Apr 09 2009
Getting Serious about Climate Change Legislation
Former skeptics in Congress are realizing that climate change has to be dealt with and some of them are ready for action!
Representative Bob Inglis (R-SC) recently went to Antarctica with a small Congressional delegation. Scientists that work there showed him ice cores, and those ice core samples clearly showed the high spike in CO2 levels that are now warming the Earth. Inglis was a former skeptic, but he is now convinced: “The evidence is compelling: Global Warming is a real, human-caused problem,” he said .
What a difference that is from the Michele Bachmann (R-MN) approach. She gets her talking points from the GOP, and repeats her claim that global warming is not happening without exploring any of the science or visiting Antarctica or even Greenland. I applaud Congressman Inglis for taking the steps to gather the information he needed to determine that global warming is real, even though his Republican party doesn’t want to admit it.
Bachmann, who is my Congresswoman, gave a “climate change” forum today in my city and not only refused to take questions, she had a lawyer from the right-wing think tank - CEI - give us propaganda on global warming. He doesn’t believe in it, so he made up all kinds of fairy tales about Ice Ages and how the sun is causing global warming, and how much of this is also to blame on methane from cows and CO2 from the ocean. (The ocean is actually a carbon sink, it’s not causing global warming as he claimed). It was all propaganda to further the CEI and GOP agenda of no new taxes. He even denied that the climate is getting warmer at all. In reality, from January 2008 to January 2009, the planet warmed a remarkable 0.37°C (see data here). (That’s a lot.)
Some politicians are deathly afraid of any taxes, so their reaction is to turn into global warming deniers. (Doesn’t it always boil down to money for some people)? You can read a story about the faux “climate forum” here . After attending this forum, I really appreciate good Republicans who are honest about science and take the time to understand global warming before reducing it to a fight about taxes. That’s not what this discussion should be about.
Congressman Inglis is trying to help the situation by pointing out that we can take decisive action on climate change without huring the U.S. economy or jobs. The way it stands now, big fossil fuel companies dump CO2 into the air for free messing up things for everyone. If we put a price on carbon, (which should be very expensive to emit, not free) we can use that fee to put towards research and evelopment of new clean energy sources and also reduce other taxes for average Americans, or even give some of the money back in the form of monthly rebate payments, like Alaska has done under Sarah Palin. (And even Sarah Palin admits that climate change is happening). We’ll end up with less pollution, more jobs, a real chance at fighting climate change, and better national security.
There is an even better idea than cap and trade, which you’ve no doubt heard about — and it’s in the Congress now in the form of bill H.R. 1337.
What chance does climate change legislation have of passing this year? Not a good chance. That’s OK with a lot of people, even environmentalists, who want something better that will reduce emissions faster and more effectively without creating lots of carbon markets.
Some legislation that regulates greenhouse gas emissions appeals to those who want tax reform, to those who want effective climate policy and those who want more domestically supplied energy. It should appeal to everyone, and maybe when Henry Waxman’s complicated and overly -long cap and trade legislation is rewritten, it will appeal to more people. The Senate has voted cap/trade down three times. It will probably have to lose one more time before we get serious about a simple pricing mechanism.
The big “green” groups are fans of cap and trade, but it will probably die in Congress again mainly due to it’s complication and length. That’s why we should all support the Larson bill. Meanwhile, phony baloney propagandists like Chris Horner (the lawyer Michele Bachmann dragged alongfor her climate forum) are pushing the idea that we are cooling. Au contraire! There is plenty of evidence that the temperature is still going up. It’s not a lot, but on a global scale, an average temperature rise of any amount is pretty bad news at this point. I’ll say it again – From January 2008 to January 2009, the planet warmed a remarkable 0.37°C (see data here).
