Climate change: what the world needs now is ... politics.

• Author: Goodstein, Eban
• Position: ESSAY

It is no exaggeration to say that unchecked global warming will kill more people and drive more animals, insects, and plants into extinction than has any other industrial pollutant in human history. Where I live, in Oregon in the northwestern United States, scientists believe that warmer temperatures will cut the snowpack in the Cascade Mountains in half by around 2040, with the rest disappearing by the end of the century. A 50-percent reduction in snowpack means dramatic reductions in summer stream flow, with devastating consequences for clean water, for farmers, for salmon, and for the health of the streams on whose banks our regional culture and economy have flourished. Here in Oregon, we are rich enough so that we can adapt to year after year of summer drought. Drought will breed social conflict, we will be poorer, but we will survive.

Elsewhere, however, the story is grimmer. The 6 million people of Lima, for instance, depend almost exclusively on the snow-fed Rimac river for their drinking water, but the Andean snowfields are disappearing, and within 20 years the Rimac may be dry six months out of the year. And from arctic populations of polar bears to mountain pikas in my back yard, global warming will soon surpass habitat destruction as the century's primary driver of mass extinction. According to a recent report in Nature, global warming alone could commit to extinction up to a million terrestrial species by 2050. This is 35 percent of the estimated number of creatures and plants on the planet.

It is also no exaggeration to say that stabilizing the climate poses a political challenge of unprecedented scope. Needed emission reductions on the order of 80 percent can only be achieved through a rapid transition to clean energy technologies--and not only in the rich countries, but in the developing world as well. Journalist and climate activist Ross Gelbspan argues that "given the magnitude and urgency of the accelerating pace of climate change, the only hope lies in a rapid and unprecedented mobilization of humanity around this issue."

Yet many of the "solutions" to climate change offered by U.S. environmentalists fall far short of this mark. Instead we often see a focus on lifestyle changes, combined with public education and lobbying campaigns: ride bikes, change light bulbs, buy green power, build a green building, brew your own biodiesel, write your senator. These twin strategies evolved in the 1970s and 1980s: educational and lobbying campaigns mobilized citizens for short-term legislative gains, while lifestyle changes would create the foundation for longer-term, widespread cultural change. But the new dominance of a virulent anti-government...