The Scoping Plan is far too timid in addressing the climate crisis.
Full carbon neutrality by 2030 is itself too timid given the delay
in reacting to what we have known about the dangers of changing
earth’s climate.
America made sacrifices to defeat Nazi Germany’s plan to rule
the world, and won. The threat facing us is far more serious than
Nazi world domination. In order to address it, sacrifices will need
to be made. I believe that Californians and then the people of the
world are willing to make sacrifices to save our planet. (This
seems not to be true of the oil businesses. Keep in mind that our
nation was designed for majority rule, not corporate rule.)
The transition away from fossil fuels likely will not be smooth, or
barely noticed, or calling for few sacrifices. CARB and the rest of
our government should stop pretending that this is possible. We,
the people, are ready to make changes and thus make sacrifices to
preserve live-support of our
planet.
It seems that CARB is being careful to balance the needs of our
future generations for life support and the present
generation’s need for clean air and water and thus limiting
millions of untimely deaths with the income of fossil-fuel
corporations and the small percentage of Californians who are their
employees. Simply to state this “balancing” of
interests is to show its ridiculousness.
I have already given up owning a car, and I
do not run my heater and air conditioner, showing that a good life
is possible without buying and burning gasoline and using mass
quantities of petroleum-generated electricity.
Now, in the last few decades, there are too many of
us, burning way too much fossil fuel. This should stop immediately.
In fact, burning fossil fuel will stop, in a couple of decades when
oil and gas run out. But if we delay the transition until then, our
earth will have little capacity left to grow food, and tropical
diseases will have spread all
over.
Corporations have seldom hesitated to throw thousands of people out
of work to make more profit as they use a new technology or a new
labor pool, saying simply, “That’s progress. (Get over
it.)” Is there some reason why you, our government, would
hesitate to put in place policies that will involve changes is the
jobs we do?
Step up! Do your job! Show leadership! Get a spine!