2008 Woodie Awards
Editor's Column: Government must take action on global warming
Issue date: 12/1/06 Section: Opinion
- Page 1 of 1
On Wednesday, representatives of 12 states and 13 groups argued before the Supreme Court that emissions greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide should be regulated by the federal government. The Clean Air Act allows the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate "pollutants," but greenhouse gasses, which are thought to cause global warming, are currently not defined as such. The Court's decision, which is scheduled to come sometime before July, could widely affect the government's regulation of automobiles, power plants, factories, and other facilities that produce carbon dioxide.
Governmental action on this important issue has been long overdue. The Bush administration has been notoriously inactive on the subject, as has the Republican-controlled Congress. Hopefully, the Supreme Court will make a decision that will lead to significant action being taken.
Deputy Solicitor General Gregory Garre, who represented the Bush administration before the Court on Wednesday, argued that the current definition of a pollutant should not be changed, because of "the substantial scientific uncertainty surrounding global climate change." In reality though, there is no uncertainty among scientists on the subject. As former Vice President Al Gore mentioned in his climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth, out of 928 peer-reviewed scientific articles about global warming that were surveyed, none of them expressed doubt that human activities were causing an increase in the earth's temperature.
Garre also warned against any regulation of greenhouse gas emissions because of a potential threat to the U.S. economy, 85 percent of which depends heavily on fuels that produce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses. However, action that has been taken around the world has proven that the economy and the environment do not need to be in conflict with each other. The Kyoto Protocol, drafted in 1997 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has so far been ratified by 163 states, including Canada, all of the Europe Union, and nearly every other developed nation in the world. If these countries can reduce harmful emissions without seriously affecting their economies, then surely the U.S. can too.
Ignoring the problem of global warming for the sake of the economy is an extremely shortsighted plan. Nicholas Stern, Great Britain's chief economist and former president of the World Bank, recently released a study about the effects that global warming could have on the worldwide economy. Stern argued that dangerous effects such as increased flooding and an increase in extreme weather patterns could reduce the global gross domestic product by as much as 20 percent. However, investing money to reduce problems now would pay back in the future; Stern estimates that money spent now could save up to five times that much in the future.
Hopefully the Supreme Court, as well as the Democrats who will take control of Congress in January, will heed warnings like this. Global warming is a real problem that we must act on as soon as possible. If we don't, the effects may be irreparable.
Governmental action on this important issue has been long overdue. The Bush administration has been notoriously inactive on the subject, as has the Republican-controlled Congress. Hopefully, the Supreme Court will make a decision that will lead to significant action being taken.
Deputy Solicitor General Gregory Garre, who represented the Bush administration before the Court on Wednesday, argued that the current definition of a pollutant should not be changed, because of "the substantial scientific uncertainty surrounding global climate change." In reality though, there is no uncertainty among scientists on the subject. As former Vice President Al Gore mentioned in his climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth, out of 928 peer-reviewed scientific articles about global warming that were surveyed, none of them expressed doubt that human activities were causing an increase in the earth's temperature.
Garre also warned against any regulation of greenhouse gas emissions because of a potential threat to the U.S. economy, 85 percent of which depends heavily on fuels that produce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses. However, action that has been taken around the world has proven that the economy and the environment do not need to be in conflict with each other. The Kyoto Protocol, drafted in 1997 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has so far been ratified by 163 states, including Canada, all of the Europe Union, and nearly every other developed nation in the world. If these countries can reduce harmful emissions without seriously affecting their economies, then surely the U.S. can too.
Ignoring the problem of global warming for the sake of the economy is an extremely shortsighted plan. Nicholas Stern, Great Britain's chief economist and former president of the World Bank, recently released a study about the effects that global warming could have on the worldwide economy. Stern argued that dangerous effects such as increased flooding and an increase in extreme weather patterns could reduce the global gross domestic product by as much as 20 percent. However, investing money to reduce problems now would pay back in the future; Stern estimates that money spent now could save up to five times that much in the future.
Hopefully the Supreme Court, as well as the Democrats who will take control of Congress in January, will heed warnings like this. Global warming is a real problem that we must act on as soon as possible. If we don't, the effects may be irreparable.
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