Will Alabama Face the Challenge?

It is very appropriate that Blog Action Day's 2009 focus is Climate Change. After all, that is one of the hottest topics around the globe and sure to become even more important as we move closer to December of 2009, when world leaders will gather in Copenhagen to work on a new treaty to address Climate change. I'm glad to be adding my voice from Alabama with close to 10,000 bloggers in 150 countries.

It is also very appropriate that the Interfaith Environmental Initiative of Alabama just hosted Energy Forum 2009 at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens on October 13-14. After introductory reflections, we jumped right into the topic at hand: Energy Challenges and Possibilities in Alabama. As Director of the Alabama Environmental Council, I was asked to share environmental perspectives of energy in Alabama, which can be found at http://tinyurl.com/yfan9gu. This Forum aimed to engage people in how we can be more efficient with the energy we use. The nearly 100 participants had many ideas of how to pursue this and it is encouraging to think of what action will happen.

However, this Forum was not the place to address the bigger issue of impending Climate Change and Alabama's lack of action concerning it. It is very frustrating to hear so many voices in Alabama denying that Global Warming is occurring or that humans are not having an impact. (It was encouraging to hear Dr. Stan Meiburg, EPA Region IV acting Director, state that the science is in and there is no longer a debate about it's cause. Now we must start doing something.) No matter how many doubters try to distract Alabamians, the scientific community is still in consensus that warming is occurring and that humans are having an impact.

It is up to us to demand that our government leaders address this impending global crisis. It may be uncomfortable, and some costs may increase. But, a lack of action will be much worse and costs to address it later will skyrocket. It is not about our lifetimes, but those of our children. The time for business as usual has passed and the window of opportunity is closing.

We must change our overly-consumptive lifestyles and reduce our waste. (With 4% of global population, the US cannot continue to use 23% of it's resources, nor should we be the example of how developing countries want to live.) We must stop subsidizing fossil fuels and begin to equally invest in Clean Energy.

We must move away from conventional dinosaur energy systems of the past, find ways to utilize clean energies today, and get busy with research and development of technologies that hold the most promise for our Clean Energy future.