What Do We Do About Global Warming Now?

By Bill Maher

Now that our President has joined us with Syria and Nicaragua as the only nations in the world who aren’t part of the Paris Agreement — thanks, dude — what are Americans supposed to do about global warming? Well, there’s a new book called “Drawdown” and in the language of the internet, “Drawdown is the global warming book America needs right now.” It asked a coalition of climatologists, economists, entrepreneurs, scholars, and activists to come up with a list of the 100 most effective solutions for global warming. And since it’s a book, you don’t even have to click through all 100 in a slideshow. Or subject yourself to the language of the internet.

The results may surprise you. For instance, the 6th most effective step the world could take? "Educating girls." Number seven is "family planning." Some other interesting entries that aren't government choices, but personal ones: #3 is "reduced food waste" and #4 is "plant-rich diet.” (40 percent of the top 30 are food-related.) Also, #1 is "refrigerant management." That's getting the chemical refrigerant known as HFCs out of refrigerators and air conditioners because HFCs have “1,000 to 9,000 times greater capacity to warm the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.” That was done in an international treaty we signed in Kingali, Rwanda, in 2016. Trump may pull us out of that one, too.

Here are numbers one through ten: Refrigerant Management, Onshore Wind Turbines, Reduced Food Waste, Plant-Rich Diet, Tropical Forests, Educating Girls, Family Planning, Solar Farms, Silvopasture, Rooftop Solar. 

At this point, there’s part of me that simply wants to ignore the global warming deniers, as well as what I would call the global warming “stallers,” and move the debate from the tired and ludicrous “Is global warming happening?” to “What do we do?” If Ted Cruz wants to troll by cherry-picking data about satellite measurements, or Mike Huckabee wants to talk about the Newsweek article in the 70s that predicted global cooling, they can enjoy their submental circle jerk.

Why don’t we start focusing on these positive steps we can take? If we don’t say they have anything to do with global warming, we might even get Republicans to agree.