Climate change and its causes were not much discussed during the 2016 U.S. general election, but the issue has not gone away. If the scientific finding that human activities are causing climate change with greenhouse-gas emissions is correct, reductions in GHG emissions will be inevitable. For the energy construction industry, that would mean more renewable-energy power plants, fewer coal and natural-gas plants, fewer oil and gas pipelines, new energy-storage projects, possibly even carbon capture and storage, more nuclear power construction and similar market changes.

A small but influential segment of the population has obstructed action to reduce emissions mostly on ideological, rather than scientific, grounds, citing concerns about interference with the operation of the free-market economy, building large government bureaucracies and similar curtailments of liberty. But that resistance is beginning to crumble.

Great physical changes in the Earth—think evolution, coal or oil formation, continental drift—occur on a geological scale. This is one reason for the controversies swirling about climate change. People who dispute the claim that the climate is rapidly changing look back over their own lifetimes and see only what to them seems an ordinary succession of weather events and temperatures, severe in some years, less so in others: In their experience, that’s the norm.

But advancements in science have improved our ability to detect and measure changes that are not noticeable on a human scale, i.e., during an individual’s lifetime. For the last 30 years, the microscope of science increasingly has focused on gauging change in the climate, understanding its causes and projecting likely future scenarios based on the data. This is a function performed without controversy by many U.S. government bodies, including the Energy Information Administration, which issues anAnnual Energy Outlook援助计划的公司,机构和organizations in the energy industry.

巴布尔否认气候正在发生变化，对气候行动的抵抗表达了对气候行动的抵抗，该立场在大约五年内保持不变。但是，如果要避免看到它，威胁就不会消失。到2012年，人们正在观察极端天气事件，气候数据显示出持续的全球温度升高。舆论开始改变。政客因否认而挑战，然后回到了愚蠢的断言“我不是科学家”的愚蠢断言，因为他们的逃避而遭到嘲笑。从那时起，出于多种原因，关于气候变化及其原因的看法一直在改变。现在，越来越多的美国人接受气候正在发生变化，尽管并非所有人都接受了对变革的科学解释。

The shift in public views of climate change and climate action is moving faster than a geological scale but slower than a human scale. Let’s call it a glacial pace.

One recent sign of the acceleration to glacial was apparent in the responses of some of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees at their Senate confirmation hearings. Scott Pruitt, former Oklahoma attorney general; Rex Tillerson, former Exxon Mobil CEO; and Rick Perry, former Texas governor, either used cleverly crafted evasions or expressed some degree of acceptance of the science behind the climate-change issue rather than resort to flat denial as in the past.

2月初，一群共和党高级政治家的气候领导委员会的服务证书可以追溯到里根政府，并提议将所有奥巴马政府的气候措施换成碳税。该提议几乎没有激发热情，细节在很大程度上是无关紧要的。关键是，具有严重资格的备受瞩目的共和党人认为，人类活动引起的气候变化需要政治反应。

Something comparable happened on Feb. 13, when a collection of governors from both parties—including Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R), who has intentionally made his state a free-market guinea pig—wrote to Pres. Trump promoting the benefits of renewable energy power plants. They weren’t directly acknowledging the validity of climate science, but they were pitching one part of the solution it requires. And that to a president who is committed to all forms of carbon-based fuels.

The change has not yet sped up to a snail’s pace, so for now, we’ll settle for glacial.

汤姆·阿米斯特（Tom Armistead）是Enr Energy的咨询编辑。新利18备用经过23年的施工职业，他担任了12年的ENR编辑，首先是Power and Industrial News，然后是《能源新闻》。新利18备用