City Newspaper Archives - 4/2007

ENVIRONMENT: Support bills on global warming

Published on Apr 17, 2007
Finally, we are beginning to understand that global climate change is the most urgent challenge faced by humankind, and that we are its cause. We have many to thank for opening our eyes to the devastation that has already begun, and for beginning to take some action: Al Gore, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the countries that participate in the Kyoto Treaty (the US does not), the State of California, and the increasing numbers of individuals who are changing their light bulbs to CFLs and are otherwise reducing their use of resources.

Our federal government has willfully obstructed dissemination of the politically inconvenient facts of global warming, as recently announced by the Union of Concerned Scientists. However, several bills are being considered in Congress which propose mandated reductions in carbon emissions. The strongest are S309, the Sanders-Boxer Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, and HR1590, the Waxman Safe Climate Act. These propose an 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions from 1990 levels by 2050. According to scientists, if we reduce emissions by this amount, we have a chance of averting the worst possible effects of global warming.

In spite of individual efforts, without federal legislation, big businesses - the largest emitters - have no incentive to clean up, and are in fact lobbying to maintain the status quo. We must urge our representatives to pass this legislation as a first step to even cleaner behavior.

Linda Isaacson Fedele, Turk Hill Road, Perinton