The state that stands to suffer the most from human-caused global warming has elected leaders who want to stop efforts to avoid its inundation (see “Sea levels may rise 3 times faster than IPCC estimated, could hit 6 feet by 2100“). That’s true of the Governor and presidential hopeful (see “Jindal Tries to Block Climate Change Regulation“). It’s true of GOP Sen. Vitter who tried to block climate change response centers. We’ve known for a while that Sen. Landrieu wants to jettison cap-and-trade. Now we know she is joining Sen. Lisa Dirty Air Murkowski (R-AK) in her campaign to prevent Clean Air Act regulation of global warming pollution , as Brad Johnson reports in this Wonk Room excerpt:
Yesterday, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) has announced that she is the Murky Dem supporting the lobbyist-directed effort to prevent action by President Obama to slow global warming. Because she “believes the Clean Air Act is not meant to be applied to carbon dioxide emissions,” Landrieu is collaborating to craft what environmentalists are calling the Dirty Air Act:
“I am considering that right now,” Landrieu said when asked whether she backed Murkowski’s plan. “I have been working with her on it.”
Landrieu, like Louisiana’s Republican governor Bobby Jindal and Senator David Vitter, has pledged allegiance to the pollution interests who have given her over $1.5 million instead of her own people. Last month, Jindal “filed objections with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson” over the proposed climate rules, claiming the standards would have “profound negative economic impacts on the state of Louisiana.” In September, Vitter submitted an amendment to block funding for centers that study and prepare for the impacts of climate change.
Landrieu’s actions are quite simply morally indefensible. The Mississippi Delta is under extraordinary threat from global warming, as seas rise and storms intensify. According to a recent analysis published in Nature, “an additional 2 degrees of global warming” — to which our business as usual commits the planet — would cause “6 to 9 meters (20 to 30 feet) of long-term sea level rise,” which would “permanently submerge New Orleans and other parts of southern Louisiana.”
This is not just a future threat. Climate change significantly intensified Hurricane Katrina, which cost this nation $80 billion, killed thousands, and displaced a million people. As hurricane scientist Kerry Emanuel has explained, “Probably if Hurricane Katrina had happened in 1980, the levees would have held.”
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/ 2/ hi/ science/ nature/ 8467472.stm
Well, now I see why Bobby Jindal wants global warming. He wants a view of the ocean from his office! And the people of New Orleans and other cities be damned – or dammed.
But what about Senator Landrieu’s constituency – namely, the lobbyists of Washington D.C.? Will Capitol Hill become beachfront property too?
“Landrieu’s actions are quite simply morally indefensible.”
Perfect one-line summary.
Much of the Louisiana and coastal Texas workforce is employed by the oil refining and chemical manufacturing industries. Sen. Landrieu is attacking proposed global warming regulations wanted by her constituent industries by taking cover provided by Louisianan’s long held distrust and dislike for the EPA’s clean air legislation designed to control mostly ozone pollution. Landrieu and the industries are stating the proposed legislation as just another clean air rule without mentioning its purpose is to stop global warming.
This is a matter of disinformation. I think education of the public has a chance of really putting a fire under Landrieu if it is pointed out to that carbon dioxide caps are unlikely to make oil refining much more expensive; but they will cause a slow change from gasoline based transportation to biofuels or electric or natural gas based transportation. That is something I think locals can live with if not embrace when it comes to that or losing their coast.
Global Warming [GW] threatens to make the human race [Homo Sapiens] extinct within 50 years. GW is the ONLY subject anybody in Washington should be working on.
According to Tim Flannery, “Now or Never”, the population of humans is already 25% above the carrying capacity of the Earth. The “Green Revolution” made the situation worse.
Have you ever studied population biology? Populations of ALL species oscillate up and down, often wildly. Overpopulations result in population crashes.
THERE WILL BE A POPULATION CRASH. 6.7 Billion times 25% =1.7 Billion people.
Why would we want to ensure that the human race remains in existance? Is it so we have generations upon generations to pay for the enormous debt that America has incurred? I fail to see much needed evidence that anything we do (or not do) is adding to (or helping) this “global warming.” All this CHANGE isn’t worth it for the fraction of a percent of “global climate change” that has been recorded in the last 100 or so years. Can we get back to common sense?
By the way, has anybody tried to start a biofuel school bus on a cold winter day in Minnesota? It doesn’t work well because this “environmentally” safe fuel gels up and doesn’t work. How do you progressives like the thought of stranding a bus full of school kids in the middle of nowhere. It happens more than you think. It would be appreciated by all parents that the Progressive movement gets ahold of some common sense to the inferior products they are promoting. After all, you are trying to save human existance aren’t you?