Climate 411

If You Can’t Stand the Heat: Why Washington is Stuck on Climate Change (Part 1)

(This blog was first posted today on EDF Voices)

Image by Vinoth Chandar/Flickr

There is no point in being coy about this: The issue of climate change is polarized along partisan and ideological lines.

Democrats and progressives think it is a dangerous threat to the world. Most Republicans and conservatives think the threat is exaggerated, or doesn’t exist at all. The divide among politicians is even more striking – less than a third of Republicans in Congress responding to a 2011 National Journal survey said climate change is causing the Earth to warm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Against this political backdrop, many critics say that groups like EDF, which  seek to start a dialogue with conservatives on the issue, are  naive.  No conciliatory language, no middle-ground proposals, they say, will draw more than a few Republican votes in Congress. Conservative members of Congress will simply vote against us once Rush Limbaugh starts railing against the global warming “hoax”.

It’s a reasonable argument, but I think it misses an essential point: It may be hard to pass climate change legislation by working with conservatives, but it will be nearly impossible to do so without them. In fact, no major environmental law has ever been passed without large bi-partisan majorities.  The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments all passed with lots of votes from both major parties.

No important legislation can become law without sixty votes in the Senate.  And I think you will search in vain for a respected political analyst who thinks there will be sixty progressive, pro-environment senators any time soon.  On an issue that doesn’t allow for the long game – as the atmosphere loads with greenhouse gases and the ice caps melt – we can’t wait decades for that super-majority to appear.

That leaves us two choices: act without Congress, or open a conversation with conservatives and move towards an approach that can get widespread support.  President Obama has already used his executive powers to limit greenhouses gases, including a clean cars rule and proposed standards for new power plants. We hope he will soon add pollution limits for existing power plants and policies to limit methane leakage from natural gas production.

All of that, along with actions by states like California’s AB 32, will be an important down payment on what we need to do. But in the long run it won’t be nearly enough to prevent the worst impacts of climate change.  Nothing short of a comprehensive solution to shift America to cleaner energy, and lead the world that way, will suffice.  And that means Congressional action.

Next: Why do many conservatives reject the consensus of scientists on climate change?

Posted in News, Policy / Comments are closed

Sequestration – What It Means For You, What It Means for Planet Earth

Now that the automatic spending cuts known as “sequestration” are here, we’re getting a clearer look at what it will mean for our environment. In these economic times, budget cuts are a fact of life. But these non-targeted, across-the-board cuts are likely to have real consequences for our environment:

  • The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will have to cut the funding it gives states to monitor their air quality.
  • EPA says it will likely have to shut down some critical air monitoring sites that check for dangerous pollutants like ozone and particulate matter.
  • EPA also says it will have to reduce the number of “environmental cops on the beat” – the people who monitor compliance with our environmental laws. They estimate they’ll do 1,000 fewer inspections this year. That means more polluters will get away with putting our health at risk.
  • Funding that was given to communities to repair or replace decaying water and wastewater infrastructure will be cut. That puts your local safe drinking water at risk.
  • The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will have to cut grants for state and local firefighters and other emergency management personnel. That will make it harder to respond to the next hurricane, tornado, or other weather disaster – at a time when those weather disasters are intensifying because of climate change.
  • The Agriculture Department says it will treat as many as 200,000 fewer acres for hazardous fuel because of budget cuts. That means a higher risk of wildfires.
  • The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will delay the launch of two new satellites that are designed to track severe weather events like hurricanes and tornadoes.
  • NOAA will also cut back on maintenance and operations of some its other weather systems — including the national radar system that’s used for tornado warnings. The Secretary of Commerce, who oversees NOAA, warned that sequestration will: 

significantly increas[e] forecast error and, the government’s ability to warn Americans across the country about high impact weather events, such as hurricanes and tornadoes, will be compromised.

  • NOAA will also have to reduce the surveying that goes into nautical charts, which would put navigation – and the millions of dollars of commerce that depends on it – at risk.
  • Sequestration may force national parks across the country to close, or to operate with shorter hours. Reports say Yellowstone may open three weeks late to save money on snow plowing.
  • Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says the reopening of the Statue of Liberty after Hurricane Sandy will likely be delayed.
  • Salazar and the head of the Park Service, Jonathan Jarvis, say sequestration will cut into their ability to staff national parks, fight fires, and clean up after winter storms.
  • Sequestration will force reductions in funding for fishery stock assessments, which will jeopardize our ability to open economically vital fisheries from the Gulf Coast to Alaska.
  • Sequestration also means fewer people to enforce laws against overfishing. The Commerce Department says they may have to compensate with smaller quotas or early closure to the fishing season.

All of the above examples are from memos written by agency heads to Congressional leaders about the potential effects of sequestration. There will undoubtedly be other effects – and we don’t know what they’ll be.

Of course, today’s budget issues pale in comparison to the financial disasters that loom ahead of us  – the amount we’ll have to spend to recover from stronger storms, droughts, and other extreme weather as climate change accelerates.

We’re leaving our kids a huge bill to pay.

Posted in News, Policy / Read 1 Response

New Report on Climate Change Says Wilder Weather is Headed Our Way

A new report by some the world’s top researchers confirms that climate change will make the extreme weather we’ve seen recently even worse in the future.

The report was released today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It synthesizes two years work from 100 experts who analyze data from all over the world.

Their conclusion: climate change is bringing us more extreme weather, and it’s likely to get worse and have greater negative impacts over the next century.

Here’s what EDF’s Chief Scientist, Steve Hamburg, had to say today:

We’ve all been experiencing these dangerous storms and heat waves, and this report provides strong evidence of the links between impacts of dangerous weather and climate change. Now we need to start using this data to find ways to protect ourselves and our communities.

Here are some of the highlights of the report – or lowlights as the case may be:

Here in the United States, we’re likely to see

  • Higher temperatures and more hot days through the next century (Record-breaking heat that would have been a once-in-20-year high are likely to become a one-in-two-year event)
  • More frequent and heavier rains, especially in winter
  • Stronger hurricanes that will do more damage
  • Increased droughts, especially in the center of the country
  • Higher sea levels, which means more coastal erosion and other damage
  • All these changes will affect our agriculture, water supplies, health – even tourism. And all that, in turn, will affect our economy.

That’s more bad news on top of an extremely unpleasant year of bad weather. America suffered through a number of extreme weather events, including these compiled by Climate Central:

  • The Groundhog Day Blizzard blanketed 22 states and crippled travel. The deadly blizzard was one of Chicago’s top five snowstorms on record.
  • Some of the worst flooding in history hit us in the spring, from the Upper Midwest all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. More than three times the normal spring rainfall caused the Ohio, Missouri, and Mississippi Rivers to overflow. Flooding in Minot, North Dakota damaged 4,000 homes and forced 11,000 to evacuate. More than a million acres of farmland flooded in Missouri and Arkansas.
  • Hurricane Irene became the first hurricane to make landfall in New Jersey in 100 years, and inundated people from Virginia all the way north to Vermont. Tropical Storm Lee following right behind Irene. Their combined rainfalls led to damaging floods in the East.
  • Record-setting rainfalls were recorded across the country. August 2011 was the all-time rainiest month in New York City, Newark and Philadelphia; 2011 will be the rainiest year ever in Cleveland, Scranton, Binghamton and Harrisburg. 14 places in Wyoming and Montana set precipitation records in May, and seven places set new all-time records for the single rainiest day ever.
  • Deadly tornado outbreaks caused damage across the Southeast. 748 twisters touched down across the South in April, the most ever recorded in a single month. The EF-5 tornado that destroyed Joplin, Missouri was America’s deadliest single tornado since modern record-keeping started in 1950.
  • Extreme heat across the region had people sweltering. Texas had the hottest summer for any state in U.S. history, going back to when modern records were first kept in 1895. New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado had their hottest summers on record — as did Tallahassee, Florida and Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Wichita Falls, Texas had 100 days when the temperature was more than 100 degrees; Austin had 67 days over 100 degrees. Washington D.C. hit an all-time record high of 105 degrees on July 22.
  • Severe droughts caused massive damage in the Southwest. Texas had the worst one-year drought on record.
  • Wildfires — which are linked to droughts –burned across the West. 3.5 million acres burned in Texas — the state’s worst wildfire season ever. 156,000 acres burned in New Mexico and 538,000 in Arizona.
Posted in Basic Science of Global Warming, Extreme Weather, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, News, Science / Read 4 Responses

Why EDAF is running a TV ad criticizing Senator Kit Bond

Several weeks ago, Senator Kit Bond of Missouri moved to block new air pollution rules.  While Senator Bond’s effort did not succeed, it is clear that this is the beginning of a sustained assault on the air pollution rules that protect the health of all Americans.  We intend to hold accountable any politician who seeks to undermine those air pollution limits — whether they are targeting carbon, mercury, or any other dangerous compound — and therefore are releasing a new TV ad criticizing Senator Bond’s action.  All Members of Congress should be on notice that we will fight back against those who would threaten the health of children, the elderly, and all Americans by weakening our air pollution laws.

Senator Bond’s action would have allowed major corporations and utilities to continue releasing unlimited amounts of carbon pollution into our air.  This threatens the stability of our climate, and rising temperatures have been linked to increases in asthma attacks and associated hospitalizations, as well as to other respiratory conditions.

We expect the assault on our nation’s air pollution laws to continue in the months ahead.  Senator Bond recently signed a letter criticizing limits for toxic pollution like mercury, cyanide, and dioxin from industrial sources (mercury puts newborns at risk for brain damage and learning disabilities). Some corporate polluters and their allies in Congress value short term profits ahead of public health and are pushing for additional restrictions on clean air rules.  While their side may have access to nearly limitless resources, we believe the American people will strongly oppose their efforts to dirty our air and threaten the health of our citizens.

While Senator Bond will soon be gone from Congress, this ad is also a message to any member of Congress — Democrat or Republican — thinking of weakening our clean air laws in the weeks and months ahead.

Senator Bond TV Ad

Posted in Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Health, News / Read 1 Response

A Test for Senators

Last night the President challenged the nation to move aggressively toward energy independence.

“For decades,” he said, “we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires. Time and again, the path forward has been blocked — not only by oil industry lobbyists, but also by a lack of political courage and candor.”

It  now looks like the Senate will debate its response over the next four weeks, culminating in a vote during the 2nd week of July.  As this debate goes forward, every Senator must be asked if the energy proposals they support truly fulfill the

“sense of urgency this challenge requires”.

We cannot afford another “energy bill” like we’ve had in the past – a weakened, lobbyist-crafted collection of half-measures, like those passed in 2005 and 2007.  Business as usual is what put us in this situation, where millions of barrels of oil pour into the Gulf, and billions of dollars flow to the Middle East.  As the President said,

“The consequences of our inaction are now in plain sight. We cannot consign our children to this future…Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash American innovation and seize control of our own destiny.”

Each senator must be asked if the policy they support truly meets this test.  And if they will join the President in pledging to refuse to

“settle for the paltry limits of conventional wisdom.”

Posted in Climate Change Legislation, News, Policy / Comments are closed

That Video and the Nine-Trillion-Pound Question

You may have seen the new video by Annie Leonard raising questions about cap and trade. It has provoked impassioned responses by environmentalists (comments are pouring in on the post by David Roberts that Tony linked to yesterday, and here’s another from  Eric de Place on Sightline).

The first and most important thing to say about the video is that we really, really, really agree with one of her central points: A cap on carbon pollution is the most important step we can take to protect our environment.

But we disagree with some other things in the video — most of all, the idea that passing the current climate bill would be a bad idea.  The bill isn’t perfect, but it would be an historic and effective step forward.  Here’s why:

If we don’t enact a cap soon, international negotiations will fail.  Without a limit on U.S. emissions, China and India will never agree to cut their global warming pollution.  That means our slow-motion, real-life disaster movie continues, and we probably shoot past the environmental tipping point scientists have warned us about.  That’s why President Obama endorsed the bill and said “delay is no longer an option.”

But maybe the most direct and practical reason is that the bill which passed the House of Representatives will result in a reduction in global warming pollution of four billion metric tons per year. That’s nearly nine trillion pounds less pollution in the atmosphere by mid-century. It’s the equivalent of taking 720 million cars off the road, permanently.

Failing to pass a bill means deciding to allow those 4 billion tons of pollution to go into the atmosphere every year.  Eleven million tons per day.

And if you feel that the bill should be even stronger, remember that some of the most important laws in our nation’s history — Social Security, the Civil Rights Act, the Clean Air Act — started as important first steps that were strengthened over time.   Unless we lay the foundation, we will never make any progress.

Lastly, the video talks about using the EPA to regulate carbon emissions instead of passing a cap and trade bill.  The EPA has an important role to play, but a law passed by Congress is much better.  There are lots of reasons, but consider just one: Do you really want to let the next anti-environmental President undo pollution limits through executive action?

We think there oughta be a law against that.

Posted in Climate Change Legislation / Comments are closed