As Tim Hurst is already reporting elsewhere on Red Green and Blue, the EPA has now declaratively, authoritatively stated that
Global Warming is a health hazard.
One of the nicer Friday News Dumps, this decision comes as a welcome and long overdue shift in government activity on carbon and other global warming gasses. The timing of the announcement, especially under the cover of Obama releasing torture memos from the Bush administration, is interesting — it’s already becoming a regular thing for this administration to give it’s opponents a few things to chew on in a very short period, and I would bet that many people are more fired up about the torture thing then this EPA ruling.
On the other hand: this is a big deal for everyone, be you tree-hugger or capitalist overlord, because the new set of rules for how the country is going to respond to the climate crisis is coming into focus.
The announcement come, by the way, almost two years to the day from when the Supreme Court ruled the the EPA was allowed to do something like this: regulate greenhouse gas emission if human health is endangered by global warming pollution. A Bush administration choose to sit on that ruling, and was reticent to make any move that would bring about a regulatory system on carbon, but an Obama EPA seems more willing and more able.
From pretty much every angle, this is a big victory for any environmentalist who thinks, like I do, that the government has been horribly negligent in moving on regulating carbon emissions. If Obama does nothing else for the cause of environmentalism, he will at least have moved us into a stage where we no longer wait around for corporations to decide they should probably do something. Enforcement is in, which means…
This ruling essentially guarantees a carbon cap and trade program of some sort.
For all those Wall Street types sitting around and waiting for a compliance market to bust open, this ruling means that the government has a green light to go farther and faster in regulating carbon emissions then ever before.
From Politico.com’s Lisa Lerer:
“It is now no longer a choice between doing a bill and doing nothing,” said Energy and Environment Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.). “It is now a choice between regulation and legislation. EPA will have to act if Congress does not.”
Obama’s administration has already stated that they want to get real climate legislation through before the big Copenhagen conference on carbon in December (which is sure to open up a whole new can of worms when it comes down to U.S. versus world). Maybe he can use this ruling as a stick to get congress moving: if you don’t do this voluntarily, the EPA will do it for you! And you wont like it!
Most if not all Republicans and a handful of Democrats in the House and the Senate are worried that a carbon cap and trade program is going to be more then the current economy can bear, and that any attempted turn around will be killed before it can ever get to its feet. There will still be quite a lot of fight on this over the upcoming months, and it will be interesting to see how much more the EPA has to flex their muscle and how much the legislative branch takes on themselves to get done.
Either way though, an open market on compliance carbon offsets isn’t going to develop until all the rules are set: this move by the EPA is a huge piece of that puzzle and should speed up the otherwise glacial pace that congress seems to deal with Climate Change issues — in turn opening up speculation.
Wall Street Pro and Con
And with speculation, as we all know, comes markets… and capitol. As much as my knee jerk reaction right now is away from the sort of free flowing speculative market that brought about the sub-prome housing crunch, there can be no doubt that markets in offsets will make building and creating offsets a more profitable endeavor. Which only continues my on-again, off-again relationship with money as motivating factor. So, as everyone gets either excited or incensed by this EPA ruling, look for another set of regulations that will be very interesting and very important: how will this administration police these new financial markets?
Image from Flickr user Cheezepie
all aboard the crazy train… woo woo… chugga chugga… woo woo
This is not a good thing. It will ruin our economy.
Awesome. Whether the skeptics like it or not, the science shows that this is needed.
I for one am celebrating this move by the EPA.
I guess the diseases the exact causes of which are undisclosed such as cancer, allergy, autism, and more, might take root in environment toxins in the air, water, food.
This will cause massive employment in long term sustainable green jobs that will stimulate the economy.
Massive savings in the health sector, a more productive workforce is a healthy workforce. It will be great for global cooperation with the US on all sorts of other issues. Fantastic decision.
Science (the part that many Climate Scientists are unaware of) shows that this will have no significant effect on climate. Economics predicts a devastating effect on prosperity.
Please take the time to look at the raw, unfiltered data regarding the earth’s climate. The global temperature trend since 1998 is down, not up. Global sea ice extent is above average. Sea level rise has stabilized. Look at the satellite data for each of these indicators of global climate change.
Climate changes more extreme than we saw in the 20th century have occurred before humans started causing CO2 levels to rise. Don’t be fooled, the disaster predictions are wrong.
For the past 15 years I believed global warming was caused by CO2. Now, I'm not so sure. It's looking more and more to be a natural phenomenon to me.
My interest in global warming and energy policy is so great I launched http://www.energyplanusa.com. I've waded through the wellspring of man-made global warming theory, the United Nation's IPCC reports, and conclude they lack the 'smoking gun' that proves global warming is man-made. The reports are jargoned-up and rely heavily on computer models that have not proven terribly prescient (similar, I'm afraid, to the ones that predicted the American economy was a perpetual motion machine). Most importantly man-made global warming theory ignores the fact that the earth cooled from the 1940s to 1970s, when CO2 was on the increase. It also ignores evidence from reliable studies. For instance, it's widely understood that the globe was warmer 1,000 years ago, when CO2 levels were normal, then it is today. Then, Vikings grew grapes in New Foundland and even named it Vinland. There are many examples of the Medieval Warming period, plus Roman Warming period, that need to be reconciled–not ignored–by man-made global warming proponents if they want me back in the fold.
I'm dismayed that my own party, the Democrats, the thinkers, have turned a scientific issue into religious zealotry where faith trumps facts. I'm also dismayed that the American press seems content with publishing hearsay, without backing up conclusions and presumptions with facts and evidence. Please, help me get at the truth. If anyone can provide the C02 smoking gun, I'd be greatly indebted.
Even if people really thought that climate change was a cyclical phenomenon or was caused by "sun spots", there is no doubt that ocean acidification caused by Co2 absorption is an enormous threat to the marine food chain and thus all life in the ocean. It is becoming so acidic that the shells of tiny crustaceans are being dissolved. Do these same folks conclude that is is safe to continue to spew toxic pollution into our air and our ocean indefinitely? Seems like a desperate attempt to protect the dominant religion of our age– economic growth. It is time to put the economy in it's place– it is not the source of life but merely a wholly owned subsidiary of the biosphere. It doesn't take complex graphics or computer models to feel confident about this. Just open your eyes.