Global Climate

Climate change has been an ongoing issue for about 20 years (maybe more). I was influenced early on by Michael Crichton's book, State of Fear, which posits that there's no real scientific evidence of global warming. Plus, it was just another thing for humanity to focus on, that we need something to stay fearful of. It's an interesting theory, especially if you consider that the current growing fear of terrorism has probably reduced the fear of global warming, mitigating any resistance to progress. A few years ago, Casey shared this punnet-like square video of all the various perspectives of are we going to do anything about it and if global warming is caused by humans or not. So regardless of what you believe and if anything can be done, the risk of doing nothing seems a lot worse than the risk of doing something and it ending up not being a thing.

So with that out of the way, the current news of Trump and the Paris Climate Agreement has me more aware of local efforts. If the US government isn't going to lead the way, then we need to do what we can on a local level. As a North Carolina citizen, we have an opportunity to keep our state moving forward towards more renewable energy sources. There's a bill that was just filed with the NC House that rolls back some of the goals (the minimum stays at 6% vs. growing to 12.5% by 2021). I'm not a lawyer, but it also looks like nuclear energy will be considered renewable, which probably means that Duke Energy could just buy energy from its own nuclear plants vs. other renewable energy sources.

So, if you're a NC resident and you want to do something, you can find your representative and express your opinion. You can also look at what your town is up to.