My Progressive Populist column is on the efforts by the states to address global warming in the absence of presidential leadership.
Tag: global warming
PMP: Fighting global warming
The Progressive Media Project (of The Progressive magazine) is distributing an op-ed I wrote on global warming. It so far has run in The Sacramento Bee and The Spokesman Review (of Spokane, Wash.):
Here it is:
Candidates need to take a strong stance on global warming
The three leading presidential candidates must take a stand on global warming. They all say they are committed to reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but the question is whether they plan to do enough to avert further damage.
Democrats Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton say they will reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050, while Republican Sen. John McCain is calling for a 60 percent cut during the same time period.
But carbon emissions may need to be eliminated altogether to keep temperatures from rising to dangerous levels, according to several recently released scientific papers.
Emission of carbon dioxide and its concentration in the atmosphere are both rising at record rates and if they continue to grow at current levels, average temperatures could climb by more than 7 degrees, the Washington Post reported recently. This could cause changes in precipitation that could lead to flooding in some areas and drought in others.
As scary as this scenario is, climate scientists are now saying that the Earth’s temperature will continue to rise even after carbon emissions are reduced. If emissions were frozen at current levels, carbon concentrations would continue to rise, according to the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology, which sponsored one of the studies. Stabilizing carbon concentrations by making deep cuts in emissions would only slow the rise in temperature, not stop the warming, the Carnegie Institution says.
“Just as an iron skillet will stay hot and keep cooking after the stove burner’s turned off,” a release from the Carnegie Institution said, “heat held in the oceans will keep the climate warm even as the heating effect of greenhouse gases diminishes. Adding more greenhouse gases, even at a rate lower than today, would worsen the situation, and the effects would persist for centuries.”
Several states — led by California — are moving to address the problem, passing caps on tailpipe emissions, though many of these state programs have been stymied by the federal government’s unwillingness to grant waivers from federal law.
All three presidential candidates have said they would approve the state programs. And all three have offered programs that are better than the status quo but fall far short.
Bold action is needed. Global warming is real, with the effects already being felt in changing weather patterns, rising sea levels and more frequent droughts. Conditions are only going to get worse. The time to act is now.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
E-mail me by clicking here.
Preponderence of evidence
It is difficult to believe that, given stories like this, there can still be people like this on the fringes refusing to accept global warming.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
E-mail me by clicking here.
Green fight goes to court
New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine is tired of waiting for the federal government to approve California’s emission restrictions — a delay that has similar New Jersey rules on hold. So the governor is adding the state to a lawsuit filed by California and several states (New York, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington) that seeks to force the issue.
As The Record points out today,
If the permission is granted, New Jersey will require dealers to sell 168,000 hybrids and other low-emissions vehicles in 2009, and more in the future. The cleaner cars are part of a plan to reduce the pollution caused by carbon dioxide emissions 20 percent over the next 10 years. In as heavily trafficked a state as this one, that would have a lot of people breathing more easily — as well as reducing the greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Vehicles account for about half the annual greenhouse gas emissions in New Jersey.
This is only a drop in the greenhouse bucket, of course, but it is a start and could encourage other states to move ahead with their own tighter regulations. That, in turn, could get the federal government moving — which would make it a lot easier to convince nations in the developing world to pay attention to climate change.
In the end, global warming can only be addressed by a worldwide commitment led by the world’s biggets polluter — the United States.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
E-mail me by clicking here.
The air is thick with climate change
Another piece of the puzzle, another bit of evidence to support the truth. The Earth is not only getting warmer, but more humid — and the global warming thesis just gets stronger and stronger.
Climate scientists have now seen the man-made fingerprint of global warming on 10 different aspects of Earth’s environment: surface temperatures, humidity, water vapor over the oceans, barometric pressure, total precipitation, wildfires, change in species of plants in animals, water run-off, temperatures in the upper atmosphere, and heat content in the world’s oceans.
“This story does now fit together; there are now no loose ends,” said Ben Santer, a scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Lab and author of the September study on moisture above the oceans. “The message is pretty compelling that natural causes alone just can’t cut it.”
Man is changing the climate and choking us all.
I know. Not a pretty picture, but that’s just the way it is.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
E-mail me by clicking here.
Hank Kalet 