Some
observers have treated the public release of privileged messages between
prominent promoters of climate change as a significant blow to the public’s
perception of climate change. Has it? Arguable. Should it? No.
Those who
feel that “climategate”, as the message release has been termed, legitimizes
arguments for eliminating the climate dilemma from the political discourse and
the discontinuation of governmental spending on measures to curtail climate
change ignore an important question: What improvement to America’s various
infrastructural systems, public health, global relations, and economy is
mutually exclusive from spending on sustainable infrastructure?
Energy policy,
and its impacts on the environment and climate change, has and continues to be
at the forefront of political debate precisely because it is, in some way,
related to both all political considerations and the functionality of the
government itself. The implementation of any physical infrastructure requires
the input of energy and has an effect on the various feedback cycles that
interact to form the environment we live in. The land uses this infrastructure
supports, and its effects on the environment have a significant impact on the
health of the American people. Much of the global resentment aimed towards the
United States relates to attempts to exploit foreign oil reserves. Americans are employed by and utilize services
from corporations and government entities that all depend on some form of
energy to perform tasks. Even the cultivation of energy sources requires
energy. The examples above illustrate the fact that the nation’s energy policy,
and its treatment of the emissions that are attributed to climate change, are intrinsically
linked to virtually all problems the nation is facing currently and likely to
face in the future. As such, the manner in which we handle the nation’s needs
outside of the energy sector will both define and be defined by energy policy.
Critics of
climate change that look to climategate as a stimulus for further governmental spending
in other sectors, or as a reason to resist changes in the American way of life fail
to understand the synergistic relationship between America’s problems and
continue to ignore the exponentially fragile state dependence on limited energy
sources puts the country in as a whole. In order to compete with countries like
Brazil, where swift transition to alternative fuels, the infrastructure needed
to promote their use, and innovations in transportation systems have prepared
the country for a future in which oil and natural gas reserves will dry up, the
United States will need to take actions that will impact climate change (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2006/may/21/brazil.theobserver1).
Much has been made of the recession the United States finds itself in today.
Infrastructural improvements have been shelved. Natural gas extraction
processes are toxifying water supplies in cities like Pittsburgh (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?pagewanted=all).
For the first time in more than a century, the United States has peers in
global importance, particularly China, that are challenging its status as the
prime world power. Brazil has understood the connection between managing
climate change boosting their growing economy by providing jobs in
transportation and the alternative energy sector, and taking measures to
promote the health of its populace. For the United States to follow a similar
path, and maintain its place as a global power, more coordination amongst
government agencies will be needed to organize and fund projects that will halt
climate change, promote the health of its populace, and support the economy
regardless of potential inaccuracies in climate change statistics.
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