After attending the University of Nebraska’s Heuermann lecture, which presented the university’s report "Understanding and Assessing Climate Change, Implications for Nebraska," I decided it was time to share my story how I became a climate change believer.
As a life long Republican who was born and raised in the Midwest, I was a skeptic about the issue. But four years ago in the process of building a new house my passion for all things energy efficient was re-ignited when I learned about the new green building options.
As an 11-year-old during the ’73 oil embargo, my life was shaped by my mother’s reaction to the crisis by dumping the family station wagon for a more fuel-efficient Japanese car. Although judged by many as anti-American, my mother was actually visionary in her understanding of the new global interdependent world we lived in and our need as Americans to change.
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The message at the lecture was clear, today we face a related but much larger crisis and it is time once again to change.
I am compelled to share my story because sadly, I am a vocal minority in the Republican Party. A question repeatedly surfaced during the question and answer period of the lecture, why aren’t our elected leaders in Nebraska addressing this crisis? The unspoken answer in the room … because they are all Republicans.
According to Don Wilhite, founding director of the National Drought Mitigation Center at UNL, and lead author of the UNL report states “for more than a decade, there has been broad and overwhelming consensus within the climate science community that the human-induced effects on climate change are both very real and very large.” So why, as Republicans do we not accept the scientific evidence? I suggest it’s complicated.
Speaking as a Republican and a fellow American, I would like to lift up three considerations that hopefully will inspire anyone, if still a skeptic, to reconsider and act on the reality of climate change.
I begin first with humility. I now realize my prior reluctance was based on my rejection of the messenger, Al Gore. Shamefully, I ridiculed him for receiving the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his documentary An Inconvenient Truth; though I never watched it. Woven also into my belief system was the unconscious mindset that my liberal friends were alarmists and exaggerating the problem.
From my experience it was difficult to see how my prejudice and fear of the unknown was clouding my ability to hear the truth; harder and more humbling was to accept I was wrong. However, I have learned there is strength in humility and as a nation we are at a best when we are a humble people.
Second, shine a light on the experts. Beginning with the folks in our own backyard, the authors of the UNL report have provided an important document that objectively documents the scientific consensus and the immediacy for all Nebraskans to address this crisis.
Another expert to consider is the United States military. Warning a mostly unresponsive Congress for many years about the instability climate change will have on our national security, the Pentagon boldly began their 2014 Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap with this sentence; “Climate change will affect the Department of Defense’s ability to defend the nation and poses immediate risks to U.S. national security.”
Third and the most important is the need for leadership. To state the obvious, you cannot fix a problem you will not face. As a fellow American, it is my hope that we can transcend the political posturing and elect leaders who will inspire us and unleash the great strengths we still have as a nation.
When asked why we should change when China and India are not? I proudly respond, because as Americans we accept our responsibility as leaders of the free world and because we have faith in the ability of the American people to fix this problem. Now join me … our children’s future depends on it.
