Thursday, March 29, 2012

Doing Something About It

Despite the political dangers in an election year, as the LA Times reported:

"The Obama administration announced long-awaited rules that would sharply limit the output of carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants, the gases that the vast majority of scientists say are the primary contributor to global climate change."

The new regulations mean that, for one thing, the era of King Dirty Coal plants is over. The move elicited the predictable political cacophony about gubment regulations throttling the freedom of corporations destroying life on the planet in sole service of their cancerous greed, as well as relative silence by the news media,  but may also surprise environmentalists depressed by the lack of rhetoric from the White House.  The words would be welcome, but doing something about it anyway is pretty damn good.  The Times story continues:

   "Yet by proposing the power plant rules and pressing forward with new car and truck fuel economy standards, the Obama administration has moved to cut pollution from the two largest domestic sources of greenhouse gases. Power plants themselves are the single greatest stationary source, accounting for 40% of the country’s output of carbon dioxide.

“I think the administration releasing a proposed regulation for greenhouse gases for new plants is as strong a signal that anyone can ask for about how seriously they are addressing the threat of climate change,” said Megan Ceronsky, an attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund."

No comments: