(Mar 25, 2025)
Jeffrey Cohlberg is Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry at CSU Long Beach, and has a PhD in Biochemistry from UC Berkeley. He mentioned that supporting the environment is one of the 7 Focus Areas of Rotary. Rotary shares an interest in protecting the environment, reducing greenhouse gases, strengthening ecosystems and supporting environmental justice and public health concerns.
The Citizens Climate Lobby brings an even-handed bipartisan approach to advocacy in this contentious issue in rancorous times. CCL’s current legislative priorities are defending the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), reforming clean energy permitting, and carbon pricing to incentivize economic changes. 99.5% of climate scientists are convinced that climate change is real and caused by humans. 2024 was the hottest year on record, 2.3°F hotter than the 20th century average. Atmospheric CO2 is now 424 PPM; the last time it was this high was 14 million years ago.
Personal action to fight climate change can include solar panels, reducing home electricity use, using public transportation and bicycles, reducing consumption of meat and dairy, reducing airline travel, and recycling. However, individual actions are too slow to produce the needed reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to avoid catastrophic effects. Legislation has a more lasting effect than administrative regulations, because only the Congress can reverse it.
CCL has over 420 chapters in the US and over 150 international chapters, advocating bipartisan legislation to address climate change, lobbying all members of Congress, and building local community support. The IRA was a big step forward, with an estimated 40% decrease in climate pollution by 2030. This is enabled by tax credits, methane pollution fees, electric vehicle incentives, building electrification efficiency, forests & agriculture, and clean technology innovation. (As of 2025, 85% of investments and 65% of jobs are going to GOP congressional districts.) IRA delivers 4X return on taxpayer investment. More Republican House members are recognizing the benefit in their districts, reducing intensity of partisanship on this issue.
Solar and wind projects can increase rapidly due to IRA tax credits. Transmission lines are needed to connect big wind & solar farms to households & businesses that need clean power. 4.5 years is the average time for completing environmental impact statements for major energy projects; we need to triple our current capacity by 2050. Building new long-distance transmission lines currently requires about 10 years.
Carbon pricing makes fossil fuels more expensive, promoting more renewable energy by energy companies, more electric vehicles, scaling back coal mines & oil refineries, and consumers choosing lower cost low-carbon-emission alternatives. The net revenue collected would be allocated in equal shares every month to the American people. About two thirds of US households would come out ahead. Only the top 7% would experience a net loss greater than 0.2% of their income. A consensus of thousands of US economists called a carbon tax the most cost-effective lever to reduce carbon emissions at the scale and speed necessary, as published in the Wall Street Journal. A carbon border adjustment could extend these incentives to US international trade.
The South Bay chapter of CCL meets the 2nd Saturday each month, 9:45-noon, currently with hybrid in-person/Zoom format. For more information on local activities, see https://community.citizensclimate.org/groups/events/2933. You can register and log in for information on attending local meetings.