Sustainable Living: Heat up Climate Change Legislation (28-Oct-07)
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Full story: Sustainable Living: Heat up Climate Change Legislation (28-Oct-07)
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You might remember April 14, when more than 1,400 events happened all around the country by people demanding that Congress cut carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. These events happened on church lawns, across bridges, on glacier peaks and even under water. What they all had in common was a desire to act now to curb climate change, and the banner of Step It Up, a national activist group founded by climate change writer Bill McKibben.
Since this great outpouring of grass-roots support for climate change legislation, virtually nothing has happened in Congress. Meanwhile, the polar ice is thinning, greenhouse gases are getting thicker and the U.S. economy is stagnant. Rather than hope and wait for our elected officials to do the right thing, Step It Up is getting proactive. Members have called for another National Day of Climate Action to be held on Saturday.
This time, Step It Up has a more detailed suggestion for Congress. The "One Sky Initiative" calls for Congress to "overcome the crisis we face and realize the immense opportunities of our time" through three main points:
- Cut carbon 80 percent by 2050. If we start now, that's a 2 percent reduction per year. It will mean transitioning from a fossil-fuel-based culture to renewable energy. Ironically, with peak oil upon us and the world's reserves dwindling, we will have to do this sooner or later anyway. Why not start now?
America's foremost climatologist, NASA scientist James Hansen, has said that the decisions we make in the next 10 years are crucial to reducing carbon emissions, and he's endorsed the "80 percent by 2050" goal as a "solution commensurate to the scale of the problem."
- Green energy needs green jobs. A 2006 study from the National Renewable Energy Lab identified shortages of skills and training as a leading barrier to renewable energy and energy efficiency growth. To scale renewable energy up to the level it needs to be to replace fossil fuels requires legions of solar technicians, wind-turbine and wind-farm designers, biomass plants and a trained work force to run them. We need to be encouraging these green industries now. Stimulate these green entrepreneurs like James Taylor at Taylor Biomass and see American ingenuity meet the challenge of municipal-scale power generation.
- No new coal! Right now, there are more than 150 coal-burning plants in some stage of development across the county. Not one of these proposed plants is outfitted with a carbon capture and sequestration device. There is no such thing as "clean coal." From its extraction in Appalachian mountaintop removal mines that destroy mountains and communities, to environmentally harmful effects of burning it for energy, coal is pollution. Let's put a moratorium on any new coal plants and use that money to buy energy-efficiency technology instead.
- Source: recordonline.com
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