[SustainableTompkins] Global Warming Fear Lights Fire Under Congress

[GayNicholson at aol.com]

"You can truly see that there is some melting going on,"  Senator Chambliss 
told the Associated Press after the trip. "When you see it,  all of a sudden 
you say, 'Hey, that issue that we've been talking about off and  on over the 
years, there really is something to it.'"
 
Global Warming Fear Lights Fire Under Congress  
By Zachary Coile 
The San  Francisco Chronicle  
Saturday 23 September 2006  
Washington - Congress, it appears, is channeling Al  Gore. After years of 
debating whether global warming was real or a hoax, the  House and Senate staged 
six hearings this week on how the government should  respond to climate 
change.  
And the Bush administration, which has downplayed the  threat of global 
warming during its six years in office, released a 244-page  strategic report this 
week laying out plans to address the rapid warming of the  planet.  
Critics say the White House and the Republican-led  Congress are not yet 
ready to take the politically difficult steps needed to  combat global warming - 
such as raising federal fuel efficiency standards or  capping greenhouse gas 
emissions by electric utilities and other industries, as  California did 
recently.  
But the mounting scientific evidence that human  activity is causing global 
temperatures to rise coupled with a growing public  alarm - fueled by former 
Vice President Gore's climate change documentary,  "Inconvenient Truth," this 
summer - has forced lawmakers to take up the issue.  
"Even on Capitol Hill, we have reached the tipping  point," said Philip 
Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust, an  environmental group.  
"George Bush's 'just say no' policy on global warming  is political history," 
Clapp said. "Every senator and member of the House knows  that at midnight on 
the day George Bush leaves office, a new administration,  whether it's 
Republican or Democratic, will be returning to the international  negotiating table 
on global warming."  
There are still many climate-change skeptics on  Capitol Hill. Among them are 
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., the powerful chairman  of the Environment and 
Public Works Committee, and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher,  D-Huntington Beach (Orange 
County), who has repeatedly stated that "global  warming is baloney."  
But many lawmakers, including conservative  Republicans who have opposed 
efforts to address climate change, are softening  their positions. Georgia 
Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss voted against a bill  last year by Sen. John McCain, 
R-Ariz., to cap emissions on greenhouse gases,  but his attitude shifted after 
joining McCain on a recent trip to Greenland to  see the vanishing polar ice. 
 
"You can truly see that there is some melting going  on," Chambliss told the 
Associated Press after the trip. "When you see it, all  of a sudden you say, 
'Hey, that issue that we've been talking about off and on  over the years, 
there really is something to it.'"  
But the emerging bipartisan consensus among policy  makers could be 
threatened by the squabbling between the two parties over the  issue.  
At a hearing Thursday before the House Government  Reform Committee on 
climate change research, the panel's ranking Democrat, Rep.  Henry Waxman of Los 
Angeles, blasted the Bush administration for stalling on the  issue for six 
years.  
"The administration has begun to change its rhetoric  on global warming. 
Unfortunately, it's only the rhetoric that is changing,"  Waxman said. "They are 
sticking with their policy of denying the urgency of the  problem and delaying 
any real action."  
But Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., who often bucks his  party on environmental 
issues, noted that efforts to boost fuel efficiency  standards for cars and 
trucks have been blocked by lawmakers of both parties  after heavy lobbying from 
the US auto industry and the autoworkers' union.  
"We can make it a partisan issue, and that's great  for an election, but it's 
not the truth," Shays said. "The truth is we need to  work together, 
Republicans and Democrats, to solve what is a huge problem."  
The biggest divide is between Republicans such as  Shays and McCain who want 
immediate efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and  White House officials 
and top GOP congressional leaders who back a much slower  approach.  
The administration's strategic plan for climate  change, announced Wednesday, 
calls for voluntary actions by industry to cut  emissions and government 
investments in research on promising technologies, such  as carbon sequestration. 
The report does not call for strict limits on  greenhouse gases but repeats 
Bush's call for reducing "greenhouse gas  intensity."  
Dr. David Kammen, director of the Renewable and  Appropriate Energy 
Laboratory at UC Berkeley, who testified at Thursday's  hearing, noted that reducing 
greenhouse gas intensity would actually allow  America to increase its emissions 
because intensity measures the growth in  emissions against the growth of the 
US economy.  
"Reducing intensity is a sham. It's a bookkeeping  trick because our overall 
energy use is still going up," he said. "We have to  turn it around, as 
California did. We have to have targets like an 80 percent  reduction. We will never 
get there with an intensity reduction."  
But Kammen said he was glad to see the growing  consensus among Republicans 
and Democrats in Congress that global warming is a  real problem that must be 
addressed.  
"This is incredibly heartening," he said. "The  approaches may differ and 
finger-pointing is part of the political process. But  I don't believe we would 
have had this hearing two years ago."  
------- 

----------------------------------------------------
Gay  Nicholson, Ph.D. 

607-533-7312 (home office)
607-279-6618  (cell)

1 Maple Avenue
Lansing, NY  14882
gaynicholson at aol.com

Sustainable Tompkins 
Program  Coordinator 
w_ww.sustainabletompkins.org_ (http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/) 

Southern Tier Energy$mart Communities
Regional  Coordinator
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County
615 Willow  Ave., Ithaca, NY  14850
agn1 at cornell.edu