A gridlocked Congress is getting in the way of our country's energy future.
Climate change, once consigned to the pending file or dismissed as a hoax, “has moved firmly into the present.” So concludes the third annual National Climate Assessment released last month. President Obama was ready with a response, releasing an Environmental Protection Agency proposal for a 30 percent cut in emissions from more than 600 power stations by 2030. Hundreds will be shut down.
It’s dramatic, but the U.S. is only leading from behind. Europe is ahead in efforts to control carbon emissions. We have been the world’s largest polluter in terms of greenhouses gases, but are now second to China as its economic growth has accelerated carbon emissions. Faced with appalling smog, China is at last re-evaluating its couldn’t-care-less attitude.
President Obama has been forced to use his executive powers, having failed to get anything through a do-nothing Congress during his tenure. The Republican leadership, exhibiting its gift for shooting itself in the foot, has vindicated his decision not to ask Congress for approval by continuing to scoff and jeer.
The party’s position, however, seems to have changed a little in its emphasis. The hardliners like Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe continue to regard the whole idea of climate change as absurd. He says greenhouse gases are good for us. House Speaker John Boehner, too, has mocked the dangers with the line: “Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you’ve got more carbon dioxide.” Now he says he doesn’t know enough about the science of climate change to debate it, so instead he assails the Obama measures as a blow to the American pocketbook.
Now the general line of opposition is shaping up to be one of deflection: Obama’s EPA plan is a distraction from the real issues of jobs, taxes, crime, approval of the Keystone pipeline, veterans’ care, and more. In other words, there already is a full in-box. This attitude may play well, especially in mining areas, since climate change scores low in public priorities.
Still, it would make much more sense for Republicans to stop acting as the anti-science party because the evidence of climate change is overwhelming. The new report was collated by more than 300 scientists and based on thousands of inputs as well as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
We cannot exclude ourselves from the consequences. Like the rest of the world, we have changing precipitation patterns, rising sea levels, more acidic oceans, and an increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. There can be no doubt human activity is the prime agent producing heat-trapping gases, thanks to burning oil, coal and gas, and from cars (despite great progress on the latter front). The emissions have increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by more than 40 percent since the Industrial Revolution, according to the new assessment.
The report’s authors confirm the warming based on long-term and independent records and data from weather stations, satellites, ocean buoys, and other sources. The IPCC, in its March report, warned that “ice caps are melting, the sea ice in the Arctic is collapsing, water supplies are coming under stress, heat waves and heavy rains are intensifying, coral reefs are dying, and fish and many other creatures are migrating towards the poles or in some cases going extinct,” according to the New York Times. What’s more, the rising oceans are threatening coastal communities. The research confirms our anecdotal experience. Yes, summers are longer and hotter, while winters are generally shorter and warmer and rains are heavier.
The assessment points out that temperatures are projected to rise another 2°F to 4°F over the next few decades and by 3°F to 5°F by the end of the century – and the latter would require lower emissions. The most recent decade was the nation’s and the world’s hottest on record. Higher temperatures affect people, livestock and wildlife, and are reflected by droughts, ocean and fresh water temperatures, and heavy downpours. And they cause reductions in snow cover, glaciers, and sea ice.
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