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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (100543)	2/15/2005 9:06:19 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 793684

Actually I don't get very excited about global warming one way or the other. Most of the public discourse is just rhetoric. The scientists seem to be all over the place. Reminds me of economists arguing about money. The discussion is even worse at the layperson level. There the discussion reminds me of arguments between gold bugs and soft money advocates. You probably haven't wandered into one of those, but maybe would get my drift if I said it's sort of like listening to people argue about religion. Not much point. On one side is a skinny bike-riding vegan who "refuses to bring children into this world" and on the other side is a soccer mom who needs an SUV to haul the team, and they'll never meet eye to eye. In the meantime, nobody seems to care that the worst polluters are the Chinese. I do drive an SUV myself, but I also planted twenty new trees and have another hundred or so that I will never cut down, and am turning my suburban lawn into a butterfly garden, so I think it evens out.

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (100543)	2/15/2005 10:57:37 AM
From: DMaA	Respond to of 793684

Why assume human activity has produced negative results? Here's an article that claims 8000 years ( yes 8000, not 100 years )of humans interacting with their environment has probably averted a new ice age: greeningearthsociety.org There is no such thing as the "natural" world. Everything on the planet has been touched by the hand of man. Most scientists (by a substantial margin) believe that human activity has had and is having a negative effect on global warming trends.

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (100543)	2/15/2005 11:03:03 AM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 793684

Cleaner Air Sunday, February 13, 2005; Page B06 SOMEWHERE OUT there -- out among the environmental activists, congressional leaders and others who care about heavy industry and air pollution -- there are probably people who could hammer out a grand compromise that would end the expensive legal wrangles over America's highest-polluting power plants and would also ensure that Americans breathe cleaner air. It isn't even that hard to imagine what such a compromise would look like. Probably, it would contain a "cap and trade" emissions trading program like the one in the administration's "Clear Skies" legislation, which appeared in the State of the Union speech, which the Senate held hearings on at the beginning of the month and which is still a topic of intense debate. Probably, it would ensure that states and localities are still forced to live up to the standards required by older, Clean Air Act legislation, particularly if the new system produces "hot spots" with unusually high pollution. Probably, the various adversaries could agree to save the question of carbon emissions for later -- carbon being not a pollutant but rather a greenhouse gas that may cause global warming -- and to focus on control of nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury. Unfortunately, a grand compromise is not what is taking place in the back corridors of the Senate. Instead, the administration and Senate Republican leaders are making a final push to pass the Clear Skies legislation, which they prefer. As we wrote the last time it came up, this complex bill is flawed. Although industry should have clearer deadlines than the ones currently set by the Clean Air Act and although we support emissions trading, we have had doubts about the timetable in the bill -- because it will, in practice, extend the current pollution deadlines by many years, as well as the degree to which it weakens both the political and legal authority of local regulators to attack acute local problems, particularly concerning mercury. In this respect, it departs from the previous, successful "cap and trade" emissions trading program that Congress set up in 1990. There are alternatives. The Environmental Protection Agency has promised that if the administration bill dies in committee -- and it looks now as if there are enough Democratic and moderate Republican opponents to block it -- then the EPA will set up an emissions trading program by regulatory means, probably by the middle of next month. This would have the effect of preserving local regulatory powers, although there is a downside: An ordinary regulation, without the force of new legislation behind it, will be more easily delayed by lawsuits. Another alternative is to pass some version of the Clean Power Act, sponsored by Sens. James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.), Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), which would create an emissions trading program using more rigorous timetables and preserving more local control. Unfortunately, although at least one of the most vigorous proponents of Clear Skies, Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio), says he is willing to make adjustments to the bill to get it passed, it doesn't seem that anybody else is, on either side of the argument. Democrats are refusing to consider any bill that doesn't include controls on carbon dioxide, and Republicans are refusing to consider alternate timetables. We would like to see a version of this legislation passed. The uncertainty surrounding pollution regulation is slowing the development of pollution-control and clean-coal technology. But we are still waiting for the compromise that could make it happen.