{"id":4475,"date":"2010-09-29T07:51:32","date_gmt":"2010-09-29T14:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ietransfer.wpengine.com\/?p=4475"},"modified":"2010-09-29T07:51:32","modified_gmt":"2010-09-29T14:51:32","slug":"climate-change-we-can-believe-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/articles\/climate-change-we-can-believe-in\/","title":{"rendered":"(Climate) Change We Can Believe In"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>With campaign season in full swing and Republicans pushing back on the President\u2019s tiring message of change, some of us are wondering who\u2019s still fighting against another kind of change: climate change.<\/p>\n

With Democrats in power, the past twenty-one months may have been our best chance yet to pass meaningful climate change legislation.\u00a0 And yet, every time Congress has come close to even considering climate change legislation, the efforts have fallen flat.\u00a0 Green politicians have become the Charlie Browns of our government\u2026 and Lucy just keeps pulling that legislative football away at the last minute.<\/p>\n

If we want Congress to pass climate change legislation, green legislators need to take a step back and re-frame the debate.\u00a0 Here are three ideas:<\/p>\n

1. <\/strong>Line up the companies that already care – <\/strong>Believe it or not, there are plenty of companies that would love<\/em> to see cap and trade legislation passed.\u00a0 For nimble and innovative companies, regulations on emissions would give them a competitive advantage over the dirty dinosaurs unwilling to invest in new clean technologies.\u00a0 The smart companies are already taking action without laws in place.<\/p>\n

2. <\/strong>Use businesses to turn the screws – <\/strong>Green politicians need to start leveraging companies in strategic districts and states to pressure wavering legislators.\u00a0 Nothing sparks a convenient political flip-flop like a major employer of thousands of constituents putting pressure on Capitol Hill.\u00a0 Boston-based Ceres<\/a> is already doing their part to get these influential green firms in front of officials.\u00a0 Champions like Sun Microsystems, Coca-Cola, and Virgin America are leading the charge.\u00a0 (Be sure to check out Ceres\u2019 complete \u2013 and impressive \u2013 list of partners here<\/a>)<\/p>\n

3. <\/strong>Never underestimate the power of semantics\u00a0– <\/strong>This doesn\u2019t have to be a conversation about \u201cpunishing\u201d business.\u00a0 Even the word \u201ccap\u201d suggests restrictions that can only have a negative implication. Instead, climate change legislation can be about \u201cinnovation\u201d and \u201cempowering businesses\u201d to gain a \u201ccompetitive advantage\u201d in an evolving marketplace.\u00a0 Business-savvy Republicans will be hard pressed to reject a bill that \u201cgenerates competitive incentives that empower innovative American businesses.\u201d\u00a0 Even Tea Partiers can get excited about that line.<\/p>\n

Opponents say that domestic climate change legislation will only hurt our global competitiveness.\u00a0 However, just as Wal-Mart is using its market presence to green its supply chain, so too can the U.S. and our (still) robust presence shape the global marketplace.\u00a0 The sooner we green our own industries, the sooner we can control the new global green economy.<\/p>\n

\n

Image credit: cerebros1 via flickr\/CC license<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With campaign season in full swing and Republicans pushing back on the President\u2019s tiring message of change, some of us are wondering who\u2019s still fighting against another kind of change: climate change. With Democrats in power, the past twenty-one months may have been our best chance yet to pass meaningful climate change legislation.\u00a0 And yet, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":4476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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With Democrats in power, the past twenty-one months may have been our best chance yet to pass meaningful climate change legislation.\u00a0 And yet,…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4475"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4475"},{"taxonomy":"adace-sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/adace-sponsor?post=4475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}