Tue, Jul 01, 2008 page5

• Change, for better and worse

  • By Hugh Riminton / CNN
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  So much has been made of the historic nature of the US presidential race.

  The first-ever African-American candidate to head a ticket. The oldest man in history to run credibly for the job. The long, close ride of the best-ever performing female candidate.

  But what of this?

  For the first time, whoever wins, the next US president will take office believing that human activity is heating up the planet.

  Nothing about Democratic Senator Barack Obama’s position would embarrass former vice president Al Gore. And Republican Senator John McCain on global warming is a world away from the language and instincts of President George W. Bush.

  The debate at street level will go on. Enough global warming conspiracy theories have been unleashed to power a small reactor, let alone a world of office and dinner table arguments.

  But the basic principle — that humans are heating the planet — is accepted at the political level. The weight of US political energy is now in balance with the weight of opinion in science.

  This matters. As Adil Najam, one of the lead authors of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 report, puts it: “The world simply cannot address climate change without US participation.”

  So now the good part begins. What do we do about it?

  At this point, the ideas run wild, from the earnest to the Utopian. Some might even work. But which ones?

  And is “the world” — as a political entity — up to the task? It takes us decades to settle on global trade rules. We collectively wring our hands even while people are slaughtered before our cameras’ eyes. So what hope is there that we can resolve environmental questions that spread sacrifice widely for only a notional immediate advantage?

  Let’s not be discouraged. The world’s use of energy has changed far more than we sometimes acknowledge. And great leaps come where technology meets and relieves unsustainable practice.

  In 19th century London and New York, the killer pollutant was horse manure. The average working nag in New York City dropped up to 15.9kgs of the stuff a day. Efforts to sweep it all up were of little help. An 1866 New York City sanitary report observed: “The stench from these accumulations of filth is intolerable.”

  And then there was the typhoid carried by the flies that thrived on what the horses left behind. By 1908 — the year, coincidentally, that the first commercial oil was produced in the Middle East — 20,000 New Yorkers were reported to be dying each year from “maladies … created mainly by horse manure.”

  In the century since much has changed. And much change will be forced on us in the century ahead. New fortunes will be made where the right solutions are found. Other livelihoods — and lives — will be lost where we move too slowly or fail to adapt.

  In an effort to bring together the best thinking available, CNN is launching “Going Green: Search for Solutions.”

  It asks these questions: What technologies will carry us forward? Where are the needs most pressing? How do we ensure human genius triumphs over folly?

  Input and insight will come from figures as diverse as presidents, scientists and activists. But this is a discussion where everyone is invited. Your wisdom, ideas and perhaps skepticism can be aired at www.cnn.com/goinggreen.

  Watch us, as we grope in the dark, perhaps occasionally with flashes of insight, as we grapple with the biggest challenge and adventure of the century.

  Hugh Riminton’s “Going Green” will appear in the Taipei Times every day this week until Saturday. CNN’s special coverage of “Going Green: Search for Solutions” continues until Sunday.
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