Earth to Washington
NEWS: What will it take for DC to wake up to global warming?
By december 2007, Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) had been toiling on environmental and clean-energy legislation in Congress for three decades—and for the past few years, the task had increasingly come to feel like pushing a boulder up Capitol Hill. But that was then. Now Markey, a garrulous lawmaker with a thick Boston accent, was elated. As chairman of a new committee on energy independence and global warming set up by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he had helped pass a groundbreaking energy bill that would cut greenhouse emissions and boost fuel standards for the first time since 1975. The new standard—35 mpg by 2020—would eventually eliminate 190 million metric tons of global warming gases, the equivalent of getting rid of 28 million cars and trucks. The bill also required utilities to generate 15 percent of their electricity from renewables by 2020, increased building efficiency standards by 50 percent, and shifted tax breaks from Big Oil to renewables. With all this, Markey notes, the United States would have met 35 percent of the Kyoto Protocol's greenhouse targets by 2030—not bad, considering that Markey's global warming committee was less than a year old.
Then came the Senate. With President Bush threatening a veto, the Republicans filibustered, and the Democrats fell 7 votes shy of the 60 needed to bring the bill to a vote. Having stalled the measure, gop senators killed the renewable electricity standard, the tax breaks for alternative energy, and the building efficiency rules; only the automotive standards remained and became law. And as much as Markey was heartened by that change, he remains frustrated about the missed opportunity. "We were on the cusp of a huge victory," he says. "There was a real tragedy in that."
What went wrong? At a time when the phony debate over the science of global warming finally seemed done—and when many scientists were asserting that dramatic action was needed, now—why couldn't Washington do better?
To be sure, the political argument over climate change has shifted. These days, Republicans are no longer in lockstep denial about the reality of human-created climate change; instead, they dwell on the emissions of China and India and insist that reducing America's carbon footprint will wreak economic havoc. Still, global warming poses a fundamental ideological challenge to the gop, for it undermines the view that an unregulated market inevitably produces the best possible outcome. The belief that the government should not meddle with energy policy, Markey notes, "is deeply built into the dna of the Republican Party." (Some Democrats have been part of the problem too. Speaker Pelosi felt compelled to create Markey's climate committee in part because Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., who chairs the House energy and commerce committee, is practically welded to General Motors.)
But Washington's inertia goes beyond the usual problem of pols doing the work of industry pals. There are systemic factors keeping government from coming up with a far-reaching solution to a far-reaching problem. Long story short: Washington doesn't do bold well.
The nation's capital runs on compromise and favors incremental steps—and it tends to deal with what's immediate, not what's on the horizon. "It reacts best to crisis and emergencies," says League of Conservation Voters president Gene Karpinski. Environmental disasters can work wonders in propelling legislation: The Exxon Valdez spill brought new rules on oil transportation, Love Canal begat the Superfund law to clean up hazardous waste sites, and the Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal, India, brought mandatory disclosure of toxic emissions.
"With global warming, the biggest calamities come far too late," Karpinski says. "Washington has to change how it does business." And that means, foremost, change at the top: "You need the bully pulpit of the White House if you want to make fundamental changes in the economy that will affect just about every major industry."
Thomas Mann, a congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution, points out that it is "especially difficult to impose short-term costs for long-term gain. A large gas tax—with revenues used to subsidize low-income households and invest in a new green economy—could do wonders, but it is politically impossible at this time. The best we can expect for now [are] incremental steps redirecting tax subsidies from carbon-based fuels to renewable energy and major public investment in alternative-fuel research and development." And even that is going to be difficult in an atmosphere of hyperpartisanship, where difficult proposals are more likely to be treated as political ammunition than policy alternatives. "One party has to have a large margin of control," Karpinski says, "to cut through the political positioning."
And cut through the Senate. Because a 60-vote supermajority is required to end a filibuster, notes Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, "the question is always who will be the 60th vote, and that vote will determine how strong or weak a bill is."
Just getting the fuel-economy standards through the Senate was a monumental task, Becker recalls. "It took pressure from states [passing their own clean-car laws], it took high gas prices, it took a film by Al Gore, it took a perfect storm—all to win against one powerful industry. And we weren't fighting the utilities or the oil and gas industries."
The enviros also caught a lucky break when Nissan split with other auto companies to support the measure, which contained a provision helping carmakers that produce vehicles both in the US and overseas. Not coincidentally, Republican senators Trent Lott and Thad Cochran from Mississippi, where Nissan has a large factory, came out in support of the bill. And there was another inside play: Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), the chairman of the commerce committee, leaned on his close pal, the influential Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), to come on board. It didn't hurt that a former Stevens staffer was now lobbying for the bill on behalf of Nissan. "This is not the stuff you learn about in high school," Becker quips.
If Washington does not easily produce sweeping change, its denizens are certainly good at proclaiming sweeping change. Congress will address a big issue—take the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance legislation—and essentially say, "Don't bother us about this again." Unfortunately, Becker points out, global warming "is the kind of issue that we'll have to come back and back and back to over the next 50 to 100 years."
Yet is inaction (or underaction) in Washington only Washington's fault? "The fundamental problem," says David Hamilton, director of the Sierra Club's global warming program, "is that 85 percent of the public believes global warming is a problem, but only 35 percent believes it is an urgent problem. You can look at polar bears and melting ice caps and listen to Al Gore. But until you internalize the fact that it's a real emergency, the usual concerns dominate. Washington is no different. It has not internalized global warming. It has dealt with it in a traditional way."
Working the traditional avenues the best he can, Markey in June introduced a climate change bill that would cap emissions at 85 percent of 2005 levels by 2050. It was immediately referred to 10 different committees—including Dingell's. That means 10 separate debates in the House alone.
"I'm an optimist," Markey says. "The science is clear. The technology is available. This is not putting a man on the moon. It's more like air-conditioning mechanics. If you can get the policy right, you can get the entire paradigm right." That is, if you can get Washington right—which might be the toughest job of all.
David Corn is the bureau chief at Mother Jones's Washington, DC, Bureau.
Illustration: Steve Brodner
The fact that there are only 2 postings in response to what will be the biggest problem for humanity since World War II is both puzzling and frightening.
The attitude about the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere reminds me of the attitude of smokers. A cigarette doesn't kill you immediatly, therefore it's ok to continue smoking until the effects become obvious.
The safe amount of CO2 is "350" parts per billion. We are already at "387"! This means that the problem isn't going to happen in the future. The problem is happening NOW! Wake-up America! Let your representatives know that we can NOT allow this to be the legacy we leave our children. The journey of a thousand steps must begin now. Take the first step!
THE MOST IMPORTANT NUMBER ON EARTH........"350"!
Go to www.350.org to find out why.
Unfortunately the fight to keep the bottem line rising is less important than keeping global warming down.
Unfortunately the fight to keep the bottom line rising is MORE important than keeping global warming down.
We need systemic change in Washington, and that change is ending the strangle hold on power by the two parties. What has happened is that over the years, the parties have allowed themselves to become integrated with business concerns. (Some would use the term "corrupted" instead of "integrated").
We are living the results. Every major issue we face as a nation has either been created by our government or allowed to reach critical mass by its inaction. From climate to foreign policy to economy to even bedrock issues of Constitutional power, our government has failed us. Miserably.
The solution to these problems will come from the destruction of the two party system. It must be replaced by a system of political power that is brokered and leveraged by multiple parties and coalitions. The two parties will NEVER fix this voluntarily, in fact they have been working for decades to effectively disenfranchise voters by limiting their choices at the ballot box to two. The consequences of this are appalling; the choices between flawed candidates has created an environment so corrupt that even convicted criminals are on the ballot for national office.
I have repeatedly asked national news organizations, commentators, and progressive websites to explain why they are not covering minor party candidates. This must not be of any concern to them as my questions are ignored. There is a news blackout on any candidate that doesn't have a D or a R next to their name. Some candidates get blacked out even if they're a D... take Kucinich and Wexler, for example, who worked for the last 2 years (or more) to hold Bush/Cheney accountable by impeachment. Where are the news organizations on these stories?
I find the state of our national political discourse to be disappointing, to say the least. It's truly pathetic to say that the most complete media coverage of current events comes via Comedy Central's Daily Show/Colbert.
-Wexler
And replace it with what, exactly? What other economic system are you aware of that will inherently be more green than capitalism?
Here is another theory to ponder
Before his death in 2006 Rhodes Fairbridge predicted the sudden and swift reversal of global temp trends in 2007 based on lack of Solar Activity.
He goes on to predict a basically 40 yr long mini-ice age. How ironic if this holds true.
Nobel winner Uncle Al will go down with other oddities of the Lost years of 2000-2008 where people were duped into many different beliefs like the real estate market never goes down and Weapons of Mass Destruction are to be found in Iraq, and Global Warming must be reversed.
http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf
Oil demand is way down and we need to keep it there, by not making any more cars
Such as, for example, lumping the widely accepted and validated global climate change process in with Bush's lies about WMD as equally invalid "theories".
Now I can die a happy man, I've seen everything.
-Wexler
All Gore said it right: "If we have to chose between a Pot of Gold
and saving the Planet and thus Ourselves, we will always chose the Pot of Gold!"
I LOVE Socratic Questioning:
a.) If Governments would have told their Populace that the Planet is going to “Go Kaputt”
and All Life is going to *puff* end., what would have been the reactions of the very same Populace?
b.) If you know you can and will never be able to save the entire human race but yourself and Buddies “maybe” - would you still invest Trillions in seemingly senseless Space Programs?
c.)Would you then care to invest extensively in any other “solutions”, if you have an “Exit strategy”, only for you and your own, certainly?
d.)Assume the Energy and the Heat Output of Every single Nuclear Explosion on this Planet to be nearly equal to the Heat of the Surface of the Sun. Now, compare the size of the sun to the size of the Earth. Where do all those (Heat) and other Energy of all the “Testing” of Fission and Fusion Devices goes? Magically into Space or is Energy always transmuted but seldom completely trans-located?
e.) If there were a direct evidential connection between Nuclear Testings/Explosions and man-induced Global Climate Change, would you as one of the responsible Government admit that?
Or would you in fact have to fear the rage and “La Guillotine d' es gens”?
f.) Now, could Religion and the Creation of a Belief of the Return of their “Messiah” in a Global Climate Change catastrophically environment, then be just one of many instruments utilized to put the blindfold on and indoctrinate/appease the dumb down desperate “ I want to believe in Faries” peasants?
g.) And why would you want to really authentically do anything anyway, when you can can simply continue ripping off “carbon Credits” - the new shiny currency of the dumb mass- and simply pretend Everything is now “changing”; after all its a very globally warm/ cold .warm/cold winter in the U.S., n'est pas?
NOTHING. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. short of it's own demise.
NOTHING. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. short of it's own demise.
exibit NUMBER 1: stevarin
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