A climate change expert told a group of Colorado business leaders that they have three options when it comes to addressing climate change: mitigating, adapting or suffering.
“I don’t want to be on the planet when we go through some of that suffering, so we better start mitigating and adapting,”said Manson Brown, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s assistant secretary for environmental observation and prediction.
Local business leaders met with Brown on Tuesday to discuss how the economic climate of the state and the Earth’s climate converge.
“There has been a lot of debate about the accuracy of the science of climate change, but that time is over,” Brown said. “People need to get their heads in the game.”
Representing a mixed bag of industries, each person in the room found a way to express climate concerns relative to their fields.
Some wondered about the effect speedy delivery services that promise consumers goods faster than ever before might have on the environment.
“Climate change isn’t going to suppress these new ideas,” Brown said, adding that innovation to make services green was key.
Brown’s eyes lit up when Patti Mason, executive director of the Colorado chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, discussed the need for fixing and building new school infrastructure in a climate-conscious way to give students the resources they need while teaching them about green technology.
“I think our kids have to be a pretty high priority, and I would probably start there,” Brown said. “We have to start preparing our kids to deal with this stuff.”
Not only does Brown believe that our youth need a climate change lesson, but he hopes to get adults up to speed, too.
“My broader concern as a citizen is that not enough of us are engaged in this debate,” he said, adding that more people need to be explaining climate change in understandable terms.
Near the end of the meeting, Brent Boydston, vice president of public policy for the Colorado Farm Bureau, raised his hand.
“We’ve heard a lot of talk today,” he said. “When are we going to see some action?”
Brown, who hails from Washington D.C., said he thinks the Obama administration has been aggressive in its policies.
In August, , a sweeping yet contentious collection of regulations aimed at slashing carbon dioxide emissions from power plants across the country.
Colorado has a 2030 goal of reducing its carbon dioxide emissions by 28 percent. Some coal-dependent communities worry about these impacts, and recently joined a growing list of states that will sue the Environmental Protection Agency to stop plan’s implementation.
Elizabeth Hernandez: 303-954-1223, ehernandez@denverpost.com or twitter.com/ehernandez
