greenrightnow.com » Barack Obama

Climate groups ask U.S. to use Clean Air Act to fight global warming

Harriet Blake — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:01:26 +0000

Two prominent environmental groups have proposed a direct approach to controlling carbon emissions that doesn’t require a new climate law, or even a cap-and-trade agreement.

The strategy: Use the U.S. Clean Air Act.

On Wednesday, the Center for Biological Diversity and 350.org petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to set national limits for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas pollution under the Clean Air Act.

The petition asks that greenhouse gases be classified as “criteria” air pollutants, which would trigger national caps under the law, and that atmospheric CO2, be capped at 350 parts per million (ppm) which is the level that many scientists now believe is required to avert the worst impacts of global warming. Carbon is the most prevalent GHG, and is produced, in large part, by burning fossil fuels. Coal-fired power plants are the single greatest carbon emitter. Transportation and oil-burning manufacturing activities also contribute.

“The science, unfortunately, is all too clear,” says Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org. “350 ppm is the most CO2 we can have in the atmosphere if we want a planet similar to the one on which civilization developed. …Ninety-two national governments have endorsed it as a target. Now it’s time for the nation that invented environmentalism to use its most progressive set of laws in the same effort.”

Most recently, the Obama administration proposed emission reduction targets of just 3 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. This is much less than the cuts of about 45 percent that are necessary to return to 350 ppm.

Today, the current atmospheric CO2 level is about 385 ppm.

The Clean Air Act petition notes that the Obama administration already has the legal tools it needs to greatly reduce greenhouse emissions. The work can proceed with or without a cap-and-trade bills.

But why file the petition now, on the eve of the Copenhagen talks that could solidify new emissions reductions?

“We filed the petition now,” says Kassie Siegel, an author of the petition and director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, “to make the point that Obama already has the tools he needs to agree to deep, rapid, and science-based emissions reductions in Copenhagen, and to then achieve those reductions. His excuses for failing to do so are unfounded.”

In other words, President Obama doesn’t have to beg off strong emissions targets just because Congress has aimed low with the climate bills under consideration. He doesn’t have to tell his counterparts in Copenhagen that all he can offer is what Congress will allow. The Copenhagen Climate Conference, which brings together negotiators and heads of state from around the globe to try to forge an accord on emissions reductions, runs from Dec. 7-18. Obama has announced he will attend early in the conference, and several U.S. cabinet members are participating, including the EPA’s Lisa Jackson, Department of Energy chief Steven Chu and Carol Browner, head of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy.

The Clean Air Act’s provisions have worked for 40 years, Siegel notes.

“This law has protected the air we breathe – and it’s done that through a proven , successful system of pollution control that saves lives and creates economic benefits vastly exceeding its costs,” she says.

Among others supporting the petition are the UN’s chief climate scientist, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and NASA’s top climate scientist, James Hansen. Both agree on the need to reach 350.

“The Clean Air Act is a bipartisan bill signed by a Republican president,” says McKibben. “Leading scientists at NASA and around the world say we need to get to 350 ppm. This petition simply asks EPA to do its job as science, the law and common sense require.”

By filing the petition now, says Seigel, the environmental groups such as hers, are trying to prove that “Obama’s hands are not tied, as he claims, by Congress’s abysmal response to the climate crisis.

Obama promised to lead the way to a science-based solution. Were he to do so as our petition requests, such leadership could still allow real success at the Copenhagen climate talks.”

The politics of black-and-white cost the US a green leader

BKessler — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 22:11:05 +0000

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

At first, I was confused about the resignation of Van Jones, a man so well-suited to his post as the White House Special Advisor on Green Jobs that his tenure should have been long and fruitful. Here was a man who’d founded a human rights organization championing the underprivileged, and then another group, Green for All, that pioneered the idea of re-engaging the working class in progressive new fields of employment like green building and alternative energy. He literally wrote the book on green-collar jobs, The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Solve Our Two Biggest Problems (Harper One 2008) before most people had heard the phrase green collar jobs.

Hearing the news of his resignation over the weekend, I consulted the website of Green for All, the Oakland-based project he co-founded and ran before accepting the White House appointment. GFA expressed sadness and obliquely referred to “the buzz and speculation surrounding this news.”

Clearly, this was a murky issue, and Green For All wanted to avoid the mud.

Once I figured out that Jones had been heckled out of his job by right-wing ideologue, Fox News TV commentator and Supreme Heckler Glenn Beck, I knew there had to be lots more to read.

Chris Kelly had a wickedly blunt column on Huffington Post (though it preceded Jones’ resignation and was mostly about Meg Whitman) that drilled right to the core. He concluded that Jones had come under right-wing fire because he was black and a Marxist. “You might even call him a black Marxist. Because of how black he is. And because he’s a Marxist.”

As more news emerged, it became obvious that race was central. Beck had attacked Jones in retaliation for a boycott of his show led by Color of Change, an African-American advocacy group co-founded by Jones and James Rucker. The group was angered when Beck called President Obama a racist.

Ariana Huffington came on board today with a column thanking Glenn Beck for returning Van Jones to the public sector, where he can be more effective anyway: “Van Jones is a thoughtful leader who knows how to use words to move people to action,” she said. “…Now, thanks to Glenn Beck, we’ve got that voice back. No longer tied to his desk with a sock in his mouth, Van is now freed to do what he does best: inspire and energize groups around the country.”

There’s a scary thought, a black man on the loose inspiring the country. Next thing you know he’ll be wanting to speak to our youth about personal responsibility, fortitude and striving to do well in school.

Speaking of voices. Beck, Kelly and Huffington are all notably partisan, albeit at different political poles.

Which makes me wonder what moderate regular folks think? Could it be that most Americans, stressed by health care, job losses, real estate issues and the continuing war in the Middle East, simply see all this yammering as a missed turn in the road to getting things done? (That is, if they’re aware of it at all.)

For the majority of us who reside outside the political fray, this resignation is simply unfortunate because we need a strong leader guiding us toward more sustainable ways, especially here in the US where we gobble an amazing 40 percent of the world’s resources. We need to transition to new energy sources, green building and efficient business operations that can steer us clear of climate change catastrophes. These changes can and will provide economic renewal in the form of green jobs. That’s not just a hope. Green changes are already happening on a micro-scale, in wind turbine plants, on organic farms, at solar plants and electric car facilities.

The high-level post at the fulcrum of the action is so pivotal, and yet so vulnerable.

On hindsight, anyone serving as the green jobs chief was likely to be skewered in a country that still debates whether global warming exists… and is caused by carbon emissions from human enterprises.

Now we need someone who will help bring us together. Someone who can talk to us about personal responsibility.

No math needed: A look at global warming by the numbers

Laura May — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:52:59 +0000

By Laura Elizabeth May
Green Right Now

One degree Fahrenheit.

On average, that’s how much the Earth’s temperature has increased over the past century, according to a report by the EPA. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted that during the 21st century the global temperature will increase by 2-6° C.

To the average person, one degree might not seem like a problem. But to scientists studying the climate, it is cause for concern. At this rate of warming, climate changes would occur faster than any of the climate changes over the past 10,000 years.

The warming of a few degrees would lead to more frequent droughts and heat waves; it can also cause an increase in rainfall and change the strength of storms. While some areas of land might benefit from the increased rainfall, others will be devastated by lack of rain.

Lately, some scientists have revised their projections on when global warming will spell the end of the Arctic ice cap. Now, some feel that the ice could be gone within five years, which could trigger a “tipping point” with the oceans warming and rising, and the Earth’s ability to reflect sunlight greatly impaired. In a recent Newsweek interview, Department of Energy Secretary Stephen Chu defined “tipping point” as the point where “no matter what humans do, it’s out of our control.”

Some scientists suggest that the rise in ocean temperatures has led to the increased intensity of hurricanes. There is no way to definitively prove that this is directly related to the rise in global temperatures. However, in 2005 the Science journal released a study regarding hurricane strength and the connection to global warming. The study showed as the storms were becoming more intense, the global temperature was also increasing. The study is quick to point out that Hurricane Katrina and other damaging hurricanes can not be blamed on global warming. However, there appears to be a connection emerging.

As gas prices fall, will our will to conserve wither?

BKessler — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:53:47 +0000

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

The question keeps coming up on newscasts and blogs: Now that gas prices are abating will Americans revert to their guzzling ways. Or put another way: Are we stupid?

Seriously, this is a legitimate question. Look at our history. Our memory of tough energy times in the 1970s was short. The next decade brought a celebration of consumption, and stagnation on the green energy front.

The current economic freeze may temporarily cloud any clear verdict on our behavior this go-round. Consider the person with the gas-guzzling vehicle that they’d like to unload. They may be unable to buy a new gas-sipper and take on debt. Even someone who can afford to make a change may be holding out for a better built hybrid, those clean diesels coming our way or the all-electric cars we keep hearing will be here in 2010. (Here’s betting GM dearly wishes it was a year closer on its Volt.)

But should $2.50 a gallon gasoline cause us to waver in kicking our oil addiction, we may have a less co-dependent government this time. Politicians of both parties support clean energy initiatives, and both presidential contenders have proposed tax incentives for people buying fuel efficient cars. These incentives mimic those already in place for hybrid cars, but also go beyond to include other types of eco-friendly vehicles.

A $5,000 to $7,000 tax credit for hybrids should cause many potential buyers to fall in love, or at least like, with new eco-cars, especially now that the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic hybrids have proven the technology works.

To find out more, check out The Pew Center on Global Climate Change website which has posted a thorough and nonpartisan voter’s guide. It details Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s energy proposals pertaining to transportation.

This guide comes late for some of us who’ve already voted. But it has value even past the election for people who want to learn how government hopes to nudge both car buyers and automakers down the green highway.