
{"id":8856,"date":"2010-01-28T09:59:48","date_gmt":"2010-01-28T17:59:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=8856"},"modified":"2010-01-28T09:59:48","modified_gmt":"2010-01-28T17:59:48","slug":"getting-our-bearings-toward-making-things-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/01\/28\/getting-our-bearings-toward-making-things-better\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting our bearings toward making things better"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Sammy Slade<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After the failure of the U.N. Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen, actions to resolve climate change in the U.S. are in reverse. Factors contributing to this lack of positive action include congress\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 reluctance, before the mid-term elections, to engage in another battle, which is likely to be as drawn-out as the health care reform process has been. Now with the loss of a filibuster-proof Democrat Senate last week along with the Supreme Court\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision striking restrictions on corporate influence in politics, the outlook is even starker for climate change legislation (and much else!). <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>And if that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bad enough, the regulatory power to reign in greenhouse gas emissions that the executive branch currently DOES have via the EPA and the Clean Air Act is under threat of getting stripped by Congress. Last week, while so much else was happening, Republican Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski introduced an obscure \u00e2\u20ac\u0153resolution of disapproval,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which, if not petitioned against by at least 30 senators before it gets put on the Senate calendar, will gut the only real existing power the president already has to regulate CO2! This regulatory power is, at its minimum, a tool to prod for significant legislative action.<\/p>\n<p>Considering the emergency that climate change puts us in, and the lack of significant action from higher scales of governance, the Carrboro Board of Alderman voted unanimously in early December 2009 to adopt \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A Resolution to Take Responsibility in a Socially Just Manner for Carrboro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Portion of CO2 in the Atmosphere; Toward Getting the Atmosphere Back to a Safe Level Below 350 Parts per Million.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>In line with what is being called for by the scientific consensus for the industrialized world, this resolution commits Carrboro to a 20 percent reduction of 1990 levels of CO2 in the atmosphere by 2020. <\/p>\n<p>On Feb. 1, the Carrboro, Chapel Hill and UNC communities will have an invaluable opportunity to see one of the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most eminent climate-change scientists. James Hansen will be giving a presentation titled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Global Climate Change: What Must We Do Now?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This UNC-hosted and sponsored event, free and open to the public, will be at Memorial Hall. (The event is at 7 p.m., though if you would like a seat, the doors open at 6:30.)<\/p>\n<p>Please go to this event! It is imperative that we understand the degree of action called for if we are to mitigate the worst of what scientists are describing.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately for us in the Triangle, we still have the apparent luxury and potential of enacting changes that are derived from abstract understanding and not tangible calamity. Without the community\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s understanding, there will not be the necessary movement required to assure that we implement action of the quality and degree required before irreversible catastrophe worsens and is felt locally.<\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned to the Transition Carrboro-Chapel Hill \u00e2\u20ac\u0153unleashing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that will happen on May 15. This will be the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153big bang\u00e2\u20ac\u009d community effort to bring together all the individuals and organizations within the community to coordinate our efforts in imagining and enacting a positive future. In the meantime \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 go see Hansen on Feb. 1!<\/p>\n<p>If we could all understand the significance of our times, taking real action would be harder to deny \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and things could only get better.<\/p>\n<p><em>Sammy Slade is a member of the Carrboro Board of Aldermen.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sammy Slade After the failure of the U.N. Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen, actions to resolve climate change in the U.S. are in reverse. Factors contributing to this lack of positive action include congress\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 reluctance, before the mid-term elections, to engage in another battle, which is likely to be as drawn-out as the health care&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8856"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8860,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8856\/revisions\/8860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}