Climate 411

This post is by Carol Andress, Economic Development Specialist at Environmental Defense.

Climate Vote 2007

Part of a series on the work of the Environmental Defense Action Fund to enact an effective climate law. You can help by writing to Congress.

Passage of the Lieberman-Warner America’s Climate Security Act in a key Senate subcommittee is a major political break-through. But the big question now is: When will the House begin work on a comprehensive global warming bill of its own?

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House leaders have pledged to make global warming a priority. And key House committee leaders John Dingell (D-MI) and Rick Boucher (D-VA) have drafted the first of a planned series of white papers analyzing policy options. These are all positive signs. But, what’s missing is a legislative vehicle that can be marked up in committee and scheduled for floor action.

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This post is by Sheryl Canter, an Online Writer and Editorial Manager at Environmental Defense.

The current issue of U.S. News and World Report has a special report on America’s Best Leaders. Among the sixteen individuals chosen was our own Fred Krupp, President of Environmental Defense. From the article:

“The signature achievement of Krupp’s philosophy came out of amendments to the Clean Air Act in the George H. W. Bush administration. While other groups pushed for rigid restrictions on sulfur dioxide, an agent of acid rain, Krupp argued for a unique cap-and-trade system that would permit utilities to swap pollution credits to help bring down their emissions as an aggregate. Utilities that found ways to reduce emissions could sell their credits, at a hefty price, to dirtier plants. Utilities favored the idea, which meant that among the green community, "Fred was taking some serious risks," recalls William Reilly, Bush’s EPA chief. Reilly made the deal in return for Environmental Defense’s support of the legislation. "That helped us in Congress and in the eyes of the public," Reilly says. The plan achieved reductions at one-tenth the estimated cost.
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Fittingly, Krupp’s work has framed the global warming debate. He played a key role in enlisting corporate support for government action. And because of the success of the acid-rain program, a cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gases is the basis for proposals in Congress to combat warming.”

This post is by Sheryl Canter, an Online Writer and Editorial Manager at Environmental Defense.

Have you ever been on weight-loss diet, gone to a function with delicious-looking desserts, and told yourself, "One cookie isn’t going to make me fat"? One cookie may not make you fat, but how many "cookie moments" occur during your day, your week? If your answer is always that this one little cookie can’t hurt, you will not lose weight.

Conserving energy is sort of like going on a group diet where every person, dozens of times a day, has a "cookie moment". Does it really matter if I leave on the lights in my home when I go out? Does it really matter if I don’t recycle this container? Does it really matter if I keep my chargers plugged in when not in use?

The short answer is yes, it matters. There are a myriad of things you can do to conserve energy and fight global warming. Each action by itself is small and painless, but taken together the effect can be huge. Here’s a list of easy things you can do that will make a big difference.

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