Is there any doubt left? The website where I found this cool image has more of these great visuals demonstrating the vast scientific consensus around climate action. As Van Jones said at the 2009 Campus Progress National Conference, if you went to 10 doctors because of a pierced lung and one of them (a Psychologist) told you you were fine while the other 9 said you desperately needed surgery, what would you do?

Unfortunately, scientific certainty isn’t the only contentious issue we are facing in the climate debate. Naysayers and fossil fuel enthusiasts consistently blurt out noise about how taking action on the climate crisis would bring about an economic disaster. Needless to say, those lies have no basis. To a certain extent, much of what is required in climate action (especially in the short term) is to level the playing field between energy efficiency and renewable energy and fossil fuels.

A recent study by the Solar Energy Industries Association shows that eliminating fossil fuel subsidies or increasing solar energy’s to match them would bring about an increase in the share of our nation’s power coming from solar energy to 15% by 2020 (from the current less than 1%). This would not only drastically clean up our air, but would also create over 882,000 new jobs (and that’s a lot more than the 85,000 currently employed by the coal industry).

And solar energy isn’t even the cheapest solution that we have to the crisis we are facing. As I wrote in a previous post, the consulting firm McKinsey released a study arguing that energy efficiency could effectively reduce our national energy use by 23% by 2020 at low-to-no cost while saving consumers thousands of dollars.

These are massive reductions that we would get at a net positive gain for consumers (thanks to energy efficiency) and that would bring us within arm’s reach of the target reductions that scientists say are needed. Keep in mind that the solar study is only considering that particular form of renewable energy. Wind has been growing exponentially and much faster than solar and would benefit from the same leveling of subsidies.

The low-to-no cost solutions (like mandating stricter energy efficiency standards and eliminating fossil fuel subsidies) outlined in these reports can’t continue to be stalled by our obstructionist congress. ConservaDems and Science-Averse Republicans must be stopped so that rational, no-brainer policies like ones outlined in these reports can be implemented and drastic climate change averted. Congress must be changed, and there happen to be elections in 2010.

Time is running out. 2010 will be a defining year where, due to the U.S. political system’s short attention span, will define whether President Obama will be able to implement his platform of change, or whether we’ll be stuck in 2 years of political deadlock. You thought your vote in 2008 was historic? Well, your vote in 2010 won’t go down in history, but its consequences will define what does; either Obama’s promising ideals that never got implemented or the start of a serious commitment to ending the climate crisis.