The Bush administration decided that the EPA didn’t have the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, and the DC Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with them in what can only be described as a travesty of legal reasoning. Fortunately a coalition of 12 states, 3 major cities and others are fighting this decision and are seeking review by the Supreme Court to have it overturned:
WASHINGTON, DC, March 6, 2006 (ENS) – A coalition of 12 states, three major cities, one island government and several environmental groups Friday petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower court ruling that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not have to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants.
The coalition, led by Massachusetts, is asking the court to review a decision issued last year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. EPA. That ruling let stand the EPA’s refusal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.
Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly and the other parties argue that “this case goes to the heart of EPA’s statutory responsibilities to deal with the most pressing environmental problem of our time.”
The most pressing environmental problem? I say the most pressing problem — period. Which, of course, is why Bush, Cheney and their supra national “energy” company cronies has done absolutely nothing to solve it, and have, in fact, worked overtime to make it harder to solve.
More on the consequences of Bush’s (and our) failure to act to stop global warming follow below the fold . . .
Let’s hear what the parties to this lawsuit have to say about EPA’s refusal to comply with the law:
“Scientists are clear about the danger that global warming poses to public health and the environment,” said New Jersey Attorney General Zulima Farber.
“What also is clear, and what was affirmed by two prior EPA general counsel, is that EPA has authority to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming,” Farber said. “We cannot permit EPA to walk away from its responsibility in this critical area.”
“Global warming is one the biggest threats facing the planet and we cannot delay action,” California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said. “Left unchecked, it can cause devastation to our economy, public health, natural resources. It is time for the Environmental Protection Agency to step up and fulfill its responsibility to fight this problem.” […]
“The lower court’s blatant punting on global warming is a travesty. Despite the plain and simple language of the law the lower court refused to act,” said John Stanton, vice president for the National Environmental Trust, one of the environmental groups petitioning the Supreme Court. “It’s time for the nation’s highest court to correct the lower court and take on global warming.”
“Global warming is real, it’s happening now and President [George W.] Bush has the legal authority to regulate the pollution that’s causing it. He just doesn’t want to,” said Stanton. “The Supreme Court must overturn the lower courts judicial activism and give this case a proper hearing.”
They are right, of course. There are consequences to our actions folks, and consequences to our government failing to act. Lasting consequences. Dumping unprecedented amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is beginning to take it’s toll, even as we speak.
Trees in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness are changing so rapidly, scientists say that within 50 years the wilderness could look completely different. Cold-weather pine and birch species that are the hallmark of Minnesota’s boreal forests are dwindling. In their place, hardwoods, more common to central Minnesota, are popping up. Changes are also taking place in central and southern Minnesota woods. Scientists think global warming is changing, perhaps forever, the state’s forests. […]
That’s a sobering prospect for scientists and naturalists. It’s also worrisome for people like John Rajala, who makes his living off the forests.
“We’re concerned,” says Rajala. “But we’re not overly concerned with what we’re seeing.”
Rajala is a fourth generation woodsman based in central Minnesota. His family’s business owns 30,000 acres of forest land, most of it in Itasca County.
Rajala says success in the wood products business depends on high quality trees, like white birch, which have been more difficult to find in recent years. […]
It’s not just the northern Minnesota timber industry that’s noticing the effects of the warmer winters. Southern Minnesota fruit tree growers have also noticed changes.
Ralph Yates, who farms 200 acres of apples near La Crescent in southeastern Minnesota, says the mild weather has brought more unwanted pests to his orchards.
“These populations aren’t knocked as heavily as they would be in a traditional Minnesota winter,” says Yates.
“So the populations are there in greater numbers in the spring, which means we’re gonna have to put greater effort into controlling these pests, greater expense, greater use of crop protection materials,” he says.
In other words, more pesticides.
Think about that for a moment. More pesticides means more pollution in our groundwater and in the foods we consume, and greater health risks for our elderly and our children and all those whose bodies cannot endure further chemical assaults on their organs and immune systems. It means more destruction of ecological balance, and more loss of species, both plants and animals.
But maybe you have more crass interests that will be effected by global warming. Are you interested in buying beachfront property? One word of advice: Don’t.
A legislative committee interested in protecting North Carolina’s beach communities heard today that global warming means trouble for barrier islands.
East Carolina University geologist Stanley Riggs says the rising sea levels are coming at a time of booming development boom along the coast. Riggs says less-intense development is needed to protect the island chains. The Legislative Commission on Global Climate Change is examining if or how North Carolina should prepare for a warming planet.
And if you like participating in winter sports in your leisure time, you may have to head to Canada in the future to enjoy them:
Talk about slushy skiing. Oregon State University researchers say global warming may make for more rain and less snow during the winter in the Pacific Northwest.
If average temperatures rise two degrees as predicted, ski resorts in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and parts of Montana could see a lot more rainfall in the winter over the next 40 years.
Popular ski resorts such as Mount Hood Meadows could see rain instead of snow about seven times more often during the winter and Willamette Pass may see it 22 times more often.
The region has already experienced some of the largest declines in snowcap in the Western United States. But the OSU researchers say they’ve now been able to identify more precisely where the snow may disappear.
I know for a fact that snowfall where I live has diminished significantly. The ski areas around here are all hurting, and my friends that like to cross country ski are suffering from withdrawal symptoms. Indeed, this has been one of the warmest winters on record in Upstate New York, continuing a trend of steadily rising winter temperatures over the last decade.
Yet, our Republican rulers ignore the evidence that our climate is rapidly changing, and smear the scientists who speak out about the dangers of global warming, labeling them propagandists and extremists. Despite this intimidation, scientists continue to report the fact that global warming is all too real:
OSLO, March 6 (Reuters) – Evidence that humans are to blame for global warming is rising but governments are doing too little to counter the threat, the head of the United Nations climate panel said on Monday. […]
“If one looks at just the scientific evidence that’s been collected it’s certainly becoming far more compelling. There is no question about it,” he told Reuters of research since 2001 into a link between human emissions of greenhouse gases and rising temperatures. […]
Pachauri said the world needed to do more.
“Given the gravity of the situation and the importance of taking action I hope that the global community will move a little more rapidly with some future agreements,” he said.
The U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol, which obliges industrial nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions, entered into force last year after years of wrangling and weakened by a U.S. pullout.
Pachauri said people living in island states such as the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, Tuvalu in the Pacific or low-lying countries such as Bangladesh were among those most at risk.
“They are living in a state of fear,” he said. “We must understand the reasons behind their fears. We’re really talking about their very existence, the complete devastation of the land on which they’re living.”
[b]And cities from New York to Shanghai, from Buenos Aires to London, could also be swamped by rising seas.[/b]
“But oh,” the Republicans and their bought and paid for “experts” say, “isn’t the economic cost of dealing with green house emissions too devastating to implement?” Well, not really:
The IPCC report says that costs of curbing greenhouse gases in the toughest case could delay world growth from reaching projected 2050 levels until 2051 or 2052.
“That’s not a heavy price to pay,” he said in a speech at Oslo university. “Personally I think these (IPCC) projections are pessimistic.”
I believe those projections are pessimistic as well. Indeed, new technologies to clean and protect our environment could be an economic boon, if government and industry would get behind the research and investment necessary to make them feasible. Cleaning up after our mess isn’t necessarily a losing proposition economically speaking. It doesn’t have to be a win-lose game. It can be a win-win, where both our economy and our planet benefit.
But that would take real leadership, and vision, a quality which has always been noticeably lacking in the Bush family. Instead he would rather his friends in the oil business and in Saudi Arabia garner record profits while endangering the health and safety of everyone on the planet, but most especially our children and grandchildren to come. They are the ones who will inherit the environmental catastrophe that 8 years of Bush malfeasance will have wrought.
Just one more reason to impeach added to the pile. And one more reason to vote these Republican bastards out of office this Fall.
Cross-posted at Daily Kos.
