Denis Hayes

• Location: WA 98101
• Marching Since: October 27, 2005

In America, environmental leadership generally has come from mayors, governors, scientists, and ordinary people. Climate disruption is following this same pattern.

More than 160 US mayors, elected by more than 35 million Americans, have already ratified the Kyoto Protocols on climate change. They are making concrete plans to reach Kyoto goals in their cities — and then move ahead much further toward a carbon-neutral world. A half dozen states have already passed tough laws to phase out carbon emissions from vehicles, and many more have passed laws requiring their utilities to invest in renewable energy sources.

I have no doubt that good science will ultimately prevail, and human-caused climate disruption will be universally accepted as real.

Toward that end, I’m enthusiastically joining the virtual march.

I want to use the march to help ensure that the huge emerging consensus on climate is not hijacked to the wrong ends. Already we are seeing a spate of articles claiming that climate change is a serious problem, and the only realistic solution is nuclear power.

It makes no sense to just replace one global disaster with another. The solution for climate change is not for the world to embrace the energy source that led India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea to develop nuclear weapons, and already poses similar threats in Iran and a half dozen other nations. A world in which scores of countries have nuclear weapons would be a very scary place. It would be even scarier when these weapons began to fall into terrorists’ hands.

So I don’t see this as an I have a nightmare of climate disruption march. Rather, I’m marching to the beat of an I have a dream of a super-efficient world powered by benign, decentralized, affordable, renewable energy sources drummer.