To Till and to Tend

There is an oft-told joke about a man in the midst of a great flood.  [for those who have heard this before, feel free to skip to the next paragraph] All about him, people are fleeing the town in droves; however, the pious man refuses assistance.  A jeep drives by and invites him to “hop on board.”  The man declines, explaining, “I have faith that G-d will save me.” Unable to change his mind, the jeep drives on.  A bit later, as the flood-waters rise, a rescue team drifts by the man’s house in a boat. “Hop in,” the captain exclaims.  “Don’t worry about me,” the man retorts, “I have faith that G-d will save me.” Unable to change his mind, the rescue team floats by.  A bit later, the flood engulfs the man’s house, leaving him to hang from the chimney for safety. A crew in a helicopter spots him and offers a ladder and a lift.  The man declines yet again, declaring with confidence that G-d will save him. The helicopter continues without him. Eventually, the man drowns and he enters heaven.  Dismayed, he approaches G-d and exclaims, “You really let me down! I had faith that you would save me and look what happened!”  “Who do you think sent you a jeep, a boat and a helicopter,” G-d replies?

Though told in jest, the joke teaches a valuable lesson.  We cannot be so blinded by our political agenda that we ignore the signs in front of our eyes.  Two weeks ago, the U.S. Senate began a historic climate debate.  As I wrote on the eve of that debate, “simply forcing a national discussion about climate change is a victory.”  In many respects, the climate vote was an extraordinary success. Forty-eight senators voted to move to substantive discussion on the bill.  Six others submitted statements to the record indicating that they likewise supported continued debate.  Combined, a comfortable majority in the Senate thus supports aggressive federal action on climate change.  And, as the Union of Concerned Scientists reports, many of those who voted in favor of such action had previously opposed such initiatives – even though the legislation at issue was stronger than bills the Senate has considered in the past.  Fortunately, as Senator Boxer explained, “We [now] have a road map as to where our colleagues are. We will give the road map to the next president so he knows where our colleagues are and where are the consensus areas and where are the difficult areas.”

Yet, despite these accomplishments, the climate debate was, in other respects, a tragic missed opportunity.  Like the man waiting on his roof for divine intervention, many members of the Senate seem to be awaiting an intangible sign from above – ignoring the signs that G-d has already sent to Earth. On the second morning of the climate debate, opponents insisted that they were not familiar with the bill due to a handful of technical changes that had been made in its final hours.  In a move witnessed but once a decade, they insisted that the clerk read the bill – all 492 pages of it – on the Senate floor.  For most of the day – more than eight hours – the clerk droned on, reading of offsets and auctions, allocations and subsidies. 

And then G-d intervened. 

At mid-day, thunderclouds descended over Washington, D.C. The sky darkened and rain pummeled the Capitol.  I approached the building amid announcements of a “severe thunderstorm warning” on the Senate intercom system.  The National Weather Service declared a tornado watch with wind gusts of up to 70 mph, admonishing citizens to “take cover” and “move to a safe place” to avoid flash floods. My home outside the Nation’s Capitol lost power for two days. 

A tornado warning is disconcerting in and of itself.  But its impact is all the more dramatic when viewed in this context.  As Senator Reid (D-NV) explained on the Senate floor, 2008 is on track to be “the deadliest year in the history of tornado deaths” in the United States.  Since January, more than 110 people have lost their lives due to tornadoes – compared to an annual average of 62.  I don’t imply that a single tornado season confirms climate change, but it certainly doesn’t suggest that we’re heading in the right direction either.  And, if an anomalous tornado season weren’t warning enough, G-d has sent a steady succession of reinforcements – in the form of flooding in the Midwest, a drought in California, and a heat wave on the east coast.

NRDC policy director, David Doniger highlighted the curious coincidence of the climate debate and the tornado advisory in his blog.  In it, he challenged readers to “draw [their] own conclusions.”  As I heard the weather advisory on the afternoon of the climate debate, I had only one thought:  the bureaucracy of the political process had gone on long enough.  As thunder crashed from the heavens, G-d had sounded a wake-up alarm for 100 Senators on Capitol Hill.  “Do something,” He implored.  “Assume your role as my partner in creation, and help me to repair the world.”  The next morning, 54 of them heeded that warning and voted to proceed to the debate.  Unfortunately, 46 others are still waiting on their rooftops for a sign…

The President’s “realistic” intermediate goal is only “realistic” because it requires virtually no action whatsoever. He hopes to halt US emissions – from the electric utility sector alone – by 2025. Yet, according to the Energy Blog, the Administration announced last week that US emissions had already fallen by 1% last year. Admittedly, this was likely a one-year blip, which can be attributed to high gas prices and mild temperatures, which reduced the need for heating and cooling – but it certainly underscores the inadequacy of the President’s proposal.

In fact, the Administration proposal flies in the face of scientific reality. Last year, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared that emissions from industrialized nations must peak by 2015 – and decline by 20% by 2025. They won a Nobel Prize for this pronouncement. Yet, the Bush proposal does not require any reductions in that time frame. In fact, the “proposal” doesn’t require reductions at all. It merely asks for voluntary commitments. The President insists this approach is necessary to avoid an unnecessary strain on the US economy. Yet, as Environmental Defense explains, simply delaying US reductions until 2014 (from 2012) would double necessary reductions (and associated costs) for the decade to come. And, as I wrote in my March 25^th post, the US Environmental Protection Agency has found that the key climate change legislation being considered by the Senate could be implemented without significant harm to the US economy.

Ironically, the Administration claims that its plan will “inform” the Senate-scheduled debate on climate change legislation. But the Senate does not need the President’s assistance. To the contrary, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act provides for US emissions to fall by roughly 2% per year beginning in 2012, leading to 25% emission reductions by 2025 and 60-70% reductions by 2050. Reductions that will come from every sector of the economy. Bush’s plan – to continue the status quo for nearly two decades – can hardly be seen as “informing” the debate.

More than two thousand years ago, Rabbi Hillel challenged, “If not now, when?” Today, Bush declared that we would begin to answer that question in 2025. But that answer is inadequate. Climate change is real. And the time for action is now.

[Visit The Jewish Week to read my op ed on the Bush climate initiative]

[To read more about the need for US leadership on climate change, visit my December 26 post: Play Ball, US Needs to Join the Team.]