The Martlet

Humanity’s chances of making it through the 21st century are getting slimmer by the day. The culprit is climate change, which will make huge swaths of the globe virtually uninhabitable and pose a threat to the survival of civilization itself.

Climate change may be the greatest challenge ever faced by the human race and just when we need to be ratcheting up investments in trying to confront it, the implosion of the global financial system is derailing the world economy.

To top off this perfect storm, we now have to try and work through an international system that has been outdated since 1945 and has hardly ever been more insecure. What this means is that as economies unravel and climate change begins to bite, unstable countries will compete for scarce resources. History tells us that competition inevitably leads to war, and in a world armed with enough nuclear weapons to destroy itself several times over, this is not something that bears thinking about.

We have been assured for the past three decades, we have the technology to act on climate change and to replace oil. What has been lacking is the political will and global unity to take up this burden. This is where America comes in.

As the world’s largest consumer of oil and emitter of greenhouse gases, the U.S. is the only country capable of providing the global leadership needed in these extraordinary times. Without American participation and leadership to inspire others to act, global action becomes pointless.

And sadly, it would be an understatement to say that America has failed to rise to the occasion. George W. Bush’s policies of denying climate change, supporting oil interests, attacking science, obsessing with terrorism and undermining international cooperation have all been dramatically ruinous and short sighted. They can arguably be explained by his belief that the rapture will occur any day now and God will zap the faithful up to Heaven, leaving the rest of the world to burn.

It is not surprising then that the world has greeted the exit of Bush and the inauguration of President Barack Obama with an audible sigh of relief. Obama appears to genuinely care for the long-term fate of our civilization and ran his presidential campaign on hope and change, in desperately short supply lately, and the promise to tackle the tough problems that Bush did his best to ignore or make worse. On climate change, peak oil, nuclear proliferation and international cooperation, Obama is trying to correct course and reassert American leadership.

Obama seriously intends to meet climate change head-on, saying “Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all. Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response.”

He is backing up his rhetoric with concrete action, spearheading talks for a new global climate change treaty to succeed the Kyoto Accord and pledging to reduce American carbon emissions 80 per cent by 2050.

The new American president is also acutely aware of looming oil shortages and has made charting the way into a post-oil energy future one of his main goals. A whopping $150 billion of the stimulus package is going to developing renewable energy and billions more for railways and walkable cities. This is the change we need if we are going to survive as a post-oil civilization.

As for nuclear proliferation, the incoming administration has taken a bold stand, and is seeking a new treaty with Russia to reduce both countries’ nuclear stockpiles to 1,000 warheads each, an almost 80 per cent cut. The new president is also reviewing Bush’s antagonistic plans for missile defense in Eastern Europe, hopefully heading off what some observers see as a new Cold War brewing with Russia.

So far the rest of the world has shown itself overwhelmingly eager to work with the new American administration and Obama’s visit to Canada on Feb. 19 is a case in point. Yet it remains to be seen if he will have the ability to actually stir the rest of the world’s governments to act on the greatest test mankind has ever faced.

It won’t be long before it becomes clear whether or not these changes will be enough to put the world back on the course towards future prosperity, or if the effort is too little too late.