With an impending population of nine billion and a growing consensus that climate change posses significant dangers, Andrew Revkin has tackled the question of global sustainability with his New York Times blog Dot Earth. In this wide-ranging discussion of climate concerns Revkin says many experts point to political leadership as a key solution but Revkin cites research that makes such political action problematic.
“If we all jumped in Hummers and drove in circles and jerked up the thermostats or if we sat like the Buddah and didn’t use any fossil fuels, the climate system which is this huge bank of energy has so much momentum it won’t notice for 20 years. So that adds a horribly politically inconvenient time scale to this problem,” Revkin says. “Because you can’t cut a ribbon, fix it, and then get reelected based on that really smart choice you made.”
