January 2013: Note to Self

January 20, 2013

Self,

Hey, look how far the United States has come in the past four years:

Within a few months of his inauguration, President Obama closed the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, and explicitly affirmed America's commitment to the right of habeas corpus. He also affirmed the full civil liberties of all Americans by rescinding the Patriot Act.

Administration officials such Steve Chu at the Department of Energy, Lisa Jackson at EPA, and Ken Salazar at Interior, set right to work on Jan. 21, 2009. They restored the role of good science their agencies, and ejected industry advocates from roles regulating the very same industries they came from.

It was tough going rooting out regulations from the Bush era that undercut laws like the Endangered Species and Clean Air acts; there's still work to do there. But the integrity of these agencies has been restored.

Things really got exciting when Secretary Chu crafted his bold, but achievable, plan to de-carbonize America's electrical grid by 2019. And when Obama presented his plan to cut atmospheric carbon pollution to 85% below 1990 levels by 2050, and to continue to decrease thereafter. But with coherent information coming from the White House at last on what a threat global warming is to our food supply, our health, our prosperity, our national security, and our environment -- our whole way of life, really -- grassroots organizing to rally the majority of the public behind stopping global warming really gained momentum.

So most members of Congress pulled themselves togther to work effectively with the administration to cap and ratchet down the nation's greenhouse gas emissions. We're now on track to have nearly 100% carbon-neutral electricity in about 10 years. And of course, since the auto industry re-tooled to make and sell those really energy-efficient electric cars and electric/biofuel hybrids, they're making a profit again and our oil imports have continued to decrease.

Over a million green jobs were created by 2011 -- from manufacturing and installing wind turbines and photovoltaics, to weather-proofing homes, to creating green roofs, and building the nation's electric car infrastructure. Now you can get from New York at least as far as Kansas City without burning a lick of biodiesel.

Yeah, some new offshore drilling was approved in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. Wasn't crazy about that, although one had to admire President Obama's strategic bipartisan compromises, which got his clean energy plan through Congress. But with the price of oil fluctuating wildly, it's been iffy economics to invest in test wells and drilling platforms. Hardly a drop of oil has yet to come out of those leases.

The new markets for exporting clean power tech are helping rebuild our economy and right our trade imbalances, at least.

Some climate changes are inevitable at this point. We don't know how -- if, really -- we can stop the Arctic ice cap from shrinking -- the feedbacks have accelerated rather shockingly in the past few years. Polar bears may exist only in zoos for our great-grandchildren.

Not sure how we're going to recover the lodgepole pine forests of the mountain west, now that they've been thoroughly munched by those beetles. And since overall temps keep getting ever so slightly warmer every year, those suckers just keep moving north. Sorry, Canada!

Russia may never see one of its iconic snowy cold winters ever again, and Europe's skiing industry is in big trouble. Flooding in Bangladesh was really bad last year. Australia and New Zealand are pretty uneasy about having to settle all those Marshall Islanders and Micronesians and other Pacific Islanders whose homes are being swamped. Fortunately, the US has regained enough moral standing in the world to help negotiate that process and overall, get the richer nations to pick up their proportional share of the tab for mitigating climate change, so that developing countries can continue to strengthen their economies and improve the lives of their citizens.

Here's to another four years of change for the better.

Cheers,

Emily

PS: 2101: A Space Odyssey starring Adam Sandler? Don't waste your $18.

Image: The first photograph of the Earth rising over the Moon's horizon, taken by Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders on Dec. 24, 1969. Source: NASA. More about this image on a NASA history page commemorating the 40th anniversary of the image, late last year.