Citizens Climate Change Lobby Speaker Puts Positive Spin on Future
By Silas White
The Westchester chapter of the Citizen’s Climate Change Lobby met July 18 to go over international action regarding climate change and local projects.
Guest speaker Andrew Jones, co-founder of Climate Interactive, a climate change think-tank that creates simulations used in UN negotiations, put a positive spin on the usually negative topic when he gave 10 reasons to be hopeful about the future.
“Social change looks impossible until it is completed,” Jones said. “Just think of something like interracial marriage. There was a period where no states approved those laws, but then quite suddenly in the 1960s there was this boom…the same thing with women’s suffrage in the 1920s…same sex marriage just took of a few years ago.”
Some of the good news according to Jones: Carbon emissions peaked globally in 2014. There is a bi-partisan Climate Solutions Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives. International jurisdictions put a price on carbon, and there is increasing public acceptance of renewable energies.
The Westchester chapter of CCL is co-lead by Dennis Heller and Gaylord Holmes. According to Holmes, the group has been expanding its membership through community outreach and through the group’s website. Holmes said the groups’ ultimate goal is for congress to pass a carbon tax to limit the amount of carbon produced by the U.S.
“One of the things we do is have people write letters to their congressmen on climate change,” he said. “I was down in D.C. lobbying in June, and for Senators Schumer’s office we had a pile of letters to put on his desk…that catches their attention.”
The group also discussed a proposal made by a group of veteran Republican statesmen, called the Climate Leadership Council, which calls for a gradually increasing carbon tax as wells as carbon dividends for all Americans. While the CCL says the plan isn’t exactly the one they would advocate for, it is a step in the right direction to have Republicans and conservatives discuss the issue of climate change.
The CCL will hold a free and open to the public panel discussion on carbon tax from 7 to 9 p.m. on Wednesday July 26 at 425 Cherry Street, Bedford Hills.
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