Why Climate Change Must be a Political Issue! by City Tech Blogger Lev Gurvits

This question has been bothering me for a while: “Why climate change has to be so perceptible on the political radars, after all – it is a strictly scientific question, and therefore the measures to cope with that kind of phenomena supposed to be purely scientific…”, or at least so I thought…

Before I took a class on” Physics of Natural Disasters”, I was annoyed every time climate change was mentioned by politicians, most of which don’t really care much of the science or the scientific aspect of the global warming issue. What actually caused the irritation, were not the ideas those politicians expressed, but the manner global warming was referred to – as it some kind of belief, or a political predisposition. The course of global warming and climate change, can’t be interpreted as some kind of religion or a cult belief – it is exact, to a high point of certainty, science. The reason so many people still hesitate with whom to entrust with their point of view on that issue, are hundreds of millions dollars are spent on lobbing in favor of fossil fuels industries all over the world, and that happens instead of holding those industries responsible for the phenomena!

After I started looking deeper into climate change and tried to understand the mechanics behind it, I discovered another, not less important aspect of the dynamics behind that issue – the politics. How Lobbying works, is a complicated process and not the topic I would like to put an emphasis on but understand its role in the policy making process and the way it affects the legislators that we entrust as a nation is crucial to each of us. The important point is, that lobbying can be so influential on the politicians and legislators who decide what happens to us as a humanity, that sometimes they can’t even stand behind their decision, as they don’t really have a “choice”. And if someone brave enough will try to “choose right” and oppose the money influence, those may lose a big chunk of their political support entirely, which will make them more likely to lose their political grasp on to the policy making abilities anyway. Therefore, the change has to come from below – each and every one of us has a responsibility as a voter and in order to execute it in a right way. We should choose those representatives who want to fight climate change and make it their priority. After all, in a long run there might be nothing left to fight for anymore.

Back to the question that was bothering me, not only do I feel more educated in these few months into the course, but also equip with better tools of perception regarding the global warming issue. Now I can see past those inaccurate political remarks concerning climate change and concentrate on whether one or the other speakers are in support or oppose to control fossil fuels usage. A beautiful example of both can be noticed in NYTimes article “Judge Blocks Disputed Keystone XL Pipeline in Setback for Trump” where a political move was made by the current President’s administration to reverse the decision made by his predecessor, only to later be blocked by a judicial decision. Keystone XL Pipeline is a long-distance fuel streaming pipe-system, that plans to connect distant geo-political points on the Canada USA maps and aims to economically benefit both countries and of course the company itself. The court decided that “[Presidential] administration failed to follow established rules and procedures for decisions like these” and “it failed to provide a fact-based analysis justifying its actions” – therefore the administration only played a type of a bulling game, in hope there will not be enough strength on the opposing side. In other words, no one in the current administration carefully examined long-lasting environmental effects of that project –whether those of an immediate impact to the natural flora and fauna of the region the pipe passes through, or the fossil emissions increase effects on the climate change. The political card played instead by Mr. Trump was kind of a public shaming attempt claiming that “It was a political decision made by a judge”. But the actual shaming credit is fully deserved by the administration that was only interested in the commercial side of the issue and not in the bigger picture, the well-being of the humankind.

Getting to my point – fossil fuel lobbing will remain an obstacle to climate change as long as that industry remains profitable. In order to overcome that enormous pressure on politicians, which by the way are usually sure that they do the right thing after someone had convinced them so, we as a mass have to display our explicit dissatisfaction. There are many ways to do so, starting by educating ourselves and people in our immediate surrounding, through campaigning in a ways of writing here in the ClimateYou Blog, joining demonstrations which condemn misuse of the political power, and finally lobbying on a higher levels of influence – each one and their highest level of reach. Additionally,  I as a representative of the technology industry think that we have to help with transportation and other fossil emitting industries become independent of carbon-based fuels, and preferably use only clean and renewable energy. That way the entire industry (hundreds of millions of jobs) would not be put out of the business, but only a small sector of the fuel mining business. Additionally, those who have an extensive experience with drilling, may finally apply their expertise in the name of science and help to explore the bowels of the earth.