Stephen H. Schneider Interview
Sierra Club correspondent Tom Valtin recently spoke with climatologist Stephen Schneider about a public service announcement he did with his son for the Sierra Club. The subject was the Club's 2% Solution to cut carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050, or 2 percent per year for the next 40 years. Here is an excerpt from that conversation.
Sierra Club: Why did you decide to do this 2% Solution PSA with your son?
Stephen Schneider: Even though problems like intensified hurricanes, wildfires in the West, heat waves in much of the world, and melting of the Arctic are already associated with human activities, the vast bulk of the really big stuff — meters of seal level rise, melting of the entire Arctic sea ice, inundation of mega-deltas where cities are located — is still in the future. We still have time to prevent most of that, so it is about our children and our grandchildren. There's a huge difference between the damage that's already been done — and what's already in the pipeline — and what will happen if we continue to play the sustainability ostrich.
SC: Has being a parent changed your view about what we should and could do about global warming?
Stephen Schneider: How could it not? We all have selfish tendencies. I remember it used to be said regarding school bond issues, "Retired people oppose them." But not the retired people with grandchildren.
SC: How do we approach kids and talk to them about global warming?
Stephen Schneider: You don't want to get into the "scare them mode," but at the same time you want them to be realistic in understanding there are real hazards out there that their lifestyle has something to do with, and they need to learn to make adjustments early so they don't become bad habits — things like oversized cars, too big houses without proper energy efficiency, inefficient appliances, lack of political action to try to improve the situation.
SC: So it ties in with engagement on all levels?
Stephen Schneider: Exactly right. And it's also about nature. Most kids really get off on animal shows and protecting nature — it's in our genes. We learn later on to start putting these artificial consumption habits ahead of nature. But that's not how we're born — that's bad values that we're taught at home. So I think your kids can help give you better values. I love the Crosby, Stills & Nash song, "Teach your children well." That's the long-term solution to global warming. Short term, we've got to do it. Long term, they've got to do it. So you've got to teach them well and bring them into the process.
SC: Regarding the 2% solution, can you tell me some ways people can make a difference, in their own lives and in the lives of their children?
Stephen Schneider: Remember, the 2% solution is an average. If you have a fever and you take some meds to try to help you through it, it's not going to help the first day. But if you didn't take the meds, you're really in trouble. So the 2% solution is the average amount of decrease we need per year for the next 40 years to achieve the target, which is an 80 percent reduction below current levels.
That's not going to happen in the next ten years because there's too much momentum in this super-tanker, but we can stop it from hitting the rocks if we take it out of all-ahead full. The 2% solution should not be interpreted literally, that we're going to be two percent lower next year. That's not going to happen. What we have to do is make it possible to average two percent over the next 40 years-that we can do.
It's up to us as individuals to do our part, but it's also part of the role of government. And our kids are going to have to approve this when they're voters. That's another reason why I did the PSA with my son: it's symbolic of the fact that the knowledge and values that we pass on are not just about how to make a living and be a good family man. They also have to be about what Carl Sagan called planetary hygiene. It's in the interest of the next generation, even more than for our generation, to recognize this. Our generation's going to have to fix what we broke, but we can't do it alone. We need them along, to understand it and to pull on the same rope.
 More about the Sierra Club's 2% solution campaign.
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