Comments on: Endangerment finding clears White House review

By: Wilmot McCutchen

Wilmot McCutchen — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:52:06 +0000

Jeff makes a good point: the last thing we need is for this to become another “save the snail darter” hysteria, with the media interviewing the Sierra Club instead of climate scientists. Public support for serious action is the objective, not a forum for compassion venting.

Given that it is an emergency, requiring an alarm, there should be a plan of action as well. A realistic plan, not more lofty goals and hopes.

One concrete step toward a solution of the CO2 crisis in the US would be to embark on something resembling the federal highway system: a modern national grid. The FERC is not enough. We need a much stronger cabinet-level agency (away from DOE), with the power to sweep aside parochial obstacles and environmental hold-ups to improved capacity and transmission lines. It would involve a comprehensive inventory and strong federal regulation of electric power resources in the US, instead of the hodge-podge so slackly supervised by local PUCs and cynically gamed by players like Enron.

By: David B. Benson

David B. Benson — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:40:13 +0000

Harrier — Certainly not monsoons. The flooding is do to faster temperature rises in the spring, so all the snow melts at once.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:14:02 +0000

I’m a bit split on the idea of announcing this finding on Earth Day.

Though it is certainly a step in the direction of ’saving the Earth’, it risks, in my opinion, further strengthening the association of CO2 regulation and emissions mitigation with ‘environmental’ causes.

Many people see environmental issues as luxury concerns, often abandoned in tough economic times.

Anthropogenic climate change threatens all systems – eco, financial, health, etc.
Reinforcing its association with environmentalism is a bit counterproductive, i’d say.

Joe, any thoughts about this in terms of effective messaging?

By: Sasparilla

Sasparilla — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:57:55 +0000

Nice to see the White House moving forward in a controlled rational manner on this. Definately looking forward to next week.

By: Gail

Gail — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:46:53 +0000

Another one this morning:

http://news.yahoo.com/ s/ ap/ 20090415/ ap_on_re_mi_ea/ ml_iraq_marshes_in_peril

By: Dan Galpern

Dan Galpern — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 05:43:23 +0000

The decoupling of the endangerment finding from proposed regulations is regrettable, given the urgency of the climate crisis and the availability of the Clean Air Act to begin restricting GHG emissions. Further, the endangerment finding should be based on black carbon emissions as well as the six GHGs of concern to date to the UNFCCC.

We made these points last week in a letter to EPA. See the link under “recent news” at http://www.westernlaw.org.

By: Harrier

Harrier — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 03:22:39 +0000

The flooding in the midwest has me wondering: are we seeing the start of some kind of monsoon system developing there? Flooding has been increasingly prevalent there over the past few years.

By: Gail

Gail — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 01:53:41 +0000

oh, go eat shoot and leave!

Joe (Romm),

I was just reading about once-again cresting floods approaching Fargo.

I get so fed up with the reluctance of scientists (although I do respect why!) to link extreme weather with climate change.

How about a sidebar that keeps track of these sorts of weather events that are, at the least, predicted by the climate models? One commenter here mentioned wildfires going on in Texas right now, and there are the various water shortages.

Perhaps compiling the widespread occurrence of such events in one easily accessible link would be useful.

Just a thought.

By: Gary Herstein

Gary Herstein — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 01:40:00 +0000

“wing-nut tea baggers” is redundant; “go totally bonkers” is a tautology.

By: Gail

Gail — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 01:34:04 +0000

Ecostew, what am I missing?