Courtesy: Kelly Rigg
Twice in recent months, I’ve heard speakers refer to a decisive moment in American history, a moment which shows our capacity to mobilize quickly in the face of an existential threat. One of them was Lester Brown, who wrote in his book Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble:
“In his State of the Union address on January 6, 1942, one month after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt announced the country’s arms production goals. The United States, he said, was planning to produce 45,000 tanks, 60,000 planes, 20,000 anti-aircraft guns, and 6 million tons of merchant shipping. He added, “Let no man say it cannot be done. No one had ever seen such huge arms production numbers. But Roosevelt and his colleagues realized that the largest concentration of industrial power in the world at that time was in the U.S. automobile industry. Even during the Depression, the United States was producing 3 million or more cars a year. After his State of the Union address, Roosevelt met with automobile industry leaders and told them that the country would rely heavily on them to reach these arms production goals. Initially they wanted to continue making cars and simply add on the production of armaments. What they did not yet know was that the sale of private automobiles would soon be banned. From the beginning of April 1942 through the end of 1944, nearly three years, there were essentially no cars produced in the United States.”
With the exception of nuclear war, I can’t think of any greater existential threat to human civilization than climate change and its related impacts. If ever we needed an “FDR moment,” now would be it.
Looking back through a week’s worth of posts on the Daily Kos climate change SOS blogathon, no topic was left behind: there are pieces on how climate change is taking its toll on virtually every ecosystem on the planet; how political will is undermined by those who are invested in the status quo; and how the solutions are there for the taking.
Read more: Huffington Post >>
La entrada Kelly Rigg: Where is the leadership on climate change? aparece primero en TckTckTck.