Who will lead by example on climate change?

The Center for Environment and Population, a consortium of university researchers and environmental advocacy groups, last week released a report on how the American life
style plays a direct part in climate change. Because of suburban sprawl and its obligatory lawns, malls, and roads, each American in effect takes up 20 percent more land than he or she did 20 years ago. Our world-leading use of household appliances is rising dramatically.

Then there is the nagging habit of humans wanting to live precisely where global warming will hit first. Fifty-three percent of Americans live within 50 miles of a coast, on only 17 percent of the nation’s land. If we are not in pursuit of water, we head for the desert. Seven of the 10 fastest-growing cities in the United States are in arid Arizona, Nevada, or Colorado, and Nevada is our fastest-growing state.

“In response,” the report said, “Americans must make strategic choices both in their individual lives and collectively as a nation – from the local community to national levels – in order to balance the increasing pressures of human activity and their climate change impacts.”

This is the part that is almost a joke: Who will lead by the example of their own individual choices?

Boston Globe