Subscribe
to TIC!

Global Warming Controversy is Heating Up

For the past few years, the issue of global warming has been a rising and controversial topic that has left scientists, environmentalist, and politicians in a struggle for the truth and solutions to the rising problem. There is very little doubt that our planet is warming, and has been warming significantly. Over the past century, a warming trend of about one-degree Fahrenheit has occurred, and the past two summers have been the hottest on record, and have even been responsible for deaths in the U.S. Midwest as a result of the massive heat waves. Although contested by some, most scientists believe that global warming is the result of a massive build up of greenhouse gases since the industrial revolution that is causing the meltdown of the Arctic, the massive heat waves, hurricanes, and all sorts of dangerous changes to the environment.

[left to right] 1.) Pollution from industry is considered to be a major contributor to the green-house gasses believed by many to contribute to global warming. 2.) It is believed that many cold-climate species, such as the polar bear, may not be able to adapt to what could be drastic changes to their environment.

A major concern among scientists are rising temperatures in Alaska, Western Canada, Eastern Russia, and Greenland where glaciers are melting rapidly creating problems for the people and animals that live in this region. People have lost homes and resources in these areas as a result of the melting. If Greenland’s massive ice sheet was to melt, which scientists predict could happen within the next 100 years, it would have detrimental effects for the entire planet. Polar bears, seals, and other arctic wildlife could become extinct, and thermal expansion, which has already raised the oceans 4-8 inches, would eventually result in the flooding of U.S. coasts, such as parts of Florida and New York City, parts of which could potentially be underwater.

Hurricanes are getting worse, and scientists report that the rise in global temperatures may have led to warmer waters fueling category four and five hurricanes, such as hurricane Katrina, in which some scientists believe global warming played a large part.

Miles of forests in Canada are being destroyed by a voracious dung beetle that’s emerged as a result of the warming climate, and scientists fear the beetle will cross the rocky mountains and sweep across the northern continent, destroying the forests there too.

While it is well known that humans’ activities are changing the composition of earth’s atmosphere by omitting greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) into the environment, no one seems to know for sure how much of this accumulation is responsible for global warming, if at all. Some skeptics believe global warming is nothing more than a myth that has been over exaggerated in the media, and that the rise in global temperatures is part of a natural cycle that has occurred from the planet coming out of a cold period known as the “Little Ice Age”.

However, the intergovernmental panel on climate change stated in a recent report that the observed warming trend was “unlikely to be entirely natural in origin” and that there is “new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last fifty years is attributable to human activities.” Regardless of whether or not the media has blown the global warming issue out of proportion, the good news is that it has managed to scare people enough to focus less on whether or not it is really happening to what needs to be done to fix it. Further pressure is being placed on policy makers to adopt programs that will reduce global warming pollution and reverse the effects.

One of the first people to bring attention to the problem on a national scale is the former Vice President Al Gore, whose documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” dramatized the global warming dilemma and his ongoing battle to get both the public and skeptical politicians to take his cause seriously. On July 20th, Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords, a ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, introduced legislation (S.3698) aimed at reversing emissions of greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

During a rally in Washington DC, Jeffords announced his concern. “The science is clear, mankind is heating the planet in a manner that is destructive,” he said. “We can no longer afford to watch from the sidelines. We are a nation of innovators, and we have the skills to develop the technology to make these needed changes.”

Jeffords considers the “Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act” to be innovative and advanced, requiring that the U.S. reduce its emissions by 1/3 of 80% below 1990 levels by 2030, by 2/3 in 2050, and to a level that is 80% below 1999 levels by 2050. It also requires that power plants, automobiles, and carbon intensive businesses reduce their global warming pollution, and provides standards and grants for sequestration of greenhouse gases.

Senator Henry Waxman of California introduced the “Safe Climate Act” (H.R.5642) as well this year, which has the same goal, to cut emission levels by 80% below 1990 levels by 2050, a number that supporters find lucrative. Waxman’s bill freezes the level of emissions in 2010 and then gradually reduces them each year through 2050. It also sets up a system for buying and selling emissions allowances, with auction proceeds placed into a Climate Reinvestment Fund that will support technology R&D, and fund various forms of public protections from energy price increases and natural disaster preparedness.

California is ranked the world’s 12th largest in pollution, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has made the goal for reduced emissions in the state a priority. Lawmakers in the state are currently reviewing a bill known as AB32, which would make California the first state to impose a cap on greenhouse gas emissions from industries. Democrats and top aides to Schwarzenegger have been reviewing the bill which enforces an estimated emissions deduction of 25% by 2020. The deadline for the bill is August 31st, yet Democrats are skeptical because the bill calls for a requirement that the California Air Resources Board allow for the creation of a market based system that allows the trading and buying of emissions credits put on the open market for companies that have reduced their own emissions. Democrats believe that it will be impossible to monitor an emissions trading market if it involves industrial plants in other states and countries.

As policymakers struggle to both create and enact constructive methods to prevent further global warming, the future for it seems uncertain. President Bush has been reluctant to take any action on the problem, and continues to cast doubt on the consensus in the scientific community that man-made emissions cause global warming.

Bush stated, “I oppose the Kyoto Protocol because it exempts 80% of the world… and would cause serious harm to the U.S. economy. The Senate’s vote, 95-0, shows that there is a clear consensus that the Kyoto Protocol is an unfair and ineffective means of addressing global climate change concerns.”

Yet if AB32 is passed, California will become the first to impose across-the-board strict greenhouse gas emissions cuts on industry, energy plants and businesses.

Schwarzenegger disagrees with the president. “I say the fight is over, we know the science,” he said at the United Nations Summit. “We see the threat, and we know the time for action is now.”

What is the FBA?  |  FBA Website Prototype  |  Cost Estimates  |  The Team

Publishers of The Informed Constituent.

Contact the FBA