Obama Unveils His Plan to Cut Greenhouse Gases Emissions from Power Plants
President Obama formally unveiled his plan to cut power plant emissions on Monday — some two years in the making — calling it the “single most important step that America has ever made in the fight against global climate change.”
Speaking at the White House, the president said the plan includes the first-ever Environmental Protection Agency standards on carbon pollution from U.S. power plants. Over the next few years, each state will have the chance to create its own plan, he said, adding: “We’ll reward the states that take action sooner.”
Toward the end of his remarks, Obama cited other environmental issues, such as combating acid rain, where efforts have been successful even though it seemed hard at the time.
“We can figure this stuff out, as long as we’re not lazy about it,” he said.
The president compared the requirement of cutting carbon emissions by 32 percent to taking 166 million cars off the road.
In a new push to confront climate change, President Obama is announcing new standards that would cut the amount of carbon pollution produced by America’s power plants.
“These are the first-ever national standards that address carbon pollution from power plants,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which adds that power plants are the largest source of carbon pollution in the U.S., generating 32 percent of the total emissions.
Key elements of the Clean Power Plan include a requirement that would cut the power industry’s carbon pollution by 32 percent below 2005 levels in the next 15 years. The plan also seeks to boost renewable energy.
The White House says that between now and 2015, the changes will mean better health for Americans — preventing up to 3,600 premature deaths — along with bringing energy savings for U.S. consumers.
President Obama’s sweeping new power plant regulations are thrusting the debate over climate change into the race for the White House.
To Democrats, rallying around global climate change is a way to energize liberal supporters and paint Republicans as out of touch. To Republicans, Obama’s actions to curb greenhouse gas emissions are burdensome to business and block job creation.
Most of the changes Obama outlined would have to be implemented by the next president, if the rules survive court challenges.
Republicans cast the measure requiring states to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 32 percent by 2030 as unnecessary and costly.
The Obama administration itself estimated the emissions limits will cost $8.4 billion annually by 2030, though the actual price isn’t clear.
Republican Jeb Bush said the rules “run over state governments, will throw countless people out of work and increases everyone’s energy prices.”
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz questioned whether climate change is occurring.
“I’m saying the data and facts don’t support it,” Cruz said at a retreat sponsored by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, heavily courted donors who oppose Obama’s climate change agenda.
Hillary Clinton called the measure a “significant step forward” and said she would defend it if elected president. Her Democratic challengers were similarly supportive.
A Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted in March showed 59 percent of Americans said they’d like the next president to be someone who favors government action to address climate change, while 31 percent would prefer someone who opposes it.
BY JULIE PACE, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Cecil The Lion And The Debate Over Trophy Hunting
After Zimbabwe released the name this week of Walter Palmer, the hunter who killed Cecil the lion, the Minnesota dentist has faced intense backlash.
Those who still question the scientific validity of greenhouse gas warming causing more warming and rising sea levels, for pecuniary advantage, are a million times more unethical than Palmer and may be guilty of crimes against humanity.
Firefights working an explosive wildfire that’s tripled in size since Friday and is now burning in three Northern California counties — Lake County, Yolo County, and Colusa County and is only 12 % contained.
The Rocky Fire is now 60,000 acres, only 12 percent contained, and has prompted mandatory or voluntary evacuation orders for more than 12,000 residents. The wildfire has destroyed 50 structures, including 24 homes. The fire jumped Highway 20 and started a 100-acre fire in multiple spots, which firefighters were aggressively attacking Monday afternoon.
Firefighters say they’re feeling optimistic about the new containment number. They say the weather looks good for the next three days and that Sunday night was one of the quietest nights on the fire line.
They know, however, that spots can flare up in the afternoon when the winds pick up. As a result, crews are still keeping a very close eye on things, putting water on hotspots, and clearing residents out of the area.
“Left about 10 p.m. and will be here until they send us home,” said Lake County resident Wayne McKenney. “A couple days, probably. Who knows.”
There are nearly 3,000 firefighters currently battling the Rocky Fire, and more are arriving Monday. Residents say they are impressed and grateful.
“These guys are great,” said Lake County resident Rick McCune. “The winds are really bad, and that’s the problem.
Firefighters say even though it looked calm Monday morning and they’d more than doubled their containment lines, residents need to keep their head on a swivel. The fire grew so dramatically over the weekend that they just don’t know what it will do. Crews say you may not be affected this second, but that could change.
So far, 13,118 people have been evacuated.
“You know, they got a bad year, this is the worst fire I’ve ever seen in 40 some years up here,” said McKenney. “So, too much brush.”
Firefighters say the goal today is to box in the fire by using Highway 20 and Highway 16 as the perimeter. They want to keep it in that area and not jump over. They believe the weather may be in their favor over the next few days and maybe they’ll be able to turn the corner on this one.
Source: Drew Tuma – ABC7
Who’s Gonna Stand Up and Save the Earth – Neil Young
Originally published on Sep 27, 2014, as requested by Neil himself. More than one version. “Please feel free to create any video of “Who’s Gonna Stand Up” u wish. Use social media to spread the word. – NY”
The above photo is of the Alberta, Canada area which was once boreal forest but was converted into a tar sands mine.
The Koch Brothers are the main owners. A Koch Industries subsidiary holds leases on 1.1 million acres in the northern Alberta oil sands, an area nearly the size of Delaware. The Washington Post confirmed the group’s findings with Alberta Energy, the provincial government’s ministry of energy. Koch Industries has been involved with almost every aspect of the tar sands industry, from mining bitumen to transportation, exportation, distribution and, of course, refining the petrochemicals — a large part of their empire.
Koch Industries is “one of Canada’s largest crude oil purchasers, shippers, and exporters, with more than 130 crude oil customers,” and is also responsible for about 25 percent of oil sands crude imports into the U.S., for use at its refineries, according to a Post article by Ari Philips, March 20, 2014.
Koch Industries on a net acreage basis is the largest American and foreign holder of leases in Canada’s oil sands.
The Enbrige owned pipeline cuts diagonally across Wisconsin from Superior to the border with Illinois The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) approved its permit to triple the volume pumped through the current 42 inch pipeline to 1.1 million barrels (42-gallons) per day. Dane County added a condition to placing a pumping station on the Dane County that they appropriately insure the project in case of a spill like the one that occurred in 2012 in Kalamazoo, Michigan part but Wisconsin state legislators nullified that with language prohibiting local action. The Wisconsin DNR determined there was no significant environmental impacts warranting a public review and Environmental Impact Statement EIS.
Boreal Forest
Movement to Require GMO Labeling Dealt a Blow in U.S. House of Representatives
The GMO-labeling movement was dealt a major blow last week when Congress passed HR 1599, the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act. The bill, sponsored by Representative Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.), prohibits states from mandating labels on products with genetically modified ingredients and creates a voluntary certification system at the USDA.
Forty-five Democrats voted in favor of the bill. Voting “yes” to the bill were Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan, James Sensenbrenner, Glen Grothman, Sean Duffy and Reid Ribble. Voting “no” were Mark Pocan, Ron Kind and Gwen Moore.
10 Feet of Global Sea Level Rise Is Now Guaranteed
At least 10 feet of sea level rise is now guaranteed worldwide; it’s all but inevitable, a done deal. An ice sheet two miles thick has collapsed in West Antarctica. Glaciologists have been dreading this moment for decades, though in recent years, it was more of a question of when than if—and there is nothing that can stop it from melting now. Read more about it.
A new study finds that even if we slow rising temperatures now, we could still be in for higher seas.
Americans Are Driving and Flying at Unprecedented Levels, Adding to the Growing Accumulation of Greenhouse Gases that are Fueling Global Warming
Americans are driving more than ever before, adding to the growing amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere each time they get behind the wheel and start up the ignition. Newly released data from the U.S. Department of Transportation shows the estimated motor vehicle miles traveled on all the nation’s highways, roads and streets reached a new high in April 2015, the latest month data is available.
The more miles they drive, the more pounds of carbon dioxide their vehicle emits, adding to the already considered dangerous and growing volume of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Approximately 20 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) are produced from burning a gallon of gasoline and 22 pounds of CO2 are produced by burning a gallon of diesel fuel.
As if this weren’t bad enough, U.S. airlines (burning jet fuel, another fossil fuel) reported a seasonally-adjusted all-time monthly highs in passenger enplanements, Revenue Passenger-Miles (RPMs) and Available Seat-Miles (ASMs). Systemwide passenger enplanements in April (65.4 million) exceeded the previous record the previous month – March 2015 – by 0.4 percent. Systemwide RPMs in April – 73.8 billion – exceeded the previous systemwide RPMs in March 2015 by 0.4 percent.[U.S. DOT Bureau of Transportation Statisitics]
Air travel has been reported as America’s “biggest carbon sin”. It just got bigger! Shame, shame ….
Why Have Our Commercial and Public Media (TV, Radio, Newspapers, Magazines, Online Sources) and Officials in Federal and State Government in the United States Not Sounded the ALARM Yet on Continued Global Warming and Climate Change?
The following is a summary of a 2008 international conference entitled: “ENVIRONMENT: FROM GLOBAL WARNINGS TO MEDIA ALERT” that was held October 10 and 11, 2008, in Venice, Italy. The purpose of the conference was to challenge the international media to improve public understanding of the impact of climate change. Journalists and news executives from 29 countries representing six continents attended the conference which was held by the international World Political Forum (WPF).
Unfortunately, now almost five years after this conference was held, commercial and corporation funded TV and radio media in these United States continue to purposefully ignore said challenge by not sounding the alarm on the global warming world catastrophe in the making, as do many U.S. publicly elected government officials in federal and state government, leaving the at large public in the U.S. as confused as ever over whether human activities such as fossil fuel burning: in power plants that produce electricity; in home and business heating (natural gas; oil; propane; electric baseboard); in motor vehicle travel and product shipping, via trucks, ships, pipelines (fueling lift stations), in airplanes and in trains; and in cement making and paving the landscape (fuel burning in earth moving equipment). Another significant contributor to the growing global warming crisis is continued deforestation, worldwide, and especially the deforestation of the tropics, where previously large reductions in of carbon dioxide (CO2) were being taken out of the air by the vegetation there – through the process of photosynthesis. Less green vegetation on Earth means increasing buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere and oceans, adding to warmer global temperatures. Methane gas (unburned natural gas) that is released from oil wells, livestock, and rotting biological matter (permafrost thawing) compound the problem that is resulting in what the scientific community has called “a potentially very dangerous situation for all humanity and life on Earth and lasting far into the future. Reason is that many positive (lead to more warming) feedbacks . One such warming feedback is the loss of Earth’s albedo, where a reduction in the area of snow-covered land, ice caps, glaciers or sea ice has a compounding effect on the initial warming. As the loss of “white” snow and ice cover (the albedo) continues, the amount of solar energy absorbed by the ocean increases, leading to more warming, which reduces the albedo on the planet even more, which causes more warming, and so on. A small amount of snow melt exposes darker ground which absorbs more radiation, leading to more snowmelt.
The effect is most vividly demonstrated by the decline in Arctic sea ice in recent decades.
As humans are continuing to do things that add more heat-trapping greenhouse gases (GHGs) to the Earth’s atmosphere, the result is that climates all around Earth have been measurably and significantly changing, mostly to the detriment of humans and animal life.
The global warming that has already taken place has caused Earth’s ocean levels to rise – due to thermal expansion from increasing water temperatures and from melting glaciers on Greenland, Antarctica, and Earth’s numerous mountain ranges.
Ocean water acidification has already taken place (a 33% increase) which has already lead to significant environmental, economic, and social cost. These effects of expected to continue unabated which is expected to worsen in time, with projected increases in monetary losses, damage, and loss of human and animal life due to worse and worse “natural” disasters.
As examples of recent catastrophes suspected to have been made worse as a likely direct consequence of rising average global temperatures (global warming): in 2015 heat waves in India and Pakistan killed 1,400 and 2,500 people; in 2013, the thirtieth named storm of the 2013 Pacific typhoon season, Typhoon Haiyan — known as Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines – with an estimated one-minute sustained winds of 315 km/h (196 mph; 170 kn), making the typhoon the strongest tropical cyclone ever observed based on one-minute sustained wind speed and the deadliest typhoon hitting the Philippines in recorded modern history, killing 6,300 people in that country alone (dozens of fatalities from the storm were also reported in Taiwan, China and Vietnam) and according to United Nation’s officials, about 11 million people were adversely impacted by the storm with many left homeless and an economic cost in the billions of dollars; in 2012, Hurricane Sandy, which remains the largest Atlantic hurricane on record (as measured by diameter, with winds spanning 1,100 miles (1,800 km)) is estimated to have caused monetary damages of over $68 billion and killed at least 233 people along its path on the eastern U S. seaboard including New Jersey and New York; and in 2005, Hurricane Katrina, the fifth hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, was not only the costliest “natural” disaster in the history of the United States. Total property damage from Hurricane Katrina was estimated at $108 billion; the hurricane and subsequent flooding took 1,833 human lives and an undetermined number of domesticated and wild animal lives.
Yet today, incredibly – almost six years later – there remain deniers of human-caused global warming and climate change, including our State of Wisconsin’s own U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, as well as announced U.S. presidential candidate and our current governor, Scott Walker, who continue to spread the false message that Earth’s climates have not been shown to have changed as a result of human activities, to the delight of corporations that are financially benefiting from continued and more fossil fuel burning, which releases carbon dioxide gas, the most abundant of the greenhouse gases, which compounds from year to year in the atmosphere and Earth’s oceans, leading to monumental negative consequences for humanity and other life forms on Earth.
WPF’s President Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991 when the party was dissolved, chaired the conference at which participants reached a consensus that the problem of climate change is “URGENT”.
“Time is running out,” Mr. Gorbachev said in his closing remarks. “The most efficient way to tackle the urgent environmental problems facing our planet is transparency, in which the media have a vital role to play. This means global glasnost.”
Climate experts and media delegates approved a declaration calling for higher standards of reporting on strategic options to avert irreversible damage to the Earth’s eco-systems.
Stressing the importance of well-informed public opinion, the declaration set out the following main recommendations:
– The media have the central role in ensuring that politicians, corporations, non-governmental organisations and scientists keep the general public informed about the latest facts and policy options regarding climate change. Civil society formation and action are essential components in deliberation on this issue.
– Journalists have a responsibility to improve their knowledge and skills in order to be able effectively to question government policy-makers, to distinguish facts from opinion or advocacy, and to evaluate scientific arguments from an independent viewpoint.
– Journalists and civil society should redouble their efforts to combat restrictive measures by governments on journalists reporting on their deficiencies in fighting environmental degradation or in informing the public about the dangers of climate change.
– Journalists should avail themselves of existing international databanks of validated statistics and scientific research on climate change.
– Scientists need to acquire improved communications skills to explain their findings in accessible terms and to build relationships of trust with the media.
– Media proprietors should be prepared to invest more resources in investigative reporting to allow specialist journalists to carry out serious and objective coverage of complex issues, based on a thorough understanding of good science.
– Editors should provide more space for in-depth treatment of environmental issues, not just on-line but in print and on air, and encourage innovative approaches that will grab the attention of the audience in a responsible, independent and non-sensational manner.
– Journalism training organisations should develop ever more sophisticated exercises to improve reporters’ skills in explaining complex scientific arguments. An international network should be created to share information about the availability of training courses and the development of new training models.
The Conference concluded on a positive note, declaring: “There is, however, cause for optimism if we act now. Numerous positive solutions to the global environmental change proposed by science and made possible by innovations in technology, the potential inherent in global civil society organization and by citizens’ groups everywhere in the world; and contributions from socially responsible business leaders can make it possible for us to provide for a decent and full life for all, and for generations to come, within the limits of our planet’s resources.”
Congressional Action or Inaction on Impacts of Climate Change on Undeveloped Countries?
If carbon dioxide (CO2) was as visible as the colors of Old Glory, the color of the sky would be predominantly red, white and blue. That’s because over the last 100+ years, the United States has contributed more CO2 to the atmosphere (now considered a pollutant since additional CO2 adds to the atmosphere’s “greenhouse effect”) than any other of the world’s countries, including China.
None of the CO2 and other greenhouse gases emitted to the atmosphere from fuel burning the world over escapes the atmosphere to become outerspace; rather, it becomes part of the mix of gases already present tin the atmosphere for hundreds of years, making for an ever stronger greenhouse effect over time. And because the heat is latent in its expression, the warming effect of the combined total of all additional greenhouse gases emitted to the atmosphere during the first 15 years of the current century has not been fully realized. The warming effects of the first 15 years of this century are mostly the result of increased fuel burning in motor vehicles and jet air travel the period 1970 – 2000, along with burning coal and natural gas in electricity providing power plants.
Although China has recently surpassed the U.S. in estimated annual CO2 emissions, the U.S. is still considered the world’s largest historical emitter of CO2. The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is important since any additional CO2 released to the atmosphere by fossil fuel burning adds to the strength of atmosphere’s greenhouse effect over time, adding to what would otherwise be a background concentration level of roughly 250 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere, the CO2 level present in the atmosphere prior to the initiation of wide spread fossil fuel burning which started during the Industrial Revolution. The presently now new globally averaged level of 400 ppm in the atmosphere is higher than at any other time in Earth’s history when humans were documented as being present. This is why the undeveloped countries of the world believe the United States has a special obligation to help their people cope with the impacts of the changing climate on them.
Next week, the Senate Appropriations Committee will consider the U.S. commitment to the Green Climate Fund for vulnerable people impacted by climate change. Are one of your senators on the congressional Appropriations Committee?
Pope Francis pointed out in his encyclical on ecology that it is the world’s poor who are bearing the brunt of climate impacts. As Americans, and as people of faith, we are obliged to advocate for those whose lives and livelihoods are threatened, and who cannot advocate for themselves.
The Green Climate Fund was conceived to help poor and vulnerable countries adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change like changing weather patterns, sea level rise, and extreme weather events while building more resilient societies. More than 30 countries have pledged $10.2 billion to get the fund up and running. President Obama has pledged $3 billion from the U.S., and requested the first installment of $500 million in this year’s budget. The U.S. Senate needs to deliver on that promise!
Old Glory saluted by first man on the moon.
Global Warming Deniers and All Fossil Fuel Users: You Are Collectively Putting Us All in Very Grave Danger!
Scientists:
2015 Still On Pace as Hottest Year On Record
The first five months of 2015 topped the warmest such period on record for the globe, according to a pair of recently released independent analyses from government scientists. Meanwhile, a third, separate analysis from the Japanese Meteorological Agency similarly found May 2015 to be the globe’s hottest May, topping May 2014 in records dating to 1891.
Global temperatures January-May 2015 exceeded 2010’s as the warmest first five months of any year, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) National Climatic Data Center noted that the first five months of 2015 nudged ahead of January-May 2010 by 0.09 degrees Celsius.
Record warm sea-surface temperatures in the northeast and equatorial Pacific Ocean, as well as areas of the western North Atlantic Ocean and Barents Sea north of Scandinavia contributed to the record warm January-May 2015, according to a recently released NOAA data set. The record global average warmth in the first five months of 2015 follows the record annual average global temperatures of all of 2014.
NASA’s analysis found the most pronounced warm anomalies in May 2015 were over the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere in two zones. One stretched from northern and central Russia into the Kara Sea, Barents Sea, northern Scandinavia westward toward northeast Greenland. Another was centered over northeast Alaska, and Canada’s Yukon and Northwest Territories stretching into the Beaufort Sea.
Record May warmth was also observed in parts of equatorial South America, southern Africa and The Middle East, according to NOAA. Spain tallied its second warmest May on record. Meanwhile, the heat wave death toll in India in the latter part of May topped 2,300, as was reported in a blog posting here last month that also reported on the death toll of Pakistan’s heat wave last month.
In fact, no U.S. corporation-funded major public media (T.V. or radio, including ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and NPR) devoted any of their prime time broadcasting in Madison, WI to this story. This is not surprising, of course, knowing that all the major media networks in the U.S., both public and private, as well as many U.S. politicians who claim they represent the public, depend heavily on monetary sources from the major automobile, trucking, airline and fossil fuel providers/refiners/distributors and fossil fuel related industries.
Nine of the ten warmest years in NASA’s 134-year database have occurred this century, with the exception of 1998, which featured the tail end of one of the strongest El Ninos on record.
The last year NASA’s data set of global average temperatures was cooler than average global was 1976.
- The last cooler-than-average month was over 21 years ago, February 1994. In the 449 months from January 1978 through May 2015, only 11 months have been cooler than average, according to the NASA data set.
NOAA says nine of 10 warmest 12-month periods have taken place over the past two years. This 12-month record for the globe has been either tied or broken each month from January to April 2015.
France to see worse heat wave than occurred in 2003 when thousands of people died. France’s southwestern Gironde region sweltered under 107-degree F. heat a day after Cordoba in Southern Spain recorded nearlt 111 degree temperatures.
For noncorporatized REAL news, see news schedule at WORT-FM Community Radio – Madison, Wisconsin, and Democracy NOW!.
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