The image and message can be seen on billboards across the Kansas City metropolitan area.
A smiling young girl holds a lit bulb as the words “How bright will my future be if Congress fails to act on global warming?” is splashed across the top.
The billboards are part of the Show Me Your Solutions campaign that a coalition of Missouri conservation and environmental groups started in February. Show Me Your Solutions sponsored the “Repower, Refuel and Rebuild America” forum Monday afternoon at the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum in Independence.
Antonia Herzog, a legislative advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council, presented a case for investing in clean energy and how it can create jobs. Herzog earned a doctorate in physics at the University of California, San Diego.
“We’re in a recession right now, and people talk a lot about cost,” Herzog said. “You’ll often hear, ‘We can’t do anything right now. It will cost us too much.’ I would argue that it will cost us too much if we do nothing. The cost of inaction is much greater than the cost of action in this case.”
Political will and a policy framework for environmental solutions have been missing in recent years, Herzog said. She said legislation can create a mechanism to slow, to stop and to reverse greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.
“We believe that policy framework is a national climate and energy legislation and that this is the best way to drive these clean-energy technologies into the marketplace,” Herzog said.
In mid-January, the U.S. Climate Action Partnership unveiled a detailed set of policy recommendations for developing legislation that would create a national climate protection program. USCAP’s “Blueprint for Legislative Action” includes a cap-and-trade system.
Under this system, one allowance would be created for each ton of greenhouse gas emissions allowed in the declining emission reduction targets. Emitting companies would be required to turn in one allowance for each ton of greenhouse gases they emit. The goal is to reduce 20 percent of 2005 emission levels by 2050.
“Cap-and-trade is not a carbon tax,” Herzog said. “We have an environmental goal. We need to reduce our global warming emissions. We need a cap to do so.”
U.S. Congressmen Henry A. Waxman and Edward J. Markey recently released a drafted of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009.
The U.S. House aims to have the legislation passed by late May, with the U.S. Senate discussing the legislation sometime this summer, Herzog said.
The Show Me Your Solutions coalition includes the American Lung Association, Audubon Missouri, League of Women Voters of Missouri, Missouri Coalition for the Environment, Missouri Farmers Union, Missouri Votes Conservation, Natural Resources Defense Council and Pew Environment Group. For more information, visit showmeyoursolutions.org.
