Schwarzenegger Warns of California Suit Against EPA

Last year I wrote an article for my school newspaper when I found out about California's attempt to sue automakers for not creating vehicles with stricter emissions standards. While I thought that it was good that someone was doing something, I didn't think this was a good way to go about it. After all, automakers are supplying our need, and obviously enough demand isn't there to make a change. It just seemed akin to suing McDonald's because kids are fat.

What I thought would make more sense is pressuring for stricter standards for automakers to follow, and finally, California is trying to do this. Schwarzenegger threatened the EPA that the state would sue them if they don't act soon on the state's attempt to regulate greenhouse emissions themselves:

Schwarzenegger's move stems from California's request in 2005 to get a federal Clean Air Act waiver that would allow it to regulate auto emissions more aggressively.

The Republican governor said the state Thursday will send a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson telling the agency of its plans to file legal action if the EPA does not act on the exemption request within six months.

I think it's a good step that individual states want to make stricter regulations, but this can only be effective if the majority of states follow suit. I don't know what the chances are of this happening without federal laws being put in place.

Study Shows New York City Puts Out Nearly One Percent of Greenhouse Gases in U.S.

Halfway through the article I still wasn't sure if this amount of greenhouse gas output was supposed to be a lot or a little, if the article was praising New York City or condemning it, in it's statement of these facts. But then I finally got to this part:

With 2.7 percent of the country's population -- 8.2 million of 300 million -- the average New York City resident contributes less than a third of the emissions generated by a typical American. This is largely due to the popularity of the city's mass transit system, which cuts down on car emissions, officials said.

Ah, so it's a good thing, I told myself... at least in relation to the rest of our carbon overproducing country. Now that the NYC government has this data, they can figure out how to continue going about lowering the city's amout of greenhouse gas emmissions by 30% by 2030.

Scientists Detail Climate Changes, Poles to Tropics

I kind of dropped the ball on the next report from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which came out on Friday. This article details the effects of global warming that we're heading towards in the near future and the changes that are already taking place. The scientific evidence in this report could serve as a powerful reminder to governments, especially the U.S., that better environmental policies need to be put in place -- this is something every country in the world needs to cooperate on.

And it seems that representatives from the U.S. are beginning to agree:

The conclusions came after four days of revisions by scientists and then an often rancorous all-night debate with government officials. In a sign of shifting geopolitics on global warming, scientists who worked on the report criticized China for weakening some language in the summary, while they credited the United States, which had for years stressed uncertainty in the science, with playing a mostly constructive role.

Yet, as always, I express concern over governments playing any role in the editing of these kind of reports, and the article does address the problems that come of this.

Under pressure from nations including Russia, China and Saudi Arabia, the authors said, sections on coral damage and tropical storms were softened in the summary. They also got the authors to drop parts of an illustration showing how different emissions policies might limit damage. Officials from those countries argued that data in the report did not support the level of certainty expressed in the final draft.

But some authors were not assuaged. The final document was “much less quantified and much vaguer and much less striking than it could have been,” said Stéphane Hallegatte, a participant from France’s International Center for Research on the Environment and Development.

I know, it is only the summary is what has been edited by this group, but how many people will have access to, and will actually read, the 1,572 page report?

Auto Industry Urges Economy-Wide Approach to Global Warming

Here's something that I didn't know was going on:

The Supreme Court ordered the federal government on Monday to take a fresh look at regulating carbon dioxide emissions from cars, a rebuke to Bush administration policy on global warming. In a 5-4 decision, the court said the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars.

The auto industry reacted as expected. They want to be involved in the decision-making so that they can pressure for more lenient laws.

Dave McCurdy, the [Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers] president and chief executive, said automakers would work with lawmakers and federal agencies to help develop a national approach.

I'll believe the cooperation when I see it.

Updates: Gore's speech to Congress; defense of editing documents

Update on Gore's Petition to Congress:

Here's a couple of articles about Gore's speech to Congress yesterday and a few of the reactions. As expected, there were many who met the plea to make progress in protecting the environment with doubt and criticism.

Update on skepticism concerning the role of government officials in environmental reports:

It seems that the ex-White House official who was accused of editing climate reports was trying to defend his actions in front of the House Government Reform Committee. There is also an interesting section about the government pressure felt by scientists not to disclose certain information. I'll be keeping my eye out for any results from this hearing.

Gore's Petition to Congress

If you haven't signed Al Gore's petition to congress yet, now is the time to do so. Tomorrow Gore will testify at the Congressional hearings on global warming and has set a goal of 500,000 signatures on the petition - the more voices backing him up, the more power behind his message.

In his blog on his website, Gore talks about how concern over the environment is not just a liberal, democratic concern, but should be the concern of all political parties:

One of our goals must be to make this issue one that transcends partisanship. While many of the solutions to the climate crisis will be found within the political system, there should be bipartisan and transpartisan agreement on the basic nature of the crisis and the sense of urgency that is appropriate for us to solve it.

That point was brought home to me again last week when I visited London and met with the leaders of the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. In the UK, both major political parties are completely committed to taking real action to solve the climate crisis. They openly acknowledge this is an unprecedented moral issue and are competing vigorously to see who can propose the most creative and effective solutions to solve this crisis.

The other day I was talking to my dad, who is pretty conservative, about global warming and he made some comment like, "My daughter, the liberal environmentalist," and I countered, "Liberals shouldn't be the only ones who care about the environment." He agreed.

Britain Proposes Legal Limits on Carbon Emissions

Kind of old news, but awesome news anyway.

Britain on Tuesday became the first country to propose legislation setting binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions as it stepped up its campaign for a new global warming pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.

In its draft Climate Change Bill, the government said carbon dioxide emissions had to be cut by at least 60 percent by 2050, set out five-year carbon budgets to reach the target and created an independent monitoring committee to check annual progress.

As long as consequences are severe enough to keep local governments in check, this plan seems like it could work very well. There is debate about whether yearly targets should be put in place, which to me seems like a good idea so that it is easier to make sure that every area is staying on track. More countries need to abandon free-market thinking and create stronger laws against the emission of greenhouse gases. As a whole, we are not responsible enough to do it on our own, to choose environmentally friendly products over others which are normally cheaper, for example - we need guidance and isn't that what governments are supposed to provide?

Report outlines global warming's effects

Following up last month's global warming report issued in Paris, the same group of more than 1,000 scientists have put together a document that determines the likely social effects of global warming. And basically, what they've determined is just plain scary:

The harmful effects of global warming on daily life are already showing up, and within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people won't have enough water, top scientists will say next month at a meeting in Belgium.

At the same time, tens of millions of others will be flooded out of their homes each year as the Earth reels from rising temperatures and sea levels, according to portions of a draft of an international scientific report obtained by The Associated Press.

Tropical diseases like malaria will spread. By 2050, polar bears will mostly be found in zoos, their habitats gone. Pests like fire ants will thrive.

For a time, food will be plentiful because of the longer growing season in northern regions. But by 2080, hundreds of millions of people could face starvation, according to the report, which is still being revised.

The information in these reports (2 more will be coming out this year) should prompt world leaders to act quickly. Not all the damage can be avoided, but much of it can if the industrial world puts a halt on CO2 levels. But this part of the report bothers me even more:

The draft document by the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change focuses on global warming's effects and is the second in a series of four being issued this year. Written and reviewed by more than 1,000 scientists from dozens of countries, it still must be edited by government officials. (emphasis mine)

With the history of the Bush administration censoring environmental documents, why should government officials be able to edit scientific documents, especially when many of them do not have the necessary educational background? And, officials from which governments? Perhaps this won't be a problem at all, but it bothers me that the AP writers would throw that line in without further elaboration.