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Saturday, June 30, 2012
When is the World Waking up to Global Warming - Examiner.com
When is the World Waking up to Global Warming
By Terrance H. Booth, Sr. â€" Tsimshian
It was sad to see a picture posting of a dead polar bear completely out of its environment completely devoid of any ice around its dead carcass. The poor animal travel far completely far away from its own environment and starved to death.
To us animals of nature are much like a relative and we as Natives acknowledge their presence among us and when we hunt animals for food we take time to thank our Creator. And we even talk to the animals on why we are taking its life to sustain us giving us life, warmth, comfort for we use its hide and bones in our artwork or in our clothing for warmth from winter coldness.
“Native American Bear Meaning - A quick list of keywords summoned by the tribal mind:
ï¶ Protection
ï¶ Childbearing
ï¶ Motherhood
ï¶ Freedom
ï¶ Discernment
ï¶ Courage
ï¶ Power
ï¶ Unpredictable
The bear has many meanings to the Indigenous of North American. Above all, bear meaning holds incredible influence and magnitude to the North American tribes. And although the bear is a profound Native American symbol of majesty, freedom and power it is far more. The spiritual connections made with the bear makes it a brother to the First People.
As a brother, the bear imparts this advice to both our ancestors and us today:
Because the bear is cautious, it encourages discernment to humankind.
Because of a fierce spirit, the bear signals bravery to those who require it.
Because of its mass and physical power, the bear stands for confidence and victory.
Because it prefers peace and tranquility (in spite of its size), Bear calls for harmony and balance.
I hope you have enjoyed these thoughts on bear meaning as they pertain to the Native American perspective.†[1]
SIGNS OF CHANGE CLOSE TO HOME
“Among the most alarming changes is the disappearance of native species. Caribou, long a staple of Inuit diet, are falling through once-solid sea ice. Polar bears are moving farther north, as are seals, who need the shelter of pack ice to give birth to their young.
As traditional Arctic species move north, new species are moving in. Grizzly bears have been spotted in territory once dominated by polar bears. Salmon, never before caught this far north, are making appearances in fishermen’s nets.
The changes make hunting and fishing very difficult. “Even with generations of indigenous knowledge available to the hunters and trappers of Sachs Harbor they are having a difficult time predicting when once-predictable seasonal migrations will occur,†says Jennifer Castleden, project officer for the International Institute of Sustainable Development.
Physical changes to the land include rising water and softening permafrost, which threatens to ruin house foundations and the one road that leads to the tiny community. Slumping, the collapse of land under the weight of newly thawed permafrost is also altering the look of the land along the coast.†[2]
LOCAL CHANGES HIGHLIGHT GLOBAL PROBLEMS
“Scientists and other project team members have traveled to Sachs Harbor four times in the past year to document climate changes recorded by the community. The result of their labor is a 42-minute video, narrated entirely by Sachs Harbor community members, detailing the drastic changes affecting this Arctic outpost.
In addition to the video, which will be released in November, project scientists will compile a detailed report on the value of traditional knowledge and local observations in documenting climate change.
“As far as we know, this is the only project of its kind in the Arctic,†said Castleden, who noted that news reports from eastern Arctic communities indicated similar patterns. Perhaps, she notes, this project will raise awareness of the need to document climate change in other parts of the Arctic.
“Climate change is a realityâ€"not a distant threat,†says Castleden. “This community is the ’canary in the coal mine’ of climate change.†“[3]
Ms. Watt-Cloutier said, Inuit are an ancient people. Our way of life is dependent on the natural environment and animals. Climate change is destroying our environment and eroding our culture. But we refuse to disappear. We will not become a footnote to globalization.
Climate change is amplified in the Arctic. What is happening to us now will happen soon in the rest of the world. Our region is the globes climate change barometer. If you want to protect the planet, look to the Arctic and listen to what Inuit are saying.
“The petition focuses on the United States of America because it is by far the largest emitter of greenhouse gases and it refuses to join the international effort to reduce emissions. The petition asks the Commission to hold hearings in northern Canada and Alaska to investigate the harm caused to Inuit by global warming. Specifically, the petition asks the Commission to declare the United States of America in violation of rights affirmed in the 1948 American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and other instruments of international law.
The petition urges the commission to recommend that the United States adopt mandatory limits to its emissions of greenhouse gases and co-operate with the community of nations to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system, the objective of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. As well, the petition requests the Commission declare that the United States of America has an obligation to work with Inuit to develop a plan to help Inuit adapt to unavoidable impacts of climate change, and to take into account the impact of its emissions on the Arctic and Inuit before approving all major government actions.
Dr. Anaya said, The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has previously addressed human rights cases submitted by Indigenous peoples seeking to protect their environment and ways of life. The Inuit petition is an opportunity for the Commission to make a significant contribution to the further evolution of international human rights law.†[4]
Is it enough to have in place institutions to study, to research, and put policies in place to supposedly curb global warming? How many more polar bears die out of their environment mearly looking for food to survive? To us Natives animals mean much more to us because we are close to them and live in the same environment as our relatives the animals co-exist and our cultures have stories about the animals that live with us. This writer was moved and hurt that a polar bear died and hope that in its death it speaks to us with a resounding voice to please do more so that our relative animals can maintain themselves in their environment. If the polar bear traveled far out of its domain for food think about the Indigenous who have to travel for their Native foods. I pray that we not only put institution in place to appease the Indigenous voice loud and clear. Listen to my relation, Anthony Marr: “A starved-to-death polar bear in a landscape devoid of ice. Stop debating whether global warming is real, and if real, whether it is caused by human activities, and do something about it. Do something about US!â€
1. http://www.whats-your-sign.com/native-american-bear-meaning.html
2. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2000/12/122900inuits.html
3. Ibib
4. http://inuitcircumpolar.com/index.php?ID=316&Lang=En
NBC Meteorologist On Record Heat Wave: "If We Didn't Have Global Warming, We ... - ThinkProgress
Tweet of the heat wave, from the National Weather Service:
How hot is it? It’s so hot that all-time records are being set in June: “Nashville has reached its hottest temperature on record…109 degrees at 314 pm. The previous all time record was 107 from July 27th and 28th of 1952.â€
Here is a great graphic via Capital Climate:
The U.S. surface temperature map from Unisys at 4 pm, June 29,2012, shows 100° temperatures stretching almost continuously from California eastward to the Carolinas.
NBC Meteorologist Bill Karins said on Friday , “We’ve never really seen a heat wave like this in the month of June.†Sadly, in a few decades this will just be considered a normal June (see below).
How hot is it? It is so hot that NBC Washington’s Chief Meteorologist, Doug Kammerer, explained on air “If we did not have global warming, we wouldn’t see this.â€
Like a baseball player on steroids, our climate system is breaking records at an unnatural pace (see “March Came In Like A Lamb, Went Out Like A Globally Warmed Lion On Steroids Who Smashed 15,000 Heat Records“). As Climate Central explains in its post, “Scorching June Heat Wave Puts 50 Million in U.S. on Alertâ€:
During the June 22-to-28 period, there were 2,132 warm temperature records set or tied in the U.S., compared to 486 cold temperature records. This includes 267 monthly warm temperature records, and 54 all-time warm temperature records.
For the year-to-date, warm temperature records have been outpacing cold temperature records by about 7-to-1.
In a long-term trend that demonstrates the effects of a warming climate, daily record-high temperatures have recently been outpacing daily record-lows by an average of 2-to-1, and this imbalance is expected to grow as the climate continues to warm. According to a 2009 study, if the climate were not warming, this ratio would be expected to be even. Other studies have shown that climate change increases the odds of extreme heat events and may make them warmer and longer lasting.
All-time records set Thursday included several in Kansas, where Norton Dam recorded a high of 118°F, beating the old record of 113°F set just a few days earlier. Dodge City, Kan., set a daily high temperature record with a mark of 108°F. That came one day after that town recorded its all-time highest temperature of 112°F, breaking the old record of 110°F, which had been recorded just two days earlier, on June 26.
Since the science of attributing extreme events to global warming is still emerging, scientists still disagree to what extent a specific event like this heat wave is driven by global warming. But two of the leading experts explain at RealClimate why even small shifts in average temperature mean “the probability for ‘outlandish’ heat records increases greatly due to global warming.†Furthermore, “the more outlandish a record is, the more would we suspect that non-linear feedbacks are at play â€" which could increase their likelihood even more.â€
Here’s a Stanford release for Climatic Change study (PDF here) I wrote about last year:
Stanford climate scientists forecast permanently hotter summers
The tropics and much of the Northern Hemisphere are likely to experience an irreversible rise in summer temperatures within the next 20 to 60 years if atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations continue to increase….
“According to our projections, large areas of the globe are likely to warm up so quickly that, by the middle of this century, even the coolest summers will be hotter than the hottest summers of the past 50 years,†said the study’s lead author, Noah Diffenbaugh, The study, based on observations and models, finds that most major countries, including the United States, are “likely to face unprecedented climate stresses even with the relatively moderate warming expected over the next half-century.â€
I interviewed Diffenbaugh for my book, Hell and High Water, and in 2008 wrote about his earlier work in a post titled, “When can we expect very high surface temperatures?â€
Bottom line: By century’s end, extreme temperatures of up to 122°F would threaten most of the central, southern, and western U.S. Even worse, Houston and Washington, DC could experience temperatures exceeding 98°F for some 60 days a year. And that’s not even the worst case, since it’s “only†based on the A2 scenario, 850 ppm.
The peak temperature analysis comes from a Geophysical Research Letters paper that focused on the annual-maximum “once-in-a-century†temperature. The key scientific point is that “the extremes rise faster than the means in a warming climate.â€
The definitive NOAA-led U.S. climate impact report from 2010 warns of scorching 9 to 11°F warming over most of inland U.S. by 2090 with Kansas above 90°F some 120 days a year with 850 ppm. By 2090, it’ll be above 90°F some 120 days a year in Kansas â€" more than the entire summer. Much of Florida and Texas will exceed 90°F half the days of the year. These won’t be called heat waves anymore. It’ll just be the “normal†climate.
And remember, high heat means dry areas become drier and humid areas become intolerable.
On our current emissions path, we may well exceed the A2 scenario and hit A1FI, 1000 ppm (see here). In a terrific March 2010 presentation, Climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe has a figure of what the A1FI would mean:
The time to act is yesterday.
Related Post:
- Science stunner â€" On our current emissions path, CO2 levels in 2100 will hit levels last seen when the Earth was 29°F (16°C) hotter: Paleoclimate data suggests CO2 “may have at least twice the effect on global temperatures than currently projected by computer modelsâ€
Global warming up to Denver - Pueblo Chieftain
DENVER â€" The Denver Nuggets want their top pick to get more seasoning overseas. Evan Fournier is ready to start his NBA career this fall.
Fournier, a 6-foot-6, 190-pound guard from France, was the 20th overall pick in Thursday’s NBA draft. The Nuggets drafted him with the idea of having the 19-year-old play one or two more years in Europe, but Fournier said he wants to stay here.
‘‘I want to play next season,’’ he said. ‘‘I don’t want to go back to Europe.’’
Fournier averaged 14.1 points and 3.2 rebounds playing for Poiters of the France Pro A League.
The Nuggets selected Fournier as well as Baylor forward Quincy Miller (38th overall) and Turkish big man Izzet Turkyilmaz (50th) with an eye to the future.
The Nuggets have 12 players under contract for the 2012-13 season. They have two restricted free agents, guard Rudy Fernandez and center JaVale McGee, and unrestricted free agent guard Andre Miller also is on the current 15-man roster.
Because of that, and the unexpected success the team had in 2011-12 despite an unsettled rotation during the lockout year, the team’s plan is to keep the roster intact.
‘‘It wasn’t a great year to evaluate your players and you have to give them more of a chance,’’ said Masai Ujiri, Nuggets vice president of basketball operations.
Denver got off to a strong start and finished 36-30 to grab the No. 6 seed despite trades and significant injuries to the core of the rotation. The emergence of rookie Kenneth Faried, their first-round pick in 2011, and a youthful roster focused Thursday’s draft strategy on the future, not next season.
‘‘With the way our team evolved and the way our guys responded down the stretch, it was a position we didn’t have to do anything unless it was going to make us better,’’ Nuggets President Josh Kroenke said. ‘‘It was something we wanted to give a chance to develop. The existing roster deserved a chance to compete together.’’
Fournier and Turkyilmaz join an organization that already has three foreign-born players on the roster â€" center Timofey Mozgov (Russia), forward Danilo Gallinari (Italy) and Fernandez.
The three selections make a young roster even more youthful. Denver was one of the youngest teams in the league last season and the second youngest behind Philadelphia to reach the postseason.
Stoffa: Global warming fears need to start cooling off - Iowa State Daily
Remember when Al Gore and the rest of the uber-environmentalists finally got the message out to the general masses that climate change would have a doomsday-like impact on the world? Remember when millions of people jumped on the green path because there was "proof" the world was in significant jeopardy in the near future?
Well, a great deal of the educating and informing to motivate the masses is really more fear-mongering than filled with proof. Those nifty flow charts and grand apocalyptic statements from environmentalists and climate specialists claiming they had the "truth" were more props and spin-doctoring for what I consider an impressive public relations campaign.
James Lovelock is a scientist and academic regarded by most involved in green movements as the godfather of global warming thanks to his studies and endorsement of the Gaia Theory: that the Earth operates as a single, living organism.
In a 2006 article in the Independent newspaper, Lovelock said, “Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.â€
Six years later, in an interview in April, Lovelock said he had been an "alarmist"; and with that understanding, much of the green movement could be seen in the same light.
He said the global climate models crafted since that old fear-mongering date of Y2K have not actually coincided with actual increases to temperatures.
This isn't to say temperature isn't very slowly rising across the globe or pollutants being released into the atmosphere don't need to be monitored and adjustments made to past practices; change needs to happen.
The bogeyman of global warming is being hyped-up a whole lot more than it is actually occurring. Part of the reason it appears global warming is having a grandiose effect all at once is because the PR campaign finally got enough celebrity oomph and regular news coverage to get folks to pay attention.
It is possibly as likely as the rest of the notions out there that temperature change that has been occurring is within natural variations for our planet. We have gained less than 1°C since 1900, and that increase isn't even consistent across the globe, as some areas have actually cooled, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Lovelock said, “One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don’t know it,†according to the MSNBC.com interview.
The problem is, the awareness of "truth" has been causing the general population to go overboard with all the "completely green is the only way to go" ideas.
A lot of people drinking the green Kool-Aid believe environmentalism in a manner akin to how many blindly follow many of the skewed interpretations of religious books. Just because someone you like says it doesn't make it any less likely to be an incorrect assessment.
Lovelock said green efforts are guilting people, much like many religions do, into actions that aren't necessarily needed or that even might be unnecessary all together. Our efforts into sustainable development â€" such as wind turbines, which Lovelock regards as a poor idea â€" are knee-jerk reactions; the realities behind much of our green energy efforts are simply inefficient pipe dreams.
Ocean levels are rising, and it is a threat to life as we know it, though not likely an excessively dramatic effect for many, many years. But those changes aren't necessarily global warming. Much of the recycling flimflam and messages that we must change now as the end is nigh are not backed by fact. It is a domino effect and lacks the numbers to back the claims.
Don't take my word for it, I'm still learning. However, do start reading and researching more, rather than just believing what talking heads or soundbites from the news toss out.
Take a look back on scientists and society 25, 50 or even 100 years ago to see how incorrect their findings were concerning a great many things; the same will be true 25, 50 and 100 years from now.
Don't believe the trendy green movement stuff just because someone made a nice argument. Challenge them to prove it with detail; understand that claims are not definitive.
Even if you don't immediately comprehend it all, take a little bit of time to check and see if you aren't falling for snake-oil salesmen tactics. Not everything about the need for green ideas are faulty, but a lot are just popularized, guilt-driven bandwagoning.
Friday, June 29, 2012
ExxonMobil CEO Defends Manmade Global Warming, Says Humans are Able to Adapt - DailyTech
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Manufacturers say Global Warming Law Hurts Business - Capital Public Radio News
The California Manufacturers and Technology Association report says AB 32 will substantially increase energy costs.  Association president Jack Stewart points to programs, including "cap and trade" that charge businesses for their emissions and the low carbon fuel standard, which requires increasing our use of renewable fuels, most of which will have to be imported.
STEWART:Â "It will have a dramatic impact on jobs by 2020. By that time we'll have lost 262,000 California jobs. When you put higher costs on families and businesses, economic activity slows. "
While there will be some costs from the law, the state agency implementing AB 32 says it will drive innovation and bring thousands of green jobs to the state.  A UC Berkeley report that finds it will directly generate more than 50,000 green jobs by 2020.
Dave Clegern is with the California Air Resources Board.Â
CLEGERN: "Historically these regulations have increased the choices that California have, they've cleaned up their air, and they've brought down the costs of that new technology."
Other studies have shown that manufacturers will initially see increased costs from the law, though those reports say it's too soon to make specific dollar projections.
Colorado: Global warming a factor in severe wildfires - Summit County Citizens Voice
Wildfire season getting longer, experts say
Firefighters in Summit County, Colorado, battle a small fire in late March, 2012, while standing on a berm of snow, a testament to unusually early wildfire conditions. Photo by Bob Berwyn.
By Bob Berwyn
SUMMIT COUNTY â€" A rapidly intensifying fire season across the West is a warning of what to expect in a world that’s heating up, according to a panel of climate scientists and environmental advocates who this week held a teleconference to point out links between global warming and wildfires.
“We know that climate is already warming. The disastrous fires we’ve seen fit into a pattern of increased fire risk … it’s a vivid image of what we can expect more of as the world warms more, said Princeton professor Michael Oppenheimer, a long-time member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“We’re seeing a window into what global warming really looks like. It looks like heat, it looks like fires,†Oppenheimer said.
He said most climate models agree that the American Southwest is particularly prone to increased dryness, along with warmer temperatures.
This year’s extremely early disappearance of the Rocky Mountain snowpack also meshes with forecasts that wildfire seasons will get longer. Already, snowpack across the West is melting on average about two week earlier than just a few decades ago.
Most climate models also predict more extremes, like the wild pendulum swing of the last two winters in Colorado, going from near all-time record snow to record drought in a span of just 12 months.
“As I sit here in Missoula, for once, we aren’t the ones who have smoke plumes rising in the distance,†said Steven Running, an Earth scientist at the University of Montana.
“It’s a weird situation. West of the Continental Divide, around Glacier, we had the wettest June on record. To the east, it’s dry … I’ve never seen that kind of proximity of extreme events in my life,†Running said. When we talk about extremes and climate change, we’re seeing this situations that are really quite unprecedented,†he added.
Speaking to an audience that included Easterners, Running explained that summer showers doesn’t make up for a dry winter.
“Summer rainfall does not really do much for our ecosystems here … it evaporates away that day … the story of fires starts with snowpack. Our ecoystems are carried by winter snowpack,†he said.
“When it melts earlier, it sets us up for a long, dry summer. If you have the winds, the ignition … there’s nothing humans can do to stop this kind of holocaust,†he said. “We have a situation where very early in the summer seeing conditions and fire behavior that we usually wouldn’t see until August.â€
Running went on to explain how warmer average temperatures, and the absence of extreme winter lows, have enabled bark beetles to start breeding earlier, killing more trees and exacerbating the fire danger.
39.586656 -106.092081
Filed under: climate and weather, Drought, Environment, forest fires, global warming, wildfires Tagged: | climate change, global warming, pine beetles, Wildfires
Thursday, June 28, 2012
McAbee: The reverse global warming dance - Summit Daily News
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Manufacturers say Global Warming Law Hurts Biz - Capital Public Radio News
The California Manufacturers and Technology Association report says AB 32 will substantially increase energy costs.  Association president Jack Stewart points to programs, including "cap and trade" that charge businesses for their emissions and the low carbon fuel standard, which requires increasing our use of renewable fuels, most of which will have to be imported.
STEWART:Â "It will have a dramatic impact on jobs by 2020. By that time we'll have lost 262,000 California jobs. When you put higher costs on families and businesses, economic activity slows. "
While there will be some costs from the law, the state agency implementing AB 32 says it will drive innovation and bring thousands of green jobs to the state.  A UC Berkeley report that finds it will directly generate more than 50,000 green jobs by 2020.
Dave Clegern is with the California Air Resources Board.Â
CLEGERN: "Historically these regulations have increased the choices that California have, they've cleaned up their air, and they've brought down the costs of that new technology."
Other studies have shown that manufacturers will initially see increased costs from the law, though those reports say it's too soon to make specific dollar projections.
West's wildfires a preview of changed climate-scientists - Reuters
* Environmental disaster fueled by global warming
* Wildfire smoke comparable to intense air pollution
* Fires can cause heart, lung, kidney, mental ailments
By Deborah Zabarenko and Laura Zuckerman
June 28 (Reuters) - Scorching heat, high winds and bone-dry conditions are fueling catastrophic wildfires in the U.S. West that offer a preview of the kind of disasters that human-caused climate change could bring, a trio of scientists said on Thursday.
"What we're seeing is a window into what global warming really looks like," Princeton University's Michael Oppenheimer said during a telephone press briefing. "It looks like heat, it looks like fires, it looks like this kind of environmental disaster ... This provides vivid images of what we can expect to see more of in the future."
In Colorado, wildfires that have raged for weeks have killed four people, displaced thousands and destroyed hundreds of homes. Because winter snowpack was lighter than usual and melted sooner, fire season started earlier in the U.S. West, with wildfires out of control in Colorado, Montana and Utah.
The high temperatures that are helping drive these fires are consistent with projections by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which said this kind of extreme heat, with little cooling overnight, is one kind of damaging impact of global warming.
Others include more severe storms, floods and droughts, Oppenheimer said.
The stage was set for these fires when winter snowpack was lighter than usual, said Steven Running, a forest ecologist at the University of Montana.
Mountain snows melted an average of two weeks earlier than normal this year, Running said. "That just sets us up for a longer, dryer summer. Then all you need is an ignition source and wind."
Warmer-than-usual winters also allow tree-killing mountain pine beetles to survive the winter and attack Western forests, leaving behind dry wood to fuel wildfires earlier in the season, Running said.
"Now we have a lot of dead trees to burn ... it's not even July yet," he said. Trying to stop such blazes driven by high winds is a bit like to trying to stop a hurricane, Running said: "There is nothing to stop that kind of holocaust."
Fires cost about $1 billion or more a year, and exact a toll on human health, ranging from increased risk of heart, lung and kidney ailments to post-traumatic stress disorder, said Howard Frumkin, a public health expert at the University of Washington.
"Wildfire smoke is like intense air pollution," Frumkin said. "Pollution levels can reach many times higher than a bad day in Mexico City or Beijing."
The elderly, the very young and the ill are most vulnerable to the heat that adds to wildfire risk, he said. The strain of fleeing homes and living in communities in the path of a wildfire can trigger ailments like post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety.
The briefing was convened by Climate Nexus, an advocacy and communications group. An accompanying report on heat waves and climate change was released simultaneously here. (Reporting By Deborah Zabarenko)
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Federal court upholds EPA's global warming rules - Denver Post
WASHINGTONâ€"A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the first-ever regulations aimed at reducing the gases blamed for global warming, handing down perhaps the most significant decision on the issue since a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that greenhouse gases could be controlled as air pollutants.
The rules, which had been challenged by industry groups and several states, will reduce emissions of six heat-trapping gases from large industrial facilities such as factories and power plants, as well as from automobile tailpipes.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington said that the Environmental Protection Agency was "unambiguously correct" in using existing federal law to address global warming, denying two of the challenges to four separate regulations and dismissing the others.
Michael Gerrard, director of the Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, said no one expected the "complete slam dunk" issued by the court Tuesday, and said the decision was exceeded in importance only by the Supreme Court ruling five years ago.
It also lands during a presidential election year where there are sharp differences between the two candidates when it comes to how best to deal with global warming.
President Barack Obama's administration has come under fierce criticism from Republicans, including Mitt Romney, for pushing ahead with the regulations after Congress failed to pass climate legislation, and after the Bush administration resisted such steps. In 2009, the EPA concluded that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare, triggering controls on automobiles and other large sources. But the administration has always said it preferred to address global warming through a new law.
Carol Browner, Obama's former energy and climate adviser, said the decision "should put an end, once and for all, to any questions about the EPA's legal authority to protect us from dangerous industrial carbon pollution," adding that it was a "devastating blow" to those who challenge the scientific evidence of climate change.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson called the ruling a "strong validation" of the approach the agency has taken.
The court "found that EPA followed both the science and the law in taking common-sense, reasonable actions to address the very real threat of climate change by limiting greenhouse gas pollution from the largest sources," Jackson said in a statement.
At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire last year Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said it was a mistake for the EPA to be involved in reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas.
"My view is that the EPA is getting into carbon and regulating carbon has gone beyond the original intent of the legislation, and I would not go there," he said.
The court on Tuesday seemed to disagree with Romney's assessment when it denied two challenges to the administration's rules, including one arguing that the agency erred in concluding greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare. Lawyers for the industry groups and states argued that the EPA should have considered the policy implications of regulating heat-trapping gases along with the science. They also questioned the agency's reliance on a body of scientific evidence that they said included significant uncertainties.
The judgesâ€"Chief Judge David Sentelle, who was appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan, and David Tatel and Judith Rogers, both appointed by Democrat Bill Clintonâ€"flatly rejected those arguments.
"This is how science works," the unsigned opinion said. "EPA is not required to re-prove the existence of the atom every time it approaches a scientific question."
Industry groups vowed to fight on.
"Today's ruling is a setback for businesses facing damaging regulations from the EPA," said Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers. "We will be considering all of our legal options when it comes to halting these devastating regulations. The debate to address climate change should take place in the U.S. Congress and should foster economic growth and job creation, not impose additional burdens on businesses."
Environmentalists, meanwhile, called it a landmark decision for global warming policy, which has been repeatedly targeted by the Republican-controlled House.
"Today's ruling by the court confirms that EPA's common-sense solutions to address climate pollution are firmly anchored in science and law," said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund.
The court also dismissed complaints against two other regulations dealing with pollution from new factories and other industrial facilities. The plaintiffs had argued that the EPA misused the Clean Air Act by only requiring controls on the largest sources, when the law explicitly states that much smaller sources should also be covered.
The judges, when presented with these arguments in February, cautioned the industry groups and states to be careful what they wished for. If EPA chose to follow the letter of the law, they said, greenhouse gas regulations would place even more of a burden on industry and other businesses.
Lawyers for the various states said that if that were to occur, Congress would pass a law to stop it.
Citing a "Schoolhouse Rock" video, the judges in their opinion reminded petitioners that "It's not easy to become a law." They even provided a link to the popular video that explains how bills become laws.
"We have serious doubts as to whether ... it is ever 'likely' that Congress will enact legislation at all," they said.
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Follow Dina Cappiello's environment coverage on Twitter (at)dinacappiello
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Online:
U.S. Court of Appeals: http://1.usa.gov/OmJOVb
Are Colorado's wildfires caused by global warming? - Christian Science Monitor
The wildfires devastating Colorado have been linked to a streak of unusually hot weather, but they that does not necessarily mean that global warming is the culprit.Â
Devastating wildfires scorching the state of Colorado are linked to a nasty streak of hot weather across the central part of the country, but it's tougher to link them definitively to global warming, climatologists say.
Skip to next paragraphEarlier research has found broad trends linking earlier spring weather, rising temperatures and increased forest fires, suggesting that climate change may play a role in fires like the Waldo Canyon blaze outside of Colorado Springs, which has burned more than 18,000 acres and consumed about 300 homes here. But linking a specific fire to the long-term trend of global warming isn't possible.
"You can't say it's climate change just because it's an extreme condition," said Colorado state climatologist Nolan Doesken. So far, Doesken told LiveScience, the spring of 2012 looks much like the spring of 1910, when warm temperatures hit early. That year, he said, was a bad one for fires. [Images: Devastating Colorado Fires]
Fire weather
The Waldo Canyon fire began on June 23 and has ripped through neighborhoods west of Colorado Springs, destroying a yet-unreleased number of homes. Just 130 miles (209 kilometers) to the north, the High Park wildfire outside of Fort Collins is well into its second week and has burned more than 87,000 acres. That fire killed one 62-year-old woman who was caught in her home.
Other significant fires in the state include a 300-acre blaze 1.5 miles (2.4 km) outside of Boulder, a 9,168-acre blaze near Mancos in the southwestern part of the state and a 23,400-acre wildfire in rugged terrain in the San Juan National Forest, also in the southwestern part of the state.
The immediate driver of these fires is a lack of moisture and a ridge of heat that has settled over the central United States, said New Jersey state climatologist Dave Robinson, who also directs the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University. After record snowpack last year, the Rocky Mountains did a 180 this year, Robinson said, seeing little moisture and early snowmelt.
"March and April are supposed to be your snowy months [in Colorado], and they weren't," Robinson told LiveScience. "Thus, the fire danger."
Meanwhile, a high-pressure system in the central part of the country is preventing cloud formation and allowing the sun to bake the ground, heating things up. On Tuesday (June 26) alone, 251 daily heat records were broken across the nation, according to the National Climatic Data Center. In the past week, more than 1,000 new daily heat records were put on the books. [The World's Weirdest Weather]
Climate change connection
Is global warming fueling Colorado's wildfires? - Mother Nature Network
DENVER â€" Devastating wildfires scorching the state of Colorado are linked to a nasty streak of hot weather across the central part of the country, but it's tougher to link them definitively to global warming, climatologists say.
Earlier research has found broad trends linking earlier spring weather, rising temperatures and increased forest fires, suggesting that climate change may play a role in fires like the Waldo Canyon blaze outside of Colorado Springs, which has burned more than 18,000 acres and consumed about 300 homes here. But linking a specific fire to the long-term trend of global warming isn't possible.
"You can't say it's climate change just because it's an extreme condition," said Colorado state climatologist Nolan Doesken. So far, Doesken told LiveScience, the spring of 2012 looks much like the spring of 1910, when warm temperatures hit early. That year, he said, was a bad one for fires. [Images: Devastating Colorado Fires]
Fire weather
The Waldo Canyon fire began on June 23 and has ripped through neighborhoods west of Colorado Springs, destroying a yet-unreleased number of homes. Just 130 miles (209 kilometers) to the north, the High Park wildfire outside of Fort Collins is well into its second week and has burned more than 87,000 acres. That fire killed one 62-year-old woman who was caught in her home.
Other significant fires in the state include a 300-acre blaze 1.5 miles (2.4 km) outside of Boulder, a 9,168-acre blaze near Mancos in the southwestern part of the state and a 23,400-acre wildfire in rugged terrain in the San Juan National Forest, also in the southwestern part of the state.
The immediate driver of these fires is a lack of moisture and a ridge of heat that has settled over the central United States, said New Jersey state climatologist Dave Robinson, who also directs the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University. After record snowpack last year, the Rocky Mountains did a 180 this year, Robinson said, seeing little moisture and early snowmelt.
"March and April are supposed to be your snowy months [in Colorado], and they weren't," Robinson told LiveScience. "Thus, the fire danger."
Meanwhile, a high-pressure system in the central part of the country is preventing cloud formation and allowing the sun to bake the ground, heating things up. On Tuesday (June 26) alone, 251 daily heat records were broken across the nation, according to the National Climatic Data Center. In the past week, more than 1,000 new daily heat records were put on the books. [The World's Weirdest Weather]
Climate change connection
Climate models predict that in a warming world, the West and Southwest will become drier and hotter â€" conditions ripe for wildfires. Whether recent hot summers and active fires are a sign of the change already happening is still under debate, though.
"Some would say there is a pattern, because we have had several years with exceptionally large fires over western states, particularly the Southwestern states, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Colorado in particular," Doesken said. "Others would say, no, not enough data points yet to show that."
This year has been extreme in terms of heat and dryness, he said, as was 2002 (a record-breaking year for fires in Colorado). So far, 2012's weather looks very similar to the weather of 1910. That year, spring was warm and dry, which fed into a hellish fire season. Among the blazes was the Great Fire of 1910, also known as "the Big Burn," which destroyed 3 million acres of forest in Washington, Idaho and Montana.
Some studies do suggest that climate change is already affecting western wildfires. In 2006, researchers at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in California analyzed 1,166 fires between 1970 and 2003 and found a dramatic increase in fire potency in the late 1980s. Though wildfire is a natural part of the western landscape, the researchers concluded that a warming climate was ramping up warm winters and springs, exacerbating natural fire cycles.
More recently, an analysis of 1,500 years of fire and tree-ring data revealed that a combination of climate change and human forest use could explain modern "megafires," the kind that destroy large swaths of forest. Fires were associated with a dry year following several wet years, because the moist periods allow undergrowth to spring up and provide fire fuel in dry years, researchers reported in May in the journal The Holocene. The study found that human activities such as livestock grazing and suppression of small fires compounded the problem, creating denser forests ripe for large blazes.
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.Â
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Is Global Warming Fueling Colorado Wildfires? - LiveScience.com
 |
| "There's quite a fire burning west of Fort Collins, Colorado. It created some pretty spectacular views as the setting sun shone through the clouds and smoke," Brian Emory who took this shot of the High Park Fire on June 10, 2012, wrote on his Flickr page. CREDIT: Brian Emory |
DENVER â€" Devastating wildfires scorching the state of Colorado are linked to a nasty streak of hot weather across the central part of the country, but it's tougher to link them definitively to global warming, climatologists say.
Earlier research has found broad trends linking earlier spring weather, rising temperatures and increased forest fires, suggesting that climate change may play a role in fires like the Waldo Canyon blaze outside of Colorado Springs, which has burned more than 18,000 acres and consumed about 300 homes here. But linking a specific fire to the long-term trend of global warming isn't possible.
"You can't say it's climate change just because it's an extreme condition," said Colorado state climatologist Nolan Doesken. So far, Doesken told LiveScience, the spring of 2012 looks much like the spring of 1910, when warm temperatures hit early. That year, he said, was a bad one for fires. [Images: Devastating Colorado Fires]
Fire weather
The Waldo Canyon fire began on June 23 and has ripped through neighborhoods west of Colorado Springs, destroying a yet-unreleased number of homes. Just 130 miles (209 kilometers) to the north, the High Park wildfire outside of Fort Collins is well into its second week and has burned more than 87,000 acres. That fire killed one 62-year-old woman who was caught in her home.
Other significant fires in the state include a 300-acre blaze 1.5 miles (2.4 km) outside of Boulder, a 9,168-acre blaze near Mancos in the southwestern part of the state and a 23,400-acre wildfire in rugged terrain in the San Juan National Forest, also in the southwestern part of the state.
The immediate driver of these fires is a lack of moisture and a ridge of heat that has settled over the central United States, said New Jersey state climatologist Dave Robinson, who also directs the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University. After record snowpack last year, the Rocky Mountains did a 180 this year, Robinson said, seeing little moisture and early snowmelt.
"March and April are supposed to be your snowy months [in Colorado], and they weren't," Robinson told LiveScience. "Thus, the fire danger."
Meanwhile, a high-pressure system in the central part of the country is preventing cloud formation and allowing the sun to bake the ground, heating things up. On Tuesday (June 26) alone, 251 daily heat records were broken across the nation, according to the National Climatic Data Center. In the past week, more than 1,000 new daily heat records were put on the books. [The World's Weirdest Weather]
The weather is getting stranger, right? Well, for the most part no, scientists say, but humans often think so when a strange event does occur. So here’s your chance to prove how much you known about weather oddities.
Questions
Climate change connection
Climate models predict that in a warming world, the West and Southwest will become drier and hotter â€" conditions ripe for wildfires. Whether recent hot summers and active fires are a sign of the change already happening is still under debate, though.
"Some would say there is a pattern, because we have had several years with exceptionally large fires over western states, particularly the Southwestern states, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Colorado in particular," Doesken said. "Others would say, no, not enough data points yet to show that."
Graph shows the number of acres burned annually in U.S. wildfires
CREDIT: Karl Tate, LiveScience.com Contributor
CREDIT: Karl Tate, LiveScience.com Contributor
This year has been extreme in terms of heat and dryness, he said, as was 2002 (a record-breaking year for fires in Colorado). So far, 2012's weather looks very similar to the weather of 1910. That year, spring was warm and dry, which fed into a hellish fire season. Among the blazes was the Great Fire of 1910, also known as "the Big Burn," which destroyed 3 million acres of forest in Washington, Idaho and Montana.
Some studies do suggest that climate change is already affecting western wildfires. In 2006, researchers at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in California analyzed 1,166 fires between 1970 and 2003 and found a dramatic increase in fire potency in the late 1980s. Though wildfire is a natural part of the western landscape, the researchers concluded that a warming climate was ramping up warm winters and springs, exacerbating natural fire cycles.
More recently, an analysis of 1,500 years of fire and tree-ring data revealed that a combination of climate change and human forest use could explain modern "megafires," the kind that destroy large swaths of forest. Fires were associated with a dry year following several wet years, because the moist periods allow undergrowth to spring up and provide fire fuel in dry years, researchers reported in May in the journal The Holocene. The study found that human activities such as livestock grazing and suppression of small fires compounded the problem, creating denser forests ripe for large blazes.
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.Â
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World Cooling To Global Warming - Canada Free Press
World’s Lakes Show Global Temperature Standstill
| | - Guest Column  Thursday, June 28, 2012 (0) Comments | Print friendly | Email Us |
Politicians, today, have predictably “walked away†from the issue of global warming. In retrospect we have to ask why this mass illusion, the transition to “a new ecological society†imploded and fell off the teleprompters, off the front pages, and out of the seemingly endless TV special reports on threatened polar bears and collapsing ice cliffs. How could this all disappear so fast?â€"Andrew McKillop, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 28 June 2012
To be sure, the serried ranks of corporate profiteers from the global warming surge are still in the “shock†phase, following the effective collapse of what was going to be so big. Their business models had to be changed, on paper and in press releases at least. Unwinding their trading and investment positions, re-jigging their portfolios will take time - so for a while longer Big Business still plays carbon correct. Rather surely, however, corporate spin doctors are now at work to reconstruct the past in order to cancel the global warming business future.â€"Andrew McKillop, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 28 June 2012
As the climate-change theory crumbles, expect its supporters to be more vocal in its defence, more insistent that the science is ironclad. Like the cultish followers of any faddish religion when it nears the end of its fashionableness, they will proclaim their views even more vociferously and denounce more forcefully all those who disagree. But increasingly, their warnings of impending doom and their character attacks on their opponents will be performed before empty houses, as in Rio.â€"Lorne Gunter, Toronto Sun, 27 June 2012
The anti-global-warming crusade against carbon-based energy is the latest assault on progress and improvement. Zubrin is correct to call the climate-change movement a “global antihuman cult.†Its assaults against dissent, embrace of messianic leaders, and apocalyptic scenarios reveal a debased religious sensibility rather than scientific rigor.â€"Bruce Thornton, City Journal, June/July 2012
The paper by Schneider et al 2012 has the clever idea of looking at the temperatures of lakes and reservoirs around the world. They provide data for 169 of the largest inland water bodies world- wide using three satellite-borne instruments. Together they provide daily to near-daily data from 1981 through to the present, allowing them to calculate 25-year trends of nighttime summertime/dry-season surface temperature. My preliminary calculations suggest that there is no statistically significant trend post-1997. Hence an alternate description of their findings is that the world’s large bodies of water show the well known standstill of the past decade or so seen in global temperatures.â€"David Whitehouse, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 27 June 2012
Between 1985 and 2011, global electricity generation increased by about 450 terawatt-hours per year. That’s the equivalent of adding about one Brazil (which used 485 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2010) to the electricity sector every year. And the International Energy Agency expects global electricity use to continue growing by about one Brazil per year through 2035.â€"Robert Bryce, National Review, 27 June 2012
Brit global warming skeptics now outnumber believers - Register
Fewer Britons than ever support the proposition that global warming is caused by human-driven CO2 emissions, according to the latest survey.
Some 48 per cent of Britons now agree with the suggestion that warming could be "mostly natural" and that the idea of it being human-caused has yet to be proven. By comparison only 43 per cent agree with the idea that warming is "mostly" caused by industrial and vehicular CO2 emissions.
In Canada the ratio is 58:34 in favour of the mamade warming hypothesis, while in the USA it's a tie.
Only 43 per cent of Britons think we should get poorer in order to protect the environment. The numbers have actually moved very little since November 2009, but believers are now in the minority.
The studies were conducted by Angus Reid and surveyed four thousand people in the USA, Canada and the UK.
The UK is only one of three countries in the world to pass legislation mandating CO2 reduction, and the issue dominated the media agenda between 2006 and the Copenhagen Summit in 2009. So the UK is unique amongst the three countries surveyed, in giving its population saturation exposure to the climate change issue, and early exposure to CO2 mitigation policies.
It would seem that the more people hear the arguments and study the policies, the less they like them.
You can download the PDF, with results and methodology, here. ®
Power for World Poor More Pressing Than Emissions: Exxon - Businessweek
Supplying electricity to the “billions of people living in abject poverty†is a more important goal than curbing greenhouse-gas emissions, Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) (XOM) Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson said.
Electricity will do more to improve the quality of life for people who still cook food by burning animal dung than trying to prevent climate change, which will be “manageable,†Tillerson said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York today.
Environmental groups and scientists are urging reductions in the use of fossil fuel-fired power plants, the largest man- made source of greenhouse-gas emissions tied to global warming. Tillerson said other issues should take precedence.
“There are much more pressing priorities that we, as a human race, need to deal with,†he said. The world’s poorest residents “don’t even have access to fossil fuels to burn. They’d love to burn fossil fuels because their quality of life would rise immeasurably.â€
People will adapt to rising sea levels and changing weather patterns resulting from climate change, he said.
“Increasing CO2 emissions in the atmosphere will have a warming impact,†Tillerson said. “It’s an engineering problem and it has an engineering solution.â€
Farmers may shift crops to new regions as temperatures rise. “As a species, that’s why we’re all still here,†he said. “We adapt.â€
Exxon Mobil, under prior CEO Lee Raymond, funded groups that questioned the impact of global warming. Since Tillerson took over the company in 2006, he has spoken more openly about climate change.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jim Polson in New York at jpolson@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Susan Warren at susanwarren@bloomberg.net
Federal court upholds EPA's global warming rules - The Journal News | LoHud.com
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Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Global warming 'manageable', says Exxon chief - Financial Times
Global warming is a “manageable†problem, but will require policy changes to adapt to its effects, the chief executive of ExxonMobil, the largest US oil and gas producer, has said.
Rex Tillerson said at a meeting at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York that climate change was a “great challengeâ€, but it could be solved by adapting to risks such as higher sea levels and changing conditions for agriculture.
“As a species that’s why we’re all still here: we have spent our entire existence adapting. So we will adapt to this,†he said. “It’s an engineering problem, and it has engineering solutions.â€
Exxon, the world’s largest oil company by market capitalisation, has long been attacked by environmental campaigners for its stance on climate change.
Lee Raymond, Mr Tillerson’s predecessor as chief executive, questioned whether the earth was really warming, and said the attempt to limit greenhouse gas emissions “defies common senseâ€.
Mr Tillerson, who took over at the start of 2006, has modified that position, but continued to be sceptical about the benefits of plans to cut emissions.
Speaking on Wednesday, Mr Tillerson said: “Clearly there’s going to be an impact. I’m not disputing that increasing CO2 emissions in the atmosphere ... will have a warming impact.â€
However, he added: “How large it is what is very hard for anyone to predict. And to tell you how large it is then projects how dire the consequences are.â€
He said Exxon had for many years been involved in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN-backed scientific body that reviews and assesses information about the climate, and funding research, but said climate modelling still contained large uncertainties.
“The competences of the models are not particularly good,†he said. “Our ability to predict with any accuracy what the future’s going to be is really pretty limited.â€
He added: “In the IPCC reports ... when you predict things like sea-level rise, you get numbers all over the map. If you take what I would call a reasonable scientific approach to that, we believe those consequences are manageable. They do require us to begin to spend more policy effort on adaptation.â€
He said there were other issues that were “much more pressing prioritiesâ€, including poverty, which could be relieved by access to electricity and fossil fuels for cooking, to replace traditional sources such as animal dung.
“There are more people being dramatically affected because they don’t have access to fossil fuels to burn. They’d love to burn fossil fuels, because their quality of life would rise immeasurably,†he said.
Under Mr Raymond, Exxon provided grants to several think-tanks and other groups that challenged the need to curb greenhouse gas emissions to avert the threat of global warming.
While Mr Tillerson has been CEO, most of that funding has been cut.
One remaining grant was the $50,000 that Exxon gave last year to the Heritage Foundation, which promotes a range of conservative and free-market policies, including the argument that “the costs of cutting greenhouse gas emissions, most notably carbon dioxide, far outweigh any benefits for individualsâ€.
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Rep. Sullivan's vanquisher: Global warming needs 'clearer evidence' - The Hill (blog)
Jim Bridenstine, the Republican who beat sitting GOP Energy and Commerce Committee member John Sullivan (R-Okla.) in Tuesday’s primary, will join the ranks of House members who are skeptical of climate change.
The Hill’s Emily Goodin has more on Sullivan’s loss here. Here’s what Bridenstine, a Navy pilot, has to say about climate change on his website:
While the environment should be protected and global warming studied, global warming should not drive national energy policy without clearer evidence.
Bridenstine, who will be heavily favored in the general election, is poised to win a House seat at a time when Republicans are seeking to overturn EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases.
A federal appeals court upheld EPA’s climate rules Tuesday, reviving GOP calls for congressional action to block the regulations. Sullivan voted with other Republicans last year to overturn EPA’s climate regulations.
The overwhelming majority of scientists say the planet is warming and that human activities â€" including the use of coal and oil â€" are a key reason why. A very small minority call data on warming trends inaccurate or inconclusive.
The vanquished Sullivan is the vice chairman of the Energy and Power subcommittee.
He’s the main House backer of legislation that would provide billions of dollars in tax credits to spur conversion to natural gas in heavy trucking fleets, but the plan, which a suite of conservative groups oppose, has stalled and faces dim prospects.
Here’s more from Bridenstine’s website on his approach to energy:
Energy reform should reduce our dependence on foreign oil while increasing access to various forms of clean energy. To quickly reduce our dependence on foreign oil, Congress should lift restrictions on clean drilling in our own territory. Natural gas, wind, solar, nuclear, and geothermal energy are viable alternatives to crude oil, and the free market has the capacity to advance these technologies.
Cap and Trade legislation will tax fossil fuels, raise energy prices, and force consumers into alternative fuels prematurely. Controlling markets in this fashion is not an appropriate role of government and cripples the economy.
Federal court upholds EPA's global warming rules - KTVB
Associated Press
Posted on June 26, 2012 at 2:01 PM
Updated yesterday at 2:02 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) â€" A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the first-ever regulations aimed at reducing the gases blamed for global warming, handing down perhaps the most significant decision on the issue since a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that greenhouse gases could be controlled as air pollutants.
The rules, which had been challenged by industry groups and several states, will reduce emissions of six heat-trapping gases from large industrial facilities such as factories and power plants, as well as from automobile tailpipes.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington said that the Environmental Protection Agency was "unambiguously correct" in using existing federal law to address global warming, denying two of the challenges to four separate regulations and dismissing the others.
Michael Gerrard, director of the Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, said no one expected the "complete slam dunk" issued by the court Tuesday, and said the decision was exceeded in importance only by the Supreme Court ruling five years ago.
It also lands during a presidential election year where there are sharp differences between the two candidates when it comes to how best to deal with global warming.
President Barack Obama's administration has come under fierce criticism from Republicans, including Mitt Romney, for pushing ahead with the regulations after Congress failed to pass climate legislation, and after the Bush administration resisted such steps. In 2009, the EPA concluded that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare, triggering controls on automobiles and other large sources. But the administration has always said it preferred to address global warming through a new law.
Carol Browner, Obama's former energy and climate adviser, said the decision "should put an end, once and for all, to any questions about the EPA's legal authority to protect us from dangerous industrial carbon pollution," adding that it was a "devastating blow" to those who challenge the scientific evidence of climate change.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson called the ruling a "strong validation" of the approach the agency has taken.
The court "found that EPA followed both the science and the law in taking common-sense, reasonable actions to address the very real threat of climate change by limiting greenhouse gas pollution from the largest sources," Jackson said in a statement.
At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire last year Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said it was a mistake for the EPA to be involved in reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas.
"My view is that the EPA is getting into carbon and regulating carbon has gone beyond the original intent of the legislation, and I would not go there," he said.
The court on Tuesday seemed to disagree with Romney's assessment when it denied two challenges to the administration's rules, including one arguing that the agency erred in concluding greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare. Lawyers for the industry groups and states argued that the EPA should have considered the policy implications of regulating heat-trapping gases along with the science. They also questioned the agency's reliance on a body of scientific evidence that they said included significant uncertainties.
The judges â€" Chief Judge David Sentelle, who was appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan, and David Tatel and Judith Rogers, both appointed by Democrat Bill Clinton â€" flatly rejected those arguments.
"This is how science works," the unsigned opinion said. "EPA is not required to re-prove the existence of the atom every time it approaches a scientific question."
Industry groups vowed to fight on.
"Today's ruling is a setback for businesses facing damaging regulations from the EPA," said Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers. "We will be considering all of our legal options when it comes to halting these devastating regulations. The debate to address climate change should take place in the U.S. Congress and should foster economic growth and job creation, not impose additional burdens on businesses."
Environmentalists, meanwhile, called it a landmark decision for global warming policy, which has been repeatedly targeted by the Republican-controlled House.
"Today's ruling by the court confirms that EPA's common-sense solutions to address climate pollution are firmly anchored in science and law," said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund.
The court also dismissed complaints against two other regulations dealing with pollution from new factories and other industrial facilities. The plaintiffs had argued that the EPA misused the Clean Air Act by only requiring controls on the largest sources, when the law explicitly states that much smaller sources should also be covered.
The judges, when presented with these arguments in February, cautioned the industry groups and states to be careful what they wished for. If EPA chose to follow the letter of the law, they said, greenhouse gas regulations would place even more of a burden on industry and other businesses.
Lawyers for the various states said that if that were to occur, Congress would pass a law to stop it.
Citing a "Schoolhouse Rock" video, the judges in their opinion reminded petitioners that "It's not easy to become a law." They even provided a link to the popular video that explains how bills become laws.
"We have serious doubts as to whether ... it is ever 'likely' that Congress will enact legislation at all," they said.
___
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___
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U.S. Court of Appeals: http://1.usa.gov/OmJOVb
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