Senator Murkowski’s Congressional Review Act resolution would block EPA and Department of Transportation rules to decrease oil consumption for cars and light trucks. It would also block the EPA finding that greenhouse gas pollutants endanger human health, and in doing so would stop regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from Power Plants.
So which part of the resolution to Senator Brown support? Higher oil consumption? Faster global warming? Or, does he back both higher oil consumption and accelerating global warming?
His Op-Ed in today’s Cape Cod Times gives little information.
In the op-ed, Brown casts himself as a protector of restaurant owners and small farmers. Here’s Senator Brown in his own words: ” we cannot have every restaurant owner or small farmer worried about the costs of complying with new carbon dioxide emissions restrictions.” (http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100610/OPINION/6100342/-1/OPINION03)
This may sound good–the only problem: it’s completely inaccurate and Brown should know this.
The actual truth about the EPA’s rules: “the goal is the reduction of GHG emissions from the largest sources. The first phase of the Tailoring Rule, which takes effect on January 2, 2011, does not impact either small businesses or farms.” (http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=e4d959f3-4e0d-445c-b4a8-7ff3d67b35de)
From the EPA itself: “Small farms, restaurants and many other types of small facilities would not be subject to these permitting programs.” (http://www.epa.gov/nsr/fs20090930action.html)
I guess Senator Brown’s description would be accurate if you owned a restaurant or small farm and erected a large power plant inside your restaurant or on your farm. Otherwise his op-ed is remarkable reversal of reality.
This distortion may stem from the fact that Senator Brown in his op-ed cannot bring himself to discuss global warming–does he accept that this is a real human-made problem that threatens Cape Cod in particular? Or is he here also operating in a virtual alternate reality?
When I spoke with a staffer she could not tell me whether Senator Brown believed that global warming was real.
Can we just all get on the same page with calling it Climate Change, and not Global Warming? And Shame on Scott Brown. Shame.
to fund eugenics is the correct “green” answer.
To illustrate my being the child of a sociopath you will dismiss anyway?
That’s what it is. The world’s not getting colder, after all.
some parts of the world may indeed get colder. The total average temperature of Earth will increase (Global warming), but each location may in fact get warmer, retain the same temperature, or even cool.
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p>And, of course, in addition to changes in rainfall, there’ll certainly be changes in wind, changes in the variation of day-to-day weather, and so forth.
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p>Climate change simply incorporates a better description of the totality of the expected changes. That, as KBusch wisely mentions, it also helps to reduce the millions of dopey “Global warming! Ha! It’s unseasonably cold today, right here, right now!” remarks that less than clever people tend to make all the time is a bonus.
…allows the deniers to point to a snowy winter in Washington DC and say “Look, it’s cold! No warming here!”
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p>Calling it climate change allows us to say “Look at the severe weather in Washington DC – record breaking snowstorms within days of each other – empirical evidence of cloimate change!”
Sincerely,
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p>
…but I think of global warming as just one factor under a broader umbrella of climate change, but yes, global warming is certainly an accurate term since the average global temperature is on the rise overall.
There both accurate.
There seems to be strong opinion that change is better, but it could equally well serve to diminish concern in that change is vague.
I think all of the comments above are extremely well stated. But I also think that “global warming” conveys a better sense of the urgency of this subject than “climate change.”
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p>Change, after all, is part of life: nothing to be feared in itself. But the catastrophic warming trend that the planet currently is on is a continuing emergency:
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p>Credit: Wikipedia.
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p>Interesting piece here about climate change denial on Wikipedia.
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p>Personally, I have always had somewhere in the back of my mind that the oil industry was behind the push to replace “global warming” with “climate change.” But I may be completely wrong about that.
Draw a big circle. That’s climate change. It includes lots of things, as mentioned above. Now draw a smaller circle, inside the big circle. That’s global warming.
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p>Increasing the levels of CO_2 (and other GHGs) above historical levels causes the big circle, and consequently, everything inside the big circle.
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p>Global warming won’t mean warmer temperatures for the British Isles and Northern Europe — if the warmer ocean temperatures shut down or redirect the conveyor, all that warm Equatorial water that currently keeps the water and air in those climes warmer than other areas with the same latitude will get damned cold. Global warming sounds really attractive to them, and even to us New Englanders.
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p>That is, until we learn that the other parts of climate change mean longer periods without rain, bigger nor’easters, increased risk of hurricanes, and so forth. Those things aren’t global warming, they’re climate change.
…”Increasing the levels of CO_2 (and other GHGs) above historical levels causes the big circle, and consequently, everything inside the big circle. “
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p>When the big circle increases it doesn’t follow that all it’s constituent parts must necessarily increase. It may be that everything inside the big circle increases, but not by virtue of the big circle increase.
why doesn’t the paper fact-check the Op-Ed first? Once they see that the Op-Ed has a blatant falsehood in it, you either
a. refuse the Op-Ed and explain to the readers why it was refused, or
b. send it back to the author for revision, reminding the author that while opinion is OK, one’s own set of facts is not.
for Brown to flip flop around on the issue, saying one thing for public consumption, then voting another, but for him to come out in active support of Murkowski speaks volumes about his real beliefs. As always watch what someone does, not what they say for their core beliefs.
Doesn’t the Global Climate Change bill being spearheaded in part by Senator Kerry also prohibit the EPA from making rules on Carbon Emissions?
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p>I saw it in the article on the defeat of this Bill. http://www.boston.com/news/pol… The article further points out that having the EPA regulate carbon emissions provides more leverage for Kerry in negotiating and passing the bill he is spearheading.
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p>So, it would seem to me that both Parties want Congress to set the Carbon limits but have different approaches. Therefore, this appears more as a debate over which to do first, eliminate the EPA from setting Carbon emission standards (something which both parties seem to nominally agree at some level) or negotiate a carbon tax system which would encompass the removal of the EPA as the entity which sets the limits.
There are some Democratic cowards and backsliders but I will believe that a single Republican will vote to curb greenhouse gas emissions when I see it. Lindsay Graham now opposes his own bill. Is the Republican Party the pro-global warming party?
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p>Brown’s problem is not just policy, but also basic honesty. His op-ed, which he signed his name to, says the EPA is going to do something, which is expressly rejected as a course of action by the EPA.
only stops the EPA from regulating the industries that the bill is setting caps on – and it would be the EPA that actually enforces that. Kerry’s bill gives the EPA new tools with which to control carbon emissions. (Just as the clean air act gave the EPA a cap and trade system to allow them to reduce acid rain.)
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p>Murkowski’s bill does not regulate them and would have prevented the EPA from doing so.
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p>Summary – Kerry has been the leading environmentalist in teh Senate for decades – which is why the League of Conservation Voters endorsed him in the primary in 2004. Brown might not believe in global warming and just voted for what likely is the only regulation of carbon we will get. (The fact that 47 Senators voted for this likely means nothing that regulates carbon will pass the Senate.) HUGE DIFFERENCE
Not clear in the Globe so I thought i would ask. Greatly appreciated.
is to let global climate change happen and hope that the economy grows to the point where we can afford to mitigate its (worst) effects (here in America). Of course they only say this sometimes. The rest of the time they blatantly lie about the issue and encourage denial in anyone unscientific enough to do so, i.e. many Americans.
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p>If enough talking heads insisted the earth is flat they could probably muddy the waters on that issue as well.
You write:
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p>A huge portion of the same crowd that denies global climate change also denies evolution — check out the views of Senator James Inhofe (R-OKLA) for a canonical example.
Let oil drilling happen everywhere and hope technology can fix any spills. We are seeing Drill baby drill! part II.
http://content.usatoday.com/co…
is to win the next election.
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p>Their thinking about policy doesn’t run any deeper. That’s why Boehner can say so many senseless things.
…a whole other topic for discussion. Namely, why and how is it in America saying senseless things can get you elected?
… question. The interesting question brought up by KBusch is “What are the limits to Republican tactics?” and “Can it really be true that there are none?”. The point you bring up is not about getting elected, but the act of electing. That is “What does a Republican have to do to lose votes among the base of the right?” with the corollaries “Would racist policy advocacy be enough? How about decrying judicial activism while simultaneously advocating theocracy? What about irresponsible fiscal policy? How about claiming to be a deficit hawk wile simultaneously advocating that tax cuts solve all ills? Would faith in the trickledown at a time when income mobility is the most stagnant do it?”, etc…
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p>His is a question about the limits of morality and reason for those who run for office. Yours is a question of the limits of morality and reason among the electorate.
He said they only care about the next election, which is why they say senseless things. That suggests that saying senseless things helps them get elected. That in turn suggests that Americans are willing to elect people who say senseless things. The question I take from that is why do people vote for people who say senseless things.
… is very important though between the two questions. Saying senseless things to get elected is a rational act (if banal) whereas believing senseless things is not. We know that most of these voters who back the senseless are irrational, but we don’t know that of the people they elect, who may not join them in their irrationality in actuality if not in appearance.
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p>Put differently, if each of those sides of the coin were approached as a problem to be solved, you’d be left with the obvious that they are actually to very different problems. Its a distinction between authoritarian followers and authoritarian leaders.
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p>Ironically, the problem of the authoritarian followers, although bigger (more people), is actually easier to address. More here.
One of their leading experts, Kenneth Green, has actually spoken of the need to “adapt” to the effects of climate change. Here is a link to an article and video of his appearance before the Finance committee. http://climateprogress.org/200…
The Republican approach, I’d wager, is to buy up parcels of undeveloped land a few dozen miles inland, let all the sinful coastal cities drown, then sell beachfront property at a profit.
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p>Oh, and I’m sure they’d find a way to get torture in there somewhere, too.
Or the renewed Bernie Madoff Global Oil Spill Cleanup Fund.