Special Series
Word on the Street
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Connecting the Economy-Energy-Environment Dots
At first glance, the latest poll numbers from Pew Research Center on Americans' top priorities for the new president might appear worrisome to climate policy advocates.
Global warming is in last place in the top 20 and the environment in general slipped down in the list since last year. Andrew Revkin over at NYT's Dot Earth blog goes so far as to say "America and President Obama are completely out of sync on human-caused global warming." (There are some startling new numbers from Rasmusen on that question...)
But I'm convinced that's not the point. The fact is, solutions that will address the top two concerns -- the economy and jobs -- as well as several other top 10 concerns -- energy, terrorism, helping the poor -- are all wrapped up in the best solutions for combating climate change.
The fossil fuel roller coaster has long whiplashed family budgets, and our economy remains shackled to its adrenaline-boosting unpredictability. Any economic recovery we muster in coming months will sputter if we fail to reduce our fossil fuel dependence. As soon as the economy rebounds, oil prices are sure to shoot up again, negating the economic gains that we've made.
Our job now -- and Obama's -- is to encourage fellow lawmakers and citizens to connect the dots and stop seeing the economy, energy policy, and the environment as even vaguely separate issues anymore.
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Decoupling on TV
Legislators in Olympia must have loved Alan's talk on climate fairness so much that they called him back for an encore presentation. This time, decoupling is the name of the game, and a subject near and dear to Alan's heart. Check out the clip of Sightline's Executive Director Alan Durning presenting to the Washington Senate Environment, Water, and Energy Committee:
You can also see it here. (Skip ahead to 1:23:47 to go straight to Alan's bit. Apologies if it doesn't work in Firefox).
We've posted the handout Alan prepared for the committee, a collection of excerpts from our work on decoupling, titled "Decoupling: Turbocharging Efficiency Programs." It'll tell you what decoupling is, how it works, and why it's a great idea.
