Oswego State College Republicans club hosted a panel on Tuesday, providing an economic perspective on tackling carbon emissions and alleviating what many scientists call a climate crisis.

The panel featured former Republican South Carolina congressman Bob Inglis and Syracuse University professor and economist Peter Wilcoxen. 

The event was announced the day before it was held and was lightly attended.

Inglis served in congress from 1993 to 1999 and 2005 to 2011. According to Inglis, his environmental platform, which included a revenue neutral plan to implement a carbon tax as well as an income tax break for American workers, was a hard sell in his deeply conservative district during the 2009 recession. Inglis said he received less than 30% of the vote in the 2010 Republican primary runoff election.

According to Inglis, despite the last decade of conservative rhetoric, where Republican politicians have largely denied or downplayed the human impact on the world’s climate, he said he believes there has to be a change on the conservative side.

“Facts overtake poor ideology,” Inglis said. “The environment is something we eventually have to bring everyone together on.”

According to Inglis, he credits his son with helping him realize the importance of environmental policy after his son became a voter.

“He told me ‘I’ll vote for you, but you’ll clean up your act about the environment,’” Inglis said.

Inglis said the best way to reach conservatives was to use the language of conservatism, such as using economic incentives or focusing on ways to grow sustainable industries. Inglis also said conservatives feel like they cannot engage in climate conversations because they do not have a solution, causing them to change the subject.

“You know the answer … it’s Econ 101,” Inglis said.

Joining Inglis for the panel was Wilcoxen. While politically unaffiliated, Wilcoxen agreed that economic incentives could work to move industry away from fossil fuels and into sustainable practices. Wilcoxen admitted it would take “enormous and gigantic changes,” but it is possible.

According to Wilcoxen, 80% of the nation’s energy would have to be replaced with sustainable energy, from renewable power plants to replacing fossil fuel engines in cars. These changes, Wilcoxen said, could come from initiatives incentivizing people and companies to make the switch themselves. Wilcoxen continued, saying that while potentially costly, the United States would be able to implement these programs over time.

“We know it will work,” Wilcoxen said, citing carbon emission data from previous decades which showed times where emissions dropped.

According to Wilcoxen, emissions have steadily increased since the 1940s but dipped in the 1970s, when an oil crisis caused the American economy to search beyond fossil fuels for energy. This shows, Wilcoxen said, that industries can be enticed to switch away from fossil fuels again if it is financially beneficial for them.

Both Inglis and Wilcoxen agreed that solutions could be a carbon tax system based on the emissions resulting from products and transportation or a system where businesses or households are compensated for sustainable activity.

Linden Merrill, a senior biology student at Oswego State who attended the event, said she appreciated the different perspective offered by the panel.

“I think it was cool. I’m not in any economy classes, nor do I have any experience with it but I was really interested in how language affects [the conversation],” Merrill said. “I wish more people came.”

Chelsie Scott, an anthropology student at Oswego State and one of the organizers of a climate rally held on campus in late September, said she was surprised by the event.

“I guess I came in assuming the economist was going to be a Republican, but he wasn’t really like that at all. He was very neutral and made a lot of really good points, so I was really impressed with that,” Scott said. “I think if [College Republicans] had advertised it better, a lot of students could’ve benefitted from being here and we could’ve made the conversation bigger and better.”

Scott expressed confusion during the audience questions portion of the event, asking why the College Republicans club was now joining the conversation on addressing climate change when a social media post from the College Republicans seemingly mocked last month’s climate strike.

“Personally, I don’t support the Climate Strike in terms of what it was,” said Tyler Toomey, a member of the College Republicans club and advisor to the club’s president. “Supporting some of these ideas that are real far-left, Green New Deal plans, things like that. I’m not an advocate for telling people to skip work, skip class and do all that stuff. That’s why I don’t personally don’t support [the Strike]. I think it was a great opportunity to get the message out there about climate change and get people to understand there’s a crisis going on, but the solutions they offer, personally I don’t agree with.”

The post in question was posted to the SUNY Oswego College Republicans Facebook page the week before the Climate Strike, saying “tHe WorLD iS GOnnA eNd iN 12 yEaRs!” with a link to the Climate Strike announcement. The post references a common scientific understanding that unless annual carbon emissions fall significantly by the year 2030, climate change may be on a catastrophic path.

“The College Republican post I made myself, and I stand by that. I don’t think the world is going to end in 12 years,” Toomey said. “It’s a big problem, can we solve it over night? I wish. But I think it’s going to be a process. Whether it takes 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, when you take the steps to do it, putting that 12-year time limit on it, I think that’s irresponsible.”

While Toomey said there are no current plans to have Inglis back, he said he hopes to host an event like this again in the future. Scott also expressed interest in a collective climate event between clubs on campus to help advance the goal of addressing climate change.

“I would like to for them to collaborate with the other groups on campus that are trying to be in the climate change conversation,” Scott said.

Graphic by William Rogers | The Oswegonian