In
this section of readings in The Global
Warming Reader, there were two sections that came from Al Gore. The first section came from his book Earth in the Balance, while the other
came from a speech he gave during the formation of the Kyoto Protocol. Both discussed climate change, but each of
them gave different approaches towards attacking the problem. In the excerpt from his book, Al Gore focuses
more on people rising up and pushing companies and the government for
action. He discusses the successes of
Pat Bryant in pushing for air quality laws in Louisiana and Lynda Draper for
pushing General Electric to stop releasing CFCs into the atmosphere. In this article, Gore also stated that a
political movement will form if people begin to expand the definition of NIMBY
from people’s own backyards to the commons, such as the atmosphere. In this article, it really seems like he is
pushing for people to take action in their own communities, which is more of a
bottom-up approach for fixing climate change.
On the other hand, Gore pushed for emission limits in Kyoto, followed by
the opening of new markets for technologies to replace fossil fuels. This approach is more of a top-down approach
because the Kyoto Protocol would influence governments to instill new rules on
people below it.
So which method is better? In other words, which methodology of attack would
provide the most results? The bottom-up
approach may be easier to make some progress in, but would be harder to make a
large scale impact in. The top-down
approach in America is very difficult to make any progress in, but if someone
could implement changes in the government, it could be huge.
Although huge changes are needed in
order to solve the climate crisis, I think that the problem should be solved
with the bottom-up approach. The
top-down approach has not yielded many results in America. Lobbyists from industry constantly push for
fewer regulations, and even if a new regulation is made, lobbyists from
industry will push for exemptions, loopholes, and the reversal of the new laws
made. The science is there in plain
sight, and has been for a while, and the United States government still has not
acted on it. At this point, in order to
avoid a climate crisis, I think that the bottom-up approach is really the only
reasonable option. This approach has
been used by people for almost all social movements in America. Putting pressure on the government by showing
that people care about an issue seems to yield long-term results, although it
is a lot more work.
Reflecting back on my last blog post
and the excerpt from Al Gore’s book, I think that the biggest thing that people
need to learn in order for a movement to be successful is the interrelatedness
of the world. Learning about the
interrelatedness of wind patterns, water patterns, and temperature could help
people to understand climate change better.
It also will show people how everything is connected, which will force
people to expand the NIMBY principle.
Right now, most people would be willing to fight a new chemical plant or
garbage dump nearby their house, but would not be willing to fight if the plant
or dump was located farther away. If
people could just realize how everything is interconnected and how everything
affects them, they would expand their definition of their backyard and may
begin to step up and be more environmentally friendly outside of their own
neighborhoods. When a chemical plant
spills chemicals into a river, even if that river is not in that person’s
backyard, it could flow downstream to that person’s backyard. Or, that same water could be drunk by a cow
downstream, which means that the chemicals could be incorporated in your
meat. Or maybe in your fruits and
vegetables. Everything is connected, and
the interconnectedness of the environment may be the most important part of
environmental science that people need to learn.
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