Dear California Air
Resources Board:
We are in a climate
emergency embedded in a larger environmental crisis. In addition to
the grave threat of runaway global warming, additional
environmental systems such as the biosphere, land use,
biogeochemical flows, and others have begun to approach the safe
space for life on earth have already gone past that boundary. It's
time to take your job seriously. Here are the things you must
address in the upcoming Climate Change Scoping Plan:
1. Include an aggressive
campaign to address emissions from animal agriculture within our
state. A narrow focus on fossil fuels will not prevent climate
catastrophe. Nor will it effectively deal with the other
environmental crises for which animal agriculture is the largest or
one of the primary contributors. Other government agencies are
tasked with protecting different aspects of our environment.
Nevertheless, your action to curb greenhouse gas emissions from the
industry that produces the most anthropogenic methane emissions
worldwide (as well as other short-lived climate forcers and CO2)
can have a positive rippling effect across the other areas of
harm.
2. Insure that your
campaign to address emissions from animal agriculture can be
effective by including efforts to reduce production and
consumption. Scientific studies conclude that production-side
changes in animal agriculture will not reduce emissions
sufficiently to stop runaway warming. We need to produce less food
from animals or we won't make it. Tweaks like methane digesters and
seaweed supplements will not solve the problem.
3. Stop pretending that
California only needs to account for emissions created within our
boundaries. California is a huge contributor to environmental
damage caused outside of our borders. We cannot pretend that we are
doing well for the cause of a habitable Earth if we only measure
the damage we commit internally. You must start accounting for
consumption-based harm, for example greenhouse gas emissions, water
use, land use, and pollution from fossil fuels and animal products
consumed in our state and produced elsewhere.
4. Rein in rogue
refineries. Commit California to a policy/regulatory agenda that
ensures that California refineries are not sourcing crude from
regions where there are Indigenous rights violations or from
regions where new oil drilling in the Amazon is being
planned.
5. Don't punt your
climate impacts to communities in the Amazon or elsewhere. Present
a plan for California to reduce and/or eliminate its consumption of
crude oil and rainforest beef from the Amazon. Consider appropriate
ways to reduce imports of animal-based foods and oil from other
regions of the world as well.
6. Commit California to
new fuel efficiency standards and expanded electrification of
fleets that consume the most Amazon oil. Expansion of EVs broadly,
and public transportation goals to reduce domestic consumption
equivalent to Amazon oil import totals.
Thank you for your
consideration,
Sharon Kaplan