How does Aspen fit into the global sustainability effort? Click here for "Use Environmental World's Fair to Show Progress," an essay by Ed Marston, the former publisher of High Country News, and Auden Schendler.

Letter from the Director or Environmental Affairs

The Opportunity of a Species

By now most Americans know that climate change is what’s for dinner for the foreseeable future. They also know what will be on the plate—a heaping serving of doom and gloom. NASA’s James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, has repeatedly said that if we don’t take radical action to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade, our children will be living on a planet unrecognizable to us.

Betsy Kolbert of the New Yorker concludes her new book Field Notes from a Catastrophe with the chilling comment: “It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing.”

Of course, Hansen and Kolbert are correct—climate change seems to be the most pressing issue ever to face humanity. But the problem is that humans, and Americans in particular, can’t be galvanized into action by “the sky is falling” scenarios, even if they’re true. We tend not to believe them, because we have such a history of overcoming predictions of doom with technology or luck (population, Y2K, ozone layer destruction, for example.) At the same time, those who fully understand this problem are inclined to throw up their hands and give up. Finally, we can’t imagine the scope of a challenge like this. The Black Death killed off a third of Europe, but it was in 1348; we don’t have the experience, or social memory, of real catastrophe.

Yes, solving this problem will be the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced. But there’s another way to look at climate change. It is an opportunity on the scale of the Enlightenment or the Renaissance, a rare chance to radically change the face of society forever. Such wholescale societal change is within our ability because we have done it before.

When Europe emerged from the Dark Ages, it moved from a period of irrational superstition—when mythology, not reason, ruled people’s lives, and fear, not optimism, was the operating principle of the day—into an age of reason and rationality. The movement was traumatic, but ultimately it improved every aspect of people’s lives, from medicine to law, science to government.

Like the Enlightenment, tackling climate will require a century-long revolutionary mobilization of society’s intellect, finances, mores, vision, government and technology. And the payoff, the promise of overcoming this challenge, is not just a safe, stable and liveable world. It is a planet from which the barriers to utopia are substantially removed.

In a highly efficient planet running on clean energy (which is a world that has solved the climate problem) most existing pollution will be gone, and many of the obstacles to solving other problems—poverty, starvation, access to clean water, (or water at all) disease, will be significantly reduced. Wars will be less likely without the need to fight over scarce resources like oil or water. The health risks associated with contemporary energy generation and usage: mercury in our blood, acid destroying our lakes and forests; diesel fumes in our lungs and toxic smog in our cities; will vanish. And the environment—on which much of our wealth is based—will be able to rebound and flourish when the stresses of mining, drilling and clearcutting are replaced with cleaner, renewable options.

When faced with an especially difficult section of river, whitewater kayakers, like many of us at Aspen Skiing Company, will scout the run, examining all the obstacles from the riverbank, and planning a safe route through the rocks, holes and churning waves. At some point, though, we get tired of scouting, anxious to tackle the challenge.

As Americans, we have scouted this thing to death. Yes, we are frightened by this daunting challenge. But this is the opportunity of a lifetime, maybe of a species. Like the leaders of the Enlightenment, who viewed themselves as courageous, able, and hopeful, Americans are ready to engage climate change frontally, right now. Because we have no other options, we might as well relish the challenge.

Sincerely,

Auden Schendler
Executive Director
Community and Environmental Responsibility