Climate Change: Endangering Our Future, Destroying Our Past
The large earthquake that struck central Italy on Monday is devastating not only for the immense human suffering—people killed and injured, and communities disrupted—but also for the priceless losses of Italian cultural heritage. The Italian Ministry of culture has reported that the earthquake damaged a number of buildings of immeasurable historical significance, including the Basilica di Santa Maria di Collemaggio—the site of a papal coronation in 1294—and an archway built in the 16th century to honor Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.
Unfortunately, historical sites throughout the world are suffering from similar irreparable damage. The difference: this damage is the result of the effects of global climate change, which, unlike earthquakes and other natural disasters, is traceable to human causes and is therefore preventable.
Historians, archeologists, and anthropologists around the world report that with each passing day the effects of global climate change are systematically destroying invaluable historical sites and artifacts. For example, rising average surface temperatures have caused the melting of polar ice, permafrost, and glaciers, resulting in the disruption of a number of sites, such as the frozen burial grounds of the Scythian warrior mummies in Mongolia, the cemeteries established by early whaling communities on …
On Tuesday, March 31, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) released a "discussion draft" of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 -- a climate change bill that will serve as the starting point for long-delayed congressional action on the world's most pressing environmental program. CPRBlog asked several Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholars to examine different aspects of the 648-page Waxman-Markey bill. This entry, by Alex Camacho and Holly Doremus, examines the bill's provisions on adaptation -- measures to prepare for the effects of climate change on species and ecosystems.
It’s heartening that the recently released Waxman-Markey climate change bill discussion draft includes a lengthy subtitle on Adapting to Climate Change. No matter how rapidly the world acts to reduce future greenhouse gas emissions, significant changes to global temperatures, sea levels, precipitation patterns, and ocean …
This item is cross-posted by permission from Legal Planet.
EPA is finally flexing its muscle on mountaintop removal mining, taking on the Corps of Engineers and stepping in for states that have been reluctant to attack the practice.
Mountaintop removal mining involves blasting the tops off of mountains, typically in Appalachia, to get at coal. The ecological problems are less about removal of the mountaintops than about the filling of valley streams with the excess spoils. The practice has been going on for more than 20 years with very little regulatory oversight and in apparent disregard of the Clean Water Act.
In 2002, the Bush administration gave the valley fills associated with mountaintop removal mining a semblance of legality by revising the regulations governing the issuance of permits for filling waters of the U.S. under section 404 of the Act to allow filling with overburden from …
On Wednesday, April 1, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Entergy vs. EPA, holding that it was permissible for EPA to use cost-benefit analysis as its method of regulatory analysis in devising a regulation on power plant water intake structures. Member Scholar Amy Sinden blogged on the decision that day, here. Member Scholar Thomas McGarity adds a thought:
One of the most significant problems with cost-benefit analysis is its tendency to "dwarf soft variables." These "soft variables" are things that have value to all of us but are not typically traded in markets and are therefore difficult to quantify in any rigorous way. A good example of a soft variable is the value of the aquatic organisms that are not directly consumed by humans but will, along with those that are consumed by humans, be destroyed under the technology that EPA approved under the cost-benefit …
The Bush Administration earned its reputation for being contemptuous of science. From suppressing an EPA global warming report so as not to put the federal government’s imprimatur on the scientific consensus that climate change was real and human-caused, to simply refusing to open an email containing formal scientific findings inconvenient to its policy objectives, the Bush crowd took manipulation of science to previously unknown extremes. But as CPR President Rena Steinzor points out, the Bush Administration didn’t invent the practice. Science and scientists have been under political pressure from a variety of sources and in a variety of ways for quite some time now.
That’s why the departure of the Bush political appointees who did the most egregious manipulating does not alone solve all the problems. In a letter sent today to John Holdren, the President’s top science advisor, Center for Progressive Reform …
On Tuesday, March 31, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) released a “discussion draft” of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 – a climate change bill that will serve as the starting point for long-delayed congressional action on the world’s most pressing environmental program. CPRBlog asked several Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholars to examine different aspects of the 648-page Waxman-Markey bill. This entry, by Nina Mendelson, looks at what the bill would do to reassert the right of citizens to bring suit – either against polluters or against recalcitrant regulators – to enforce the law’s provisions.
By setting solid targets for reducing global warming in a cap-and-trade system and including a host of other helpful provisions, the Waxman-Markey bill is a terrific first contribution to this Congress’s debate on climate change. A less obvious but …
On Tuesday, March 31, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) released a “discussion draft” of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 – a climate change bill that will serve as the starting point for long-delayed congressional action on the world’s most pressing environmental program. CPRBlog asked several Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholars to examine different aspects of the 648-page Waxman-Markey bill. Their detailed responses are posted individually on CPRBblog, but here are some highlights:
Citizen Suits. Member Scholar Nina Mendelson applauds the bill’s provisions on citizen enforcement suits. She writes, “Environmental statutes traditionally provide for citizen enforcement suits as a critical supplement to governmental enforcement, especially in a world of limited budgets…. Supreme Court decisions have, however, created uncertainty regarding when and which citizens can bring such suits to protect the environment, particularly in …
On Tuesday, March 31, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) released a "discussion draft" of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 – a climate change bill that will serve as the starting point for long-delayed congressional action on the world’s most pressing environmental program. CPRBlog asked several Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholars to examine different aspects of the 648-page Waxman-Markey bill. This entry, by Alice Kaswan, examines the bill’s implications for environmental justice issues.
Climate change legislation is obviously essential to protecting the planet from catastrophic global warming. But that’s not all it can do. The fundamental changes in our energy infrastructure that lie ahead provide the opportunity to achieve unfinished business. Climate legislation could not only allow us to achieve greater energy security, as the bill’s name suggests, it could also …
On Tuesday, March 31, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) released a “discussion draft” of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 – a climate change bill that will serve as the starting point for long-delayed congressional action on the world’s most pressing environmental program. CPRBlog asked several Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholars to examine different aspects of the 648-page Waxman-Markey bill. This entry, by Kirsten Engel, looks at how the bill’s cap-and-trade provisions would affect existing state and regional efforts – the “preemption” issue.
Perhaps one of the most-watched issues regarding federal climate legislation is how a cap-and-trade program established by such legislation would mesh with the existing and soon-to-be established state and regional greenhouse gas emission cap-and-trade programs. Currently, the United States has one regional cap-and-trade program up and running – the Regional Greenhouse Gas …
On Tuesday, March 31, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) released a “discussion draft” of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 – a climate change bill that will serve as the starting point for long-delayed congressional action on the world’s most pressing environmental program. CPRBlog asked several Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholars to examine different aspects of the 648-page Waxman-Markey bill. This entry, by Alice Kaswan, examines several issues in the bill, including the issue of co-pollutants (non-greenhouse gas, but nevertheless polluting, emissions), the need for state-federal partnership on transportation and land-use issues related to climate change, and the bill’s provision removing greenhouse gas emissions from EPA’s jurisdiction under the Clean Air Act but apparently allowing states to impose their own clean air requirements in some areas.
Representatives Waxman and Markey’s “discussion …
