Today was day two of a global warming one-two punch in the Washington Post. Yesterday, the Washington Post had a story describing how energy companies are coming to terms with the fact that greenhouse gas emissions will be regulated in the United States. Today's Washington Post story describes some of the global warming impacts being seen in the United States and the rest of the world.
{I am not Congressman Kennedy; crossposted at my blog BlueClimate}
As the Bush administration debates much of the world about what to do about
global warming, butterflies and ski-lift operators, polar bears and
hydroelectric planners are on the move.
In their separate ways, wild creatures, business executives and regional
planners are responding to climate changes that are rapidly recalibrating their
chances for survival, for profit and for effective delivery of public
services.
Butterflies are voting with their wings, abandoning southern Europe and
flying north to the more amenable climes of Finland. Ski-lift operators in the
West are lobbying for leases on federal land higher up in the Rockies, trying to
outclimb snowlines that creep steadily upward.
Polar bears along Hudson Bay are losing weight and declining in number as the
ice shelf melts and their feeding season shrinks. Power planners in the Pacific
Northwest, which gets three-quarters of its electricity from hydroelectric dams,
are meeting in brainstorming sessions and making contingency plans for early
snow melts, increased wintertime rainfall, lower summertime river flows and
electricity shortfalls during hotter, drier summers.
It is becoming harder and harder to ignore the impacts of global warming. Today's Post story discusses a wide range of global warming impacts. The impacts are real and are happening now. The one concern I have with today's Washington Post story about impacts is that it did not convey the sense of danger many scientists feel we are in unless we take meaningful action soon. A participant in a recent meeting of scientists and others, convened by Yale's Project on Climate Change, expressed fear of a "ruined world" if we don't act.
There is little doubt that global warming will be on the agenda of the 110th congress. With incoming leaders like Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer replacing Republican Senator James Inhofe as chairperson of the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works that is assured. Senator Boxer has stated that global warming legislation will be one of her priorities. The fact that the Washington Post, the hometown newspaper of the United States federal government, has two major stories in a row on global warming is evidence that global warming is about to become part of the mainstream political debate in the United States. The fact that some of the solutions to global warming will involve cutting our dependence on middle eastern oil is also a factor favoring more attention to the subject, especially given the deteriorating situation in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.
However, if the past is any guide, making legislative progress on global warming will not be easy. Not all of the remedies that would make us less dependent on middle eastern oil are also part of the solution to global warming. Drilling in Anwar or off of the Gulf Coast may offer a little relief from our foreign oil dependence but they do not contribute to a solution for global warming. Building new dirty coal power plants, as the utility TXU plans to do, certainly does not contribute to a global warming solution. Coal to diesel is not a solution to our climate change problem. All of these domestic fossil fuel activities, drilling for more oil in the United States, dirty coal power plants, coal to diesel, can contribute to making us less dependent on middle eastern oil and they all have their supporters in and out of elected office and even within both political parties. However they are not solutions to the global warming problem.
Solutions to global warming include significant increases in energy efficiency in buildings, appliances and in industrial machinery. Also included are renewable energy sources such as biomass (the more carbon neutral the better), solar, wind, geothermal and hydroelectric power. New nuclear power plants may be part of the mix. Certainly more fuel efficient automobiles are essential. These technologies help us fight global warming and reduce our dependence on middle eastern oil.
As the debate on global warming in congress and hopefully in the Presidential primaries and the 2008 elections progresses, it will be important to keep in mind the distinction between solutions to our dependence on middle eastern oil and solutions to global warming. Sometimes the solutions overlap and sometimes they don't. The global warming debate and the energy independence debate will probably be swept up together by the obvious need for a new energy policy in the United States. Our current energy policy is unsustainable for environmental reasons and for national security reasons and must change. I am looking forward to January, the 110th congress and the coming debate.