Individual and Policy Changes
For Mayor Wei, things are getting real very quickly. His president and well-respected scientists predict his island home as well as other island nations will slip beneath the water's surface within the next 20 years. Moving inland was temporary. Now relocating and repatriating to another country is the focus of leadership for the entire country. The president is exploring options to carefully and thoughtfully provide everyone with the opportunities to choose and move with dignity, full rights and access—so as not to end up as refugees and second-class citizens in what will become their new homes.
“A fundamental change to patterns of consumption is required to slow down the frenetic waste of natural resources, to refocus development aspirations on achieving dignity for all and to enrich prospects for human dignity for future generations. Without marked changes in consumption behaviour and material aspirations, particularly among those at the top end of the consumption curve, who account for so great a drain on resources, new technology and improvements in business and transport practices can only delay impending disasters.”
Mayor Wei and his residents are spiritual people. They accept a bigger picture. When praying, they don't ask for a reverse in the effects of climate change, but rather pray to influence and sway the minds of big industries around the world, whose collective impacts continue to affect lives like theirs.
Mayor Orion is now heading a task force with several legislators and environmental leaders who are lobbying to protect communities along all coasts of the Americas, as new reports warn of further sea level rise and hurricane storm surging. While their dates of imminent danger are projected later, by 2050, not doing anything to change will be foolish, as Mayor Wei emphasizes in a Skype conversation with Mayor Orion.
Mayor Orion writes an article inspired by her conversations with Mayor Wei. In it, she states: "It's more than losing wetlands, it's losing energy sector and petrochemical jobs. It's losing our history, where we're from, our cities and parts of our souls." She and her task force are making strides as they lobby companies to be legally mindful of carbon dioxide emissions from electric power plants, industrial processes and vehicle exhaust. They arrive armed with high-quality data on slowing the rise in sea levels, and diminishing droughts and intense storms. The task force is productive, having drafted new standards to reduce carbon pollution. Their goals are ambitious, but if things can continue to move forward at a state and national level, some of the damage done—the loss of land—can be undone over the next 50 years.
Their latest triumph comes in the form of a call for a 30 percent reduction nationwide in carbon emissions from electric power plants operating over a specified carbon level. Their plan is to reduce electric power plant emissions by an average of 39 percent over the next 15 years. While businesses are wary, the task force is working to be flexible and realistic. Together they can reach the reduction goals while still allowing for continued economic growth. The task force is also implementing programmes to assist residential users in reducing their energy use through home insulation. The process has increased job opportunities locally, since these energy efficiency investments cant be done overseas.
Mayor Orion shares her hope with Mayor Wei, who agrees that these programmes and concrete solutions will slow if not change things. While the social media trending, celebrity endorsements, appearances on TV and magazine covers were all exciting and inspiring, action and follow through are what the two mayors want to accelerate change. No longer is it about leadership asking. Now it is about demanding, says Mayor Wei in the opening credits of an award-winning documentary on climate change.
The mayors, with the support of their top leaders, are demanding collective changes as one united force. At the end of the day, or really, at the end of the world, say the mayors, we must be careful.
The question when stripping away money and power is simple, says Mayor Orion, the concluding voice in that documentary: “Which planet do we leave for our future generations? Or, should we start saving and hope for tickets to the moon or Mars, and make all of the same mistakes all over again?”