Can't hit snooze on climate alarms

Opinion editor's note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

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The report last week that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are the highest they have been in human history was alarming — if that word can be applied to an alarm that has been sounding steadily for a long time.

Last April, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the world is on a "fast track to climate disaster." Reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have regularly supported that assessment. NASA confirms that the past eight years are the hottest years on record.

All over the planet, in rich countries and poor, the consequences are clear and becoming clearer: floods in Germany and China, wildfires in the American West and Australia, rising sea levels that imperil coastal populations, heat waves that kill vulnerable people without the defense of air conditioning.

News about the earth's changing climate is so persistently bad that it's affecting mental health. It's reported to be a factor in suicides, both because its effects make people's lives miserable and because dread of the growing catastrophe begins to feel unbearable. A British expert on sustainability warned in a research paper that we had less than 10 years before climate-induced social collapse — and that was four years ago.

Carbon dioxide, the subject of the new report, is one of the gases that trap heat in the atmosphere. That triggers other effects, like reduced sea ice and the consequent warming of the oceans. Last week's announcement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggested that the level of CO₂ measured in May — 421 parts per million — was about the same as the Earth experienced during the Pliocene Epoch more than 4 million years ago.

That's about 2 million years before humans appeared and started making stone tools. Sea levels were higher then, and temperatures were hotter. Conditions were much less hospitable to human life, but that hasn't stopped humanity from risking a return to the bad old days.

Given the dire situation we're in, can something as simple as solar panels get us back on track toward a stable, benign climate?

Not by themselves, no. Slowing the climate crisis will require drastic measures, worldwide. But we give President Joe Biden credit for taking two commendable steps in recent days: First, he has used his authority under the Defense Production Act to increase the domestic supply of parts used in the manufacture of solar panels and other components. His order also boosts production of insulation for buildings and of heat pumps that can heat or cool structures with greater efficiency.

Second, he has ordered a two-year pause in the imposition of new tariffs on solar panels imported from Southeast Asia. That pause will suspend possible penalties that may follow a Commerce Department investigation of alleged dumping of Chinese components on the U.S. market. The investigation had reportedly slowed legitimate imports and prompted delays in U.S. solar projects.

If the investigation ultimately finds that China has violated trade restrictions, severe penalties could follow. That's appropriate. But the penalties should not include a trade quagmire that bogs down an entire industry and impedes progress toward reducing emissions of CO₂. Solar energy may be the cheapest electricity ever produced. It's an asset that needs to be used to its fullest potential.

The Defense Production Act is designed to be a tool that presidents use in emergencies. There should be little question that global climate change qualifies as exactly that: an emergency, and a dire one. The president is right to treat it as such.