The endangerment finding 🌎

For years now I’ve warned about the dangers of absolutism in the climate movement, how saying we must reach X level of reduction by X years is a dangerous proposition, how it not only enables bad policy making but also fuels opposition to climate policy due to it being framed in terms of absolute harm elimination.

There is a growing acceptance of the importance of harm reduction most notably in the substance use space, but it’s a philosophy we should be adopting in more realms of public policy. I am quite alarmed by the County’s Health Departments advertisements that say, “One Child’s Death is Too Many”, not because it’s catchy and well meaning slogan or that I endorse the death of children but because it’s an absolutest philosophy,. We should be working to reduce childhood deaths and enormous pain they cause, but such reductions must be balanced against other priorities like protecting liberties and right of children to explore their world and take risks for their betterment. Children are better off if they ride their bikes on street with speeding cars and become strong swimmers in the backyard pool even if it means they’re sometimes unsupervised and risk drowning. If a few children are scraped off the pavement by meat-wagon, it’s a tragedy but also leads those who survive to be resilient and strong.

Climate change is a serious threat that is already impacting our lives, as witnessed by yet another smokey morning. There is no question it’s real, as breathing the outside air over 24 hours  is currently as toxic as smoking a quarter pack of cigarettes. But what can we do about it? Certainly the goal of a 90 percent reduction of carbon emissions by 2035 or as it was reframed as 350 ppm was never realistic, it was a laughable matter as people picked the best possible outcome and insisted anything less then that would be a failure. Psychologically, saving every child is a notable goal, as one own’s children smashed into the asphalt or found floating in the pool is a gruesome image in one’s mind. But what’s the alternative? No motoring or swimming pools on these hot days?

Had reducing climate emissions been put into a more reasonable goal of harm reduction rather then harm elimination, things would have been different. Had vehicle emission standards and electrification been goals that were pushed at a rate that was technologically justified, things could have been different. Had solar and wind been implemented only after thoughtful reviews and kept out of ecologically sensetive areas, it could have been different.

There is a very legitimate debate on how tough the standards should be based on avaliable technology. We should be pushing for better, and noting that many renewable technologies are far from perfect. Some of first and second generation technologies will prove to be flimsy, bolted on designs on top of legacy designs. But capitalism pushes refinement and cost reduction. Already as you see with solar, wind and electric cars, things are quickly becoming better – but are hard from perfect. I am amazed how much better the integrated split-phase hybrid inverters are compared to even ten years ago.

It seems absurd that the Trump administration is rolling back the well established science that says climate emissions are a serious threat to our well being. That’s obvious and we shouldn’t turn our backs on science. But we should weight it against other concerns, develop right technologies that meet human needs while reducing the harm to the climate both for our generation and futreu generations.