for millions of years at a time. 4. C02 is essential for Carbon based life on Earth. Plants intake C02, use the Carbon to grow carbohydrates for animals to eat and output the Oxygen for animals to breath. 5. Present atmospheric C02 levels = 390ppm 4. C02 levels in public buildings reach about 1000ppm. 6. C02 levels become toxic to air breathing animals at about 6000ppm. 7. There's presently 1 molecule of C02 for every 2500 molecules of air before the addition of water vapor molecule. 8. According to the geological record there is no C02 tipping point that affects animal life catastrophically and C02 fluctuations don't always correlate to atmospheric temperature fluctuations. 9. C02 increases stimulate plant growth increases more effectively that water or heat increases.
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