Ya gots to love the New York TImes and their wonky ways. Initially, their front page lead story stated "9 States in Plan to Cut Emmissions by Power Plants that Cause Global Warming." Sorry, no screen shot, because the headline changed in the time it took to go to the story, write the previous post, then go back. However, the story is pure Grey Pink Lady.
Officials in New York and eight other Northeastern states have come to a preliminary agreement to freeze power plant emissions at their current levels and then reduce them by 10 percent by 2020, according to a confidential draft proposal.
The cooperative action, the first of its kind in the nation, came after the Bush administration decided not to regulate the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Once a final agreement is reached, the legislatures of the nine states will have to enact it, which is considered likely.
Yup, it is all Bush’s fault. Remind me, what did Clinton do? Actually, most Conservatives should agree with this, and, being a big environmentalist myself, and one who does believe that man has an impact on the global temperatures, I still agree with what the Bush admin hasn’t done. I do not like so much government input. This should be a State’s Right issue, in relation to the power plants. Funny how, when the Feds do not do anything, the States get off their butts and do it. Kinda makes one wonder why the States didn’t do it on their own previously, huh? California, Washington, and Oregon are in preliminary discussions to do the same, according to the article.
The nine states in the Northeastern agreement are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont. They were brought together in 2003 by a Republican governor, George E. Pataki of New York, who broke sharply and openly with the Bush administration over the handling of greenhouse gases and Washington’s refusal to join more than 150 countries in signing the Kyoto Protocols, the agreement to reduce emissions that went into effect earlier this year.
The Times might want to mention that the US Senate voted 98-1 against Kyoto in 1999. Clinton didn’t push for it. Even Al Gore, Mr Environmental, didn’t push it. Bad for the country.
Mr. Pataki, who may be considering a run for the Republican nomination for president, has refrained from criticizing President Bush directly, but he has repeatedly said that the states need to act on their own even if the Bush administration has not made the issue a priority.
States should take it upon themselves. The Federal gov’t takes too many powers on for itself to start with.
Let me make something clear. I believe that man is having an impact on the environment and world temperatures. It infuriates me to no small degree when people poo poo the influence man has. The question shouldn’t be "does man have an impact," rather, it should be "what impact does man have?" There are many factors. Reports show that the Sun is putting out more heat over the past decades. The Earth itself goes through cycles of hotter and colder weather. But, there is no doubt in my mind that Man has an influence. Deforestation, CO2, ocean pollution, etc, have an impact. But how much? A little? A lot? Some? That is what we should be looking at.
I have never agreed with the Republican way of handling the environment. Yet, the Democrats are just as bad. Their solution is to throw money at it willy nilly, regulate to death, and sue. Half the EPA’s budget goes to litigation. Companies spend tons of money trying to comply with the regulations, then on their own lawyers when fined and sued. Why not take the money that would be used for the litigation from both sides, pool it with others in the same industry, and use it to develop long term measures? Be proactive, instead of reactive.
Ever see the movie "The Day After Tommorrow?" Once you get beyond the entirely to short time period and the overblown theatrics (also, the fact that in one scene the Gulf Stream is going the wrong way), it is real. If you melt glaciars and the polar ice caps (from many methods, which I won’t go into here, unless asked), you put more fresh water into the oceans, which kills plankton (which turn CO2 into oxygen), which causes temps to go up, which melts more glaciars and the ice caps, putting more fresh water into the oceans, which raises ocean levels, which kills plants on the shores and marshes, which means less CO2 conversion from plants, and so on, which ends in a change in the ocean circulatory patterns, too much cold, fresh water, which then leads to a dramatic cool down in the earths temperature, into an ice age.
Now, this happens anyhow. We go through cooler and hotter periods. It is the way of the Earth. The above scenario will probably not effect you or me during our life times, but, speaking for myself, I like nature, and I like clean air, water, and land. I like tree’s. I hate when people clear cut their properties, though, it is their property. I won’t bark at them. Doesn’t mean I have to like it. I like surfing without seeing empty hypodermic needles and blood bags in the water (that is a true story.) So, ask yourself "what is man’s influence, and what can we do about it?" We do not have to become super restrictive, or jack up prices. We can pool resources to make the necessary fixes.
Update: This article by the AP goes too far.
Within a century the melting could lead to summertime ice-free ocean conditions not seen in the area in a million years, the group said Tuesday.
This is what I mean by hysterical. Look, I’m no scientist, but I have taken classes and read enough to know that talk like that is absurd and over the top. You put that much fresh water into the oceans, and you can say hello to an ice age well before that happens. And mucho screwed up weather patterns. This kind of rediculous scare tactic is one of the reasons that environmentalists are looked at as wacko’s.
Don’t forget good old Al still signed Kyoto in the symbolic sense after the Senate voted to tell Kyoto to pound sand.
Ironically if the oceans cooled and became less salty it would increase the capacity of dissolved oxygen that could be stored in the ocean. Also you may kill plankton but you’d still have algae, you may get some large blooms but they can pump out a lot of oxygen durring the day.
Of course my firm makes money everytime there is a new regulation, but some of them just get annoying. For instance we have to deal with one board for arsenic pollution entering the aquifer, well where does it come from….its flippin naturally occuring (the basin is old seabed), its already in the groundwater so when you pump the groundwater up its there and then it goes back down as the water percolates. Another guy I’ve worked with had the same problem with selenium, which was also a naturally occuring, except they have to meet TMDL standards for some wastewater effluent and even using RO they can’t get it pure enough in high enough volume to dilute the creek they discharge into to have the creek meet the TMDL standard.
Oh and of course in the eyes of the wild eyed leftist environmental, I’m still the devel because we build things inorder to secure resources and support growth.
I have done some environmental restoration stuff on some old industrial parks for conversion to schools, and discovered why exactly we spend so much money on education and still have a metric buttload of dumbass kids.
Very true. I had forgotten about the algea blooms, been a LONG time since I did that paper in Grad school.
Of course that’s the Democrat solution — that’s their solution to EVERYTHING: Throw Money At It.
As for the gist of your post, if, by using the word “influence” you mean tiny, minute, almost unmeasurable points, but perhaps some, then I agree.
Think about it — short of nuclear weapons, how are you going to melt an iceburg? Do you realize the amount of effort that it takes to do that? And if you do melt one, how do you propose you stop it from freezing back? I don’t think we could melt the polar icecaps if we tried.
I think the earth is WAY more powerful than you suggest. Look at volcanos — one simply eruption can change temperatures and even climates around the world for years! Man cannot do that — we can’t even reliably predict when they’re going to erupt.
I’ll give you that man might have an effect on global warming, but that effect is so small that it cannot be measured, nor could we change it if we wanted to.
I see your points, Ogre, which is actually what I am looking for. Man has an influence, but is it so minor as to be negligible, or does it have a bigger effect, especially a long term effect that Earth cannot compensate for? While I do not believe the hysterical opinions from the left that we are all DOOMED!!!!, I do believe that there is a danger from what Man does.
I’ve noticed my own emissions over the years have gone from a milky white to an almost hoary grey, while the consistency, once thick and creamy is now runny and diluted. The liberals say make the government issue more stringent regs while conservatives say, Take matters in your own hand. For once, I have to agree with the conservatives.