{"id":924,"date":"2009-10-12T16:10:34","date_gmt":"2009-10-12T20:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/copenhagen\/?p=924"},"modified":"2009-10-12T22:05:37","modified_gmt":"2009-10-13T02:05:37","slug":"change-in-america-the-green-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/copenhagen\/2009\/10\/change-in-america-the-green-revolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Change in America: The Green Revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

For many years, I have struggled with the pressing question: how do we enact change?\u00a0 How do I, as an individual, assist in correcting the global climate change problem that we face?\u00a0 Although I hate to say it, I think policy is the most effective avenue to see the change that we want.\u00a0 The initiative is there with a small minority of the American population, but we need everyone on board for a problem as stark as global climate change.\u00a0 The vast majority of people either doesn\u2019t understand enough or doesn\u2019t care about climate change; because of these two factors, it is vital that we have strong policy that demands change from our country.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Good policy must encompass the three E\u2019s: effectiveness, economic viability, and equaling\/distributional effects (Leggett 2). \u00a0Therefore, a number of factors must be taken into account when discerning the best way to go about tackling climate change on a national scale.\u00a0 There are currently many approaches to mitigating climate change.\u00a0 Two options for carbon reduction are widely known: reductions at point of emission or end use.\u00a0 Many people are proponents of one or the other, depending upon with which industry they align.\u00a0 My question is: why don\u2019t we use both?\u00a0 Attacking emissions from both ends allows carbon reductions to come from across the board, without targeting one industry or set of businesses.\u00a0 If one industry is singled out and punished for either point of emission or end use, there will be powerful interests vested in combating these policy movements.\u00a0 For example, do not target merely the transportation industry while leaving the industrial sector untouched.<\/p>\n

The nature of climate change necessitates integrated and multi-faceted policy approaches: the aforementioned hybrid model would be particularly helpful.\u00a0 We cannot expect one tactic or solution to solve all of the potential hazards associated with climate change.\u00a0 The problem itself is not simple; therefore, we cannot afford to go about addressing climate change in a simple manner.\u00a0 I propose that a holistic\/multi-pronged approach as described below would lead us towards a greener future:<\/p>\n

First, there needs to be a strict and massive transition towards the redistribution of subsidies.\u00a0 For example, corn is heavily subsidized<\/a>; farmers are actually paid to let their fields lie fallow.\u00a0 Because corn is so inexpensive, the markets are skewed towards finding a use for corn in essentially everything.\u00a0 Allowing diversification within U.S. agriculture would promote alternatives to both fuel and U.S. exports to be more<\/p>\n

Second, a personal carbon tax<\/a> would be an interesting experimental implementation to consider that would have an equalizing distributional effect in decreasing consumer impact.\u00a0 France is instituting a carbon tax on personal and business use of coal, gas, and oil to reduce French energy consumption; the U.S. should learn from their model and attempt a similar project to spread awareness among consumers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Third, provide economic incentive within industries to promote making green practices the norm.\u00a0 Rewarding innovation financially within industries will encourage change through promoting competition.\u00a0 Then mandatory environmental standards would not be necessary, hence avoiding industrial backlash.<\/p>\n

Although not comprehensive, I believe that taking these initial steps in the marathon of our fight against climate change will get us on the correct path towards a brighter future.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For many years, I have struggled with the pressing question: how do we enact change?\u00a0 How do I, as an individual, assist in correcting the global climate change problem that we face?\u00a0 Although I hate to say it, I think policy is the most effective avenue to see the change that we want.\u00a0 The initiative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1443,1811],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-7-mitigating-climate-change","category-kyoto-to-copenhagen-course"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/copenhagen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/copenhagen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/copenhagen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/copenhagen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/copenhagen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/copenhagen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/copenhagen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/copenhagen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/copenhagen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}