Tackle climate change, Gov. Wolf

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Sunday, Nov. 9, 2014

By Thomas Hylton

Gov.-elect Tom Wolf ran a campaign focused on education funding, a severance tax on natural gas and revising personal income tax rates. But the really big issue — global warming — was seldom mentioned on the campaign trail. It may not have voter appeal, but climate change should be a top priority.

Climate scientists worldwide warn that the Earth is warming with disastrous, almost inconceivable changes to come. Coastal cities underwater. Frequent, violent storms. Climate refugees in the tens of millions. Crop failures. Species extinction.

Only a massive exchange of nuclear weapons has a similar potential to send us all back to the Stone Age. But atomic warfare would require a series of profound miscalculations. Climate change requires only that we keep doing what we’ve been doing for decades.

Of course, global warming is best addressed at a national and international level. But right now the political world is in denial, and Congress is paralyzed by posturing and partisanship. The states must take the lead, and many, like California and Washington, are doing so with policies such as phasing out the use of coal-fired power plants and promoting electric cars.

Fortunately, unlike our incumbent governor, Tom Wolf recognizes that climate change requires vigorous action. He has already pledged that Pennsylvania will join New York, Maryland, Delaware and New England states in a regional cap-and-trade consortium for the largest greenhouse gas-emitting industries. That’s a big step forward.

Mr. Wolf’s position papers are brimming with other fine ideas, such as promoting clean energy sources, retrofitting buildings for maximum energy efficiency and requiring state-owned or leased buildings to meet green-building standards. He promises to generate a Climate Change Action Plan, already required by law for the year 2015, with meaningful emission-reduction
targets and policies to meet them.

But the real challenge is changing the culture. Climate scientists tell us Americans will need to reduce their carbon footprint by about 85 percent over the next generation if the worst effects of global warming are to be avoided. That’s a stupendous change, but it doesn’t have to mean misery and deprivation.

Indeed, carbon-free lifestyles can make us all healthier and better off. But we’ll need a major adjustment in our thinking and our lifestyles: less driving and more walking, smaller living and working spaces, and the zealous pursuit of conservation and renewable resources.

Unlike his political rivals, Tom Wolf doesn’t have a long history of slogging through the political trenches. His stunning electoral victory came from his carefully crafted storytelling, broadcast in zillions of commercials, about a lifelong Pennsylvanian who used his stellar education to practice enlightened capitalism: making millions by manufacturing useful products, providing good-paying jobs and profit-sharing for his neighbors in the process.

Now he needs to employ those storytelling skills to get Pennsylvanians excited about a cleaner and healthier future through sustainable living.

A century ago, Americans of all classes benefitted enormously as technology moved from gaslights and horse-drawn carriages to electric light bulbs and automobiles. As an entrepreneur who rescued a failing company by dramatically changing its business model, Gov-elect Wolf has the private-sector credibility to make people believe in a new business model of going green.

For example, cities and towns are far more environmentally friendly than low-density, sprawling development. Thanks to their multi-story buildings and compact form, which encourages walking and public transportation, cities and towns consume far less energy per capita than the suburbs. And because they take up less land, cities and towns help preserve our farms and forests.

In fact, a recent report by the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate states that using land more efficiently and limiting suburban sprawl are two of the most important ways to limit greenhouse-gas emissions.

Preserving our towns and countryside have long been major policy goals of both Republicans and Democrats in Harrisburg. Sustainable development does both. And as governor, Mr. Wolf can accomplish much of what’s necessary directly through the state agencies he guides, such as transportation, community and economic development, conservation and natural resources,
and environmental protection. Every Cabinet officer can be an apostle for green living.

But the governor-elect should consider changing his own personal practices first. His trademark gas-guzzling Jeep sets a poor example. Time to scrap it for an electric car or hybrid. And the carbon-emitting daily commute he envisions from his York home to Harrisburg won’t help the planet, either.

Sustainable communities house residents as close as possible to work. Happily, the governor’s mansion is just 1.5 miles from the Capitol building — within easy walking or biking distance.

A fresh start for Pennsylvania means all of us thinking anew and acting anew — starting at the top.