(Newswire.net — November 9, 2020) —
By Ford Seeman, Founder and President of Forest Founders
Business leaders and politicians continue to fail us when it comes to our climate crisis. Corporate leaders answer to shareholders and revenue numbers. With globalization and outsourcing, environmental concerns can seem like someone else’s problem and aren’t discussed in typical board meetings. When profits are the focus, it’s beneficial economically to turn a blind eye to environmental issues instead of holding a company’s actions accountable.
But it doesn’t stop there. Politicians also fail to rise to the challenge of climate change. They need their corporate donors that allow them to stay relevant in today’s digital age, which requires massive spends on TV, social media, and other digital marketing campaigns. Many cannot (or will not) take a stand to fight for the climate. Making matters worse, the voting public receives many fake and confusing messages about climate issues. The scientific truths and hard data have forever been incorrectly debated. The Green New Deal is probably one of the most misunderstood pieces of legislation. It is an outline, not concrete steps that can easily be priced. Upper end estimates put the cost at $93 trillion dollars. While republicans tout that this will cost the average family $600,000 it is likely that if the guidelines are followed it would end up saving us money. We are stuck in a cycle of claiming sticker shock at the upfront cost while being unable to look at the life cycle costs of our choices.
Neither politicians nor corporate leaders are ready to evolve. They’re held back by monetary and personal motives that prevent them from championing the irrefutable climate data. However, without political and corporate support, we can’t take the necessary actions needed to prevent cataclysmic climate change, which many scientists believe is close to the point of no return. We need severe and immediate action, otherwise the crisis will quickly go beyond our abilities to control or reverse them. We might be forced to simply adapt or die.
The President Must Lead the Way
President-elect Joe Biden presents himself as a supporter of the Green New Deal. But he also denies this attachment when it aligns him closely with progressives who might be too “fringe.” Now that he won the election, Biden will need to address the damages wrought by his predecessor and take more bold steps like his commitment to rejoin the Paris Agreement.
President Donald Trump dismantled almost all climate progress made in the last decade. His Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) functioned as a prize for cronyism. He handed the reins of the EPA to the very worst polluters and offenders. The oil and gas lobby owned his EPA with impunity, showing no regard to the mandate and very reason the EPA exists, to protect the environment. Trump put a band-aid on the issue by taking part in tree planting initiatives, but this was a desperate attempt to look like an environmental champion.
The Call for Data and Science
We need politicians who govern based on data and science. What we currently have is a system of favors. Any new bill passing through Congress is loaded with earmarks to help gain allies. Currying favor and re-election is more important than good governance or the scientific truth to the vast majority of incumbents. Fake news is not only used to whip the voting public into a frenzy of nationalism and hysteria, but also to dilute scientific fact and impede progress. We desperately need strong action from President-elect Biden to help stave off the impending climate disaster by rejecting fake news and the “old guard’s” profits and bottom line. We need bold action to prevent an unrecognizable world. We cannot allow companies to remain unaccountable for their actions when they have known for over fifty years the detrimental impacts their corporate actions and profiting would have on the planet.
Impactful Policies that Get Results
We are at a crossroads. Renewable energy is now cheaper than fossil fuels. However, we still give massive subsidies to the fossil fuel industry to help them limp along and continue to pollute our planet. Let’s kill the cronyism, remove the lobbying groups, and cut off their outsized influence so we can look at the problem from a financial and scientific standpoint.
First, we must phase out fossil fuel production. After that, it is time we subsidize the most effective technologies and end subsidies based on anything other than scientific progress and cutting emissions. Each of these will create incentives for states to create their own pathways to a greener economy. The federal government should use their power like they did when they mandated states change the national drinking age to 21. They should withhold certain types of funding until states agree to mandate the transition to a green renewable energy economy.
Biden and the new administration must cease the corporate enabling of the FDA and we must evolve from our archaic eating habits ingrained in our culture since the early 1900’s. Food science and our understanding of our needs has evolved, yet the food pyramid and recommendations of the FDA have not. Science shows we can farm more efficiently, yet we subsidize the business of food, instead of mandating the industry evolve to help Americans stay healthy and reduce the industry’s climate impact. If we overhaul how we educate consumers about food, we will save billions if not trillions in health care costs as well. We also must shift food production to localized models and mandate the electrification of the transportation of goods. We must not allow the corporate farming and meat companies from setting the agenda with their outsized influence. Agriculture is dangerous when it is corpritized. We need to return to a place where independent farming is feasible again without having to be heavily subsidized.
A Brighter Bolder Future
It’s incredibly timely that commercial renewable energy is now cheaper than fossil fuel-produced energy. Every business and household should make sure they expedite the transfer to a renewable energy economy. Take advantage of state incentive programs to make our homes more renewable and energy efficient. During the pandemic, we’re applying old technologies to make our current pandemic conditions manageable. If our economy thrives with people working from home, why go back to business as normal? Allowing workers to work from home negates commuting and the enormous costs of heating and cooling collaborative workspaces.
What is really needed for success? We have proven we can do more with less. Let’s continue to take advantage of the current business environment to live as environmentally conscientiously as possible and demand that our business and political leaders take bold climate action immediately. Time is running out. Our planet is on fire.
About Ford Seeman
A self-professed contrarian, Ford Seeman is an entrepreneur who is focused on taking his business acumen to help connect us and change the world for the better. Ford has founded Forest Founders — a 501c3 dedicated to creating easy ways to negate carbon footprints — and Righteous Causes — an innovator accelerator that helps budding social impact entrepreneurs connect with and afford a suite of services including business development, legal, marketing, accounting, website development and business coaching.