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Reporters Continue to Recognize the Importance of Global Warming
-- Mike -- 02/23/2007
John McCain's recent appearance with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger highlighting California's efforts to curb greenhouse gases certainly is a worthwhile news story, but the lead paragraph to Newsweek's article on it is worth noting not so much for what the reporter writes about McCain, but for what she writes about the issue of global warming (emphasis added):
Sen. John McCain got a little lost in the shuffle Wednesday. His appearance in California with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was all but eclipsed by the hissing match between Democratic presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. True, the reason for McCain's appearance-to call for a nationwide low-carbon fuel standard, similar to the one Schwarzenegger imposed in California earlier this year-isn't quite as sexy as a fight over the affections of Hollywood mogul and Democratic moneyman David Geffen, or McCain's own spat with Vice President Cheney. But the few dozen reporters willing to don ridiculous-looking neon orange safety smocks to join McCain and Schwarzenegger at a loading dock at the Port of Long Beach were on to a story far more significant to the 2008 presidential campaign-and beyond. How will the United States adapt its energy policies to cope with the potentially catastrophic economic consequences of climate change? "No matter who runs for president," said McCain, who has yet to officially announce his candidacy, "this will be a very, very big issue."
‘It Makes Good Economic Sense to Reduce Emissions’
-- Mike -- 02/23/2007
Foster's Daily Democrat reported yesterday on a global warming panel discussion at the University of New Hampshire earlier this week. Lots of interesting stuff, but I think this is particularly worth highlighting:
Tom Kelly, director of the university's Office of Sustainability, said the university is hard at work on reducing emissions on campus. UNH has been identified as a "climate protection campus," and interim president J. Bonnie Newman recently joined 67 other schools in signing the University President's Climate Commitment, which asks colleges and universities to identify their greenhouse gas output and develop a plan to reduce those emissions over the next three years.
"It makes good economic sense to reduce emissions. It also makes good ecological sense and good public health sense," Kelly said.
Flow Woes on the Colorado
-- Adam -- 02/22/2007
A National Research Council panel released a report yesterday that predicts dire impacts to the Colorado River from global warming, Rocky Mountain News reports. Competition over its water has been intense over several decades and the report indicates that issue will get only more heated as climate change brings significant flow reductions. "Regional drying and reduced stream flows" mean that less water will make it to growing urban centers and commercial farms. The article cites a 2005 study that projects a 20 percent decline from current flow levels. All of this is expected to have crippling effects on the economies of the seven user states and regional agricultural production.
Giuliani on Energy Independence in Spartanburg, SC
-- John -- 02/22/2007
On Wednesday, February 21, Mayor Rudi Giuliani spoke to supporters at a Spartanburg, SC fire station. According to Dan Hoover, staff reporter for the Greenville News, Mayor Giuliani addressed America’s need to achieve energy independence:
In calling for energy independence, Giuliani said everything must be on the table, including exploratory drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and in potential seabed fields off the East Coast."We have to look at all these things a second time, with more of an emphasis of solving this problem of energy independence," including greater use of nuclear, wind and solar power, cleaning up coal and stepped-up ethanol use, he said.
In proposing an Apollo-like program similar to the crash plan to land on the moon in the 1960s, Giuliani said, "Even if it costs more money, that money is being spent in our economy, it all gets produced here. Americans get to build it, Americans get to run it, Americans get to profit from it and we're in control of it.
"The sooner we get to energy independence, the safer we're going to be."
According to one NH newspaper, Global Warming is “Everyone’s Business”
-- Jim -- 02/22/2007
New Hampshire's Carroll County Independent newspaper weighed in this morning on Global Warming in an editorial in support of a resolution that will appear when over 180 towns meets across the state next month at town meeting. The resolution, put on town warrants by volunteers and organized by the Carbon Coalition, asks residents "to address the issue of climate change which is increasingly harmful to the environment and economy of New Hampshire and to the future well being of the people of [petitions fill in the individual town name]," sending results of the vote to the state's Congressional delegation, the President of the United States, and any declared candidates for those offices. It also supports establishment of a national program requiring reductions of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions while protecting the U.S. economy, and creation of a major national research initiative to foster rapid development of sustainable energy technologies.
The newspaper opined "Common sense says we can and do affect our environment. It has been demonstrated that green house gases trap heat in our atmosphere. It has been demonstrated that we are producing more and more of these gases, particularly carbon dioxide. If by some chance, part of the global warming phenomenon is caused by something other than human activity, that does not mean that human activities are not also playing a role. It would seem obvious that we can affect this issue by "cleaning up" our act, and equally obvious that we need to address this issue and that supporting the Carbon Coalition article will effectively help bring attention to it.
The goal of the Carbon Coalition is to have the resolution on Global Warming pass in at least 150 towns across the state. With the help of newspapers like the Carroll County Independent, that is likely to happen.
International leaders, business cut in
-- Adam -- 02/21/2007
Even with the Hill buzzing on the issue, many leaders in the private sector are continuing to be aggressive in promoting better climate-change policy. "Nearly 100 corporations, international organizations and experts agreed to a plan on Tuesday to cut greenhouse gas emissions, calling on governments to act urgently against global warming," Reuters reported. The plan seeks to do, in one respect, what the U.S. government has yet to achieve: significant reductions in the greenhouse gas. "Global Roundtable on Climate Change" participants have yet to settle on how differently limits would be set between rich and developing countries. In a trend becoming increasing more common, several of the companies involved have joined the cause after avoiding or denying the issue in the past. Some of the big names include Volvo, Citigroup, DuPont and AEP. Volvo's president said, "We feel strongly that as an industry we are part of the problem... We are also part of the solution."
Candidates from both Republican and Democratic parties ask America to conserve
-- John -- 02/20/2007
While campaigning in different parts of the state and to different constituencies, both Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) voluntarily raised the importance of pushing America toward greater energy conservation. Speaking to supporters in Spartanburg on Sunday (2.18), Sen. McCain stated, "I believe that if Americans are asked, they will conserve. I'm not talking about putting on sweaters. I'm just saying that we can enact a lot of things that would save on energy if Americans are asked to do it." And addressing her supporters in Columbia on Monday (2.19), Sen Clinton offered: "We all have to conserve more . . . If we demand more energy efficient appliances and cars that get greater gas millage, all that added up will begin to make a difference. You know the state of California has used conservation for the last 30 years. Their electricity usage has not increased in 30 years because they keep conserving." Sen. Clinton went on to refute the idea that pushing energy conservation will endanger the US economy.
Words from Two Sides: McCain and Richardson
-- Adam -- 02/20/2007
We've seen noteworthy support for action against global warming from both the Republican and Democratic parties over the past week. As John noted this weekend, Senator McCain defended the scientific consensus and said solutions would benefit the economy, not hurt it. He also said on the 14th that the issue has reached a "tipping point" for policy solutions to be enacted, as reported by Reuters. On the Democratic side, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson indicated that dealing with the problem head on would be a priority, arguing "the first thing he would do as president is re-sign the Kyoto Protocol". Richardson said he would act "because the planet is saying something to us and the oceans and the best scientists in the world are saying global warming is man-made," as quoted in Foster's Daily Democrat.
Sen. McCain Refutes Global Warming Sceptic in Spartanburg, SC
-- John -- 02/18/2007
To a global warming skeptic in Spartanburg, SC, who suggested that global warming is a "Democratic lie," and that our warming planet is being caused by the 2004 earthquake in the Indian Ocean, Senator McCain was emphatic: "We have a respectful disagreement, sir. The overwhelming majority of scientific opinion in American today and in the world is that climate change is real. The fact is that it is real, and the solution to it is through development of technologies that will help our economy and not hurt our economy. We can also take measures such as a cap and trade proposal which we are in favor of . . . I believe that climate change is real, as do increasing numbers of the evangelical community, and I believe that we have an obligation of the stewardship of this earth. I'll be glad to share scientific information with you, but in my view the debate is over. The question is how to address it in a way that is beneficial to mankind and America." The Senator was speaking at "meet 'n greet" in Spartanburg on February18.
Sen. Obama Addresses Global Warming
-- John -- 02/17/2007
In comments on February 17 before a packed gymnasium at Caflin University in Orangeburg, SC, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) discussed finding solutions to global warming in the context of both national security and economic development. According to Obama, the hundreds of millions of dollars that Americans spend every day on oil ends up "funding both sides of the war on terrorism." Every time countries like Saudi Arabia want to raise oil prices, "they simply turn off the tap." But by developing alternative fuel sources through crops like corn and switch grass, Obama argued not only that the United States will achieve energy independence, but that South Carolina will transform its rural economy: "We are going to locate these [biofuel] plants in rural areas all across South Carolina." And touching on the the vulnerability of South Carolina's coast to global warming, Obama pointed out that the melting of the polar ice caps could put the city of Charleston under water. What has been lacking is presidential leadership, the Senator concluded, comparing the need to transform the US energy economy to President Kennedy's decision to land a man on the moon.
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