New Hampshire residents want action on climate change
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Posted on March 19, 2007
Filed Under Global warming/Climate change, Greenhouse gas emissions, Ecological hope, Fossil fuel dependency, Earth spirituality
Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:
Despite the resistance at the federal level for policy changes to address climate change, much is happening at the local and state level that gives reason for hope. If the government won’t do it, well then, let’s remind government leaders just who it is they work for.
In California, new state rules on carbon emissions, gas mileage standards, and more are challenging corporations and the federal government to catch up. Hard to ignore California, one of the largest economies in the world, when it starts pushing its weight around.
Northeast states are suing the federal government for its lack of action on carbon emissions. 
Chicago has a new green building code. Wisconsin and Maryland are looking at legislation to address greenhouse gases. And the list goes on.
Now New Hampshire residents are getting positively uppidity about it, using one of the great traditions of the New England political culture, the town hall meeting. Across the state, cities and towns are considering a proposed state resolution on climate change. The NY Times had an article about it this morning and here’s the link.
So here, where politics are eminently local, folks are looking at a very big picture – because climate change is, of course, and will be increasingly, a local issue. New England has been warming at a greater rate than other parts of the country, threatening local industries from skiing to maple syrup.
New Hampshire now has a Carbon Coalition and it initiated the resolution. While non-binding, it is intended to send a message not just to Washington, but to every presidential candidate who comes to the state seeking its endorsement in the nation’s first primary. You can read more about it at their website. The site has a blog where you can get more of a flavor of the conversation in the Granite State.
The campaign in NH echoes California’s State Assembly Speaker, Fabian Nunez, who told the Washington Post last September:
I really believe the effort to curb global warming is a bottom-up effort in this country. For us, this is not just about California. This is about making a push from the bottom up to get the Congress to take action.
That’s right, that’s where change really happens. African-Americans didn’t get voting rights and the end of segregaton because it was handed to them from on high. Women didn’t get the vote that way, nor slaves their freedom, nor the colonies their liberation from the British crown. It all happened through struggle at the base, people taking responsibility for their government, pushing from below to bring change at the top.
So when it comes to this – ordinary citizens in a fairly conservative state meeting in town halls and schools to discuss climate change and send a message to lawmakers – well, one starts to think a movement is being born.
And that fosters hope indeed.
[YOU, TOO, CAN TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW. JOIN IN THE STEP IT UP 2007 NATIONAL DAY OF CLIMATE ACTION, APRIL 14. GO HERE TO GET INFORMATION.]
Photo credit: Reuters
Technorati Tags: climate change, california emissions law, New Hamshire climate change resolution, popular democracy, carbon emissions
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