Prosperity for Rhode Island

Testimony from Greg Gerritt for RI bills on Global Warming, Greenhouse gases, alternative energy, and conservation.

This testimony will also be posted on   www.ProsperityForRI.org

Senators and Representatives,  This year you will have before you a number of bills on Global Warming, Greenhouse gas emission reductions, and using the transformation of our energy practices to improve our economy.  

Several years ago I came before you and testified that your approach to dealing with Global Warming would be the most important thing you do in your entire time in public service. Since that time there is nothing to convince me that that assessment was wrong.  If anything the situation has become more dire, especially as it has become mixed in with an economy that has gone into the tank.

While the immediate cause of the crashing of the economy was the financial games of Wall St and the hyper inflation of house prices that supported the house of cards, part of the reason for the inflation of house prices and the hyper financialization of the economy was ecological collapse.  

We may think of ourselves as living in the modern age, but the economy is still based upon the food, timber, water, and minerals provided by our planet.  Global Warming is just one part of the collapse of ecosystems effecting us.  Soil erosion, water shortages, deforestation, loss of fisheries, dead zones in the oceans, and changes in the ph of the oceans are proceeding faster than ever, and dramatically effecting the ability of people to make a  living.  As Chateaubriand noted “Forests precede civilization, deserts follow”.  As deforestation helps drive global warming it all connects.

You have before you bills this year to reduce Greenhouse gas emissions, promote solar and wind generation of electricity, and conserve various resources.  There are many who will provide you support and amendments for the specific bills in front of you,   None of the bills go far enough for my taste.  The reason for this is that if we are actually going to reverse global warming, not just slow it down, the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities must drop to essentially zero.  Between 1750 and 1950 CO2 in the atmosphere went from 280 parts per million to 315 parts per million.  315 ppm is still enough to effect the climate, but now we are at 387 ppm with the number rising every year.    

If carbon dioxide emissions are reduced sufficiently the atmosphere can eventually cleanse it self.  The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would decrease.  And this is exactly what we need.  But as the amount of C02 in the atmosphere rose between 1750 and 1950, it is clear that even an 80% reduction from 1990 emission levels is not sufficient to actually reverse global warming, and to wait 40 years to get there is going to create massive problems for those who live on planet Earth. Every year the predicted sea level rise increases as we better understand how the Greenland Ice sheet deteriorates as the climate gets warmer.

Given my position that what you have in front of you is insufficient for the  task I still support the efforts of my friends to get you to pass the best of these bills, and I would like to provide some suggestions to help you in thinking about your work that you might not hear about from others.  

I believe that a considerable portion of our economic woes are related to ecological collapse.  We may be at the end of economic growth as we know it.  I know how hard that must be for you to accept, it makes all of your budgeting much more difficult if revenues are not rising and unlikely to rise in the foreseeable future, but it is something you might want to keep in mind as you deliberate.   There are a few sectors of the economy from which you might wring further growth, but several of them present great danger.  The financial and Insurance industries can always be pumped up with funny money, but as this is exactly how we got into the current economic mess, I urge great caution here.  The military industrial complex has also been a source of growth recently, but its growth leads to entanglements like Iraq and Afghanistan, and eventually busts the government piggy bank so caution is advised here as well.  The other large source of growth in our economy, nearly 40% of the growth over the last twenty years, has been the medical industry.  Unfortunately the more the medical industry grows the more unlikely it becomes that we shall ever have affordable healthcare for all.  In other words the growth of the medical industry makes your jobs balancing the budget and providing care for Rhode Islanders in need much more difficult.

I expect the solar and wind industries will provide good jobs in RI if we move smartly, but do not limit your thinking to them when you think about global warming and the economy.  Even more important to our efforts to reverse global warming will be the healing of our ecosystems.  I repeat.  It will be nearly impossible to get Rhode Island’s economy righted unless, in addition to creating various forms of carbon free electricity and fuels, we also heal the ecosystems that give us life.  

Taking better care of Rhode Island’s waters will provide a buffer for climate change, and be a boon to our economy, possibly allowing us to harvest more marine life.  But of even greater significance is the restoration of local agriculture.  Local agriculture is already just about the only part of the RI economy that is healthy, witness the expansion of farmers markets and local food restaurants in recent years.  It is also a part of the economy that really helps us lower our carbon footprint because the more we grow here, the less we have to ship across the country or from around the world to feed ourselves. And the more resilient we become if the economy continues its decline.  

California is currently the source of nearly 40% of the produce consumed in the US.  But on March 1 irrigation water was cut off in the Central Valley due to drought.   No one can say the drought is caused by global warming, but diminished irrigation water in California and many other critically important agricultural areas around the world, including China, is definitely going to be a result of continued global warming and will put massive pressure on global food supplies.  

In closing.  Pass the good bills you have before you.  Others will fill you in on the details. Stopping global warming is intimately entwined in the rejuvenation of the Rhode island economy.  Healing local ecosystems is as important in the process of rejuvenating Rhode Island as fuel efficiency and alternative energy. The expansion of local agriculture is a tool for healing ecosystems, reducing our carbon footprint, and feeding our community as irrigation agriculture becomes less tenable around the world as your global warming bills move us too slowly and the economy continues to crumble due to stress on ecological systems.