The very new one is from the White House, where presidential counsellor John Podesta and White House director of Science and Technology John Holdren announced the Climate Data Initiative. Citing the frequency and impact of climate related disasters, they described the Initiative as "an ambitious new effort bringing together extensive open government data and design competitions with commitments from the private and philanthropic sectors to develop data-driven planning and resilience tools for local communities. This effort will help give communities across America the information and tools they need to plan for current and future climate impacts."
The product is a web site--climate.data.gov--that will collect and organize relevant information and convey it in user-friendly form. It starts with projections on coastal flooding and sea level rise and their impacts. So far this seems aimed at local planners, government and otherwise, but tech literate citizens can also benefit.
The organization is involved in various action campaigns against carbon and other pollution, for clean energy and to promote education on climate crisis issues. For example, some 50,000 parents signed on to a campaign to support a clean energy tax credit that the Koch Brothers and their ilk are trying to kill.
The initiatives don't involve just parents, but specifically children and grandparents. One overall goal is to get decision-makers to stop prioritizing dirty energy that is poisoning water, air and the future, while shifting emphasis to clean energy.
But emphasizing parental responsibilities or just feelings for the world we're leaving to the next generations sure seems like it should be a major motivator for efforts to address the climate crisis in both its causes and effects.
No comments:
Post a Comment