At Last… A Real Possibility To Avoid Catastrophic Climate Change…

Article by Eve Andrews - for Audubon Magazine (Winter 2022)

After decades of minimal action, Congress passed the largest and most comprehensive piece of climate legislation in U.S. history. Will we make the most of this opportunity?

If you were a bird soaring over the American landscape in 2022, you would be hard-pressed to find any part untouched by climate change. A Western Sandpiper, in its journey down the Pacific Coast, would have suffered through a historic heat wave in California that brought triple-digit temperatures to the Hollywood Hills. A Burrowing Owl hunting under the red buttes of Arizona and Utah may have noticed that years of drought have driven Lake Powell and Lake Mead to dangerously low levels. In the relentless summer rains that flooded central Appalachia, an Indigo Bunting might have fled an inundated Kentucky holler for higher ground. A Bald Eagle pair in southern Florida could have found their nest blown away from Hurricane Ian’s ferocious winds.

These disasters, which killed hundreds of people and cost billions of dollars in damage to homes and critical infrastructure, are bleak portents of a future ruined by runaway greenhouse-gas emissions. But finally, after many years of tireless activism, lobbying, and campaigning, we have an opportunity to stave off that fate—the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the largest and most comprehensive piece of climate legislation in this nation’s history. It’s as American a law as one could imagine: forged in great drama and spectacle, challenged and weakened by corporate interests, and in the end a far-from-perfect behemoth pieced together with many unsatisfying compromises. And its success remains uncertain, hinging on the hard work and smart decisions of state governments and local communities and pitted against the same powerful, monied interests that have delayed meaningful climate policy until now. >>READ MORE>>