[ UPDATE : America might not actually, finally, do something - check the resistance dinosaurs. ]
We have waited long enough for serious action States-side on Global Warming.
The bankers (apparently largely Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan with lashings of Tony Blair) had their chance to talk up the idea of Carbon Trading. What a dead duck that turned out to be !
Carbon Taxation looks like it’s a non-starter with the global economy being a whisker from utter, utter, collapse.
The Clean Development Mechanism isn’t.
(Plus, the CDM hasn’t helped those it was principally promoted to help – Africa).
The global Biofuels targets are reducing rainforest to logpiles.
The Coal Kings have been pushing the idea of Carbon Capture and Storage for well over fifteen years and persuaded…no one.
The nightwalkers from the dark, radioactive side are still scaring people and luring them at the same time. If Iran wanting Nuclear Power was tricky enough, now Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait want it too, and I don’t expect the international dialogue tightrope act to get any easier.
The Congress and the Senate have seen filibuster and deal-breaking and lobbyist handshakes in dark corridors and reneging in bars.
But, at long last, it seems like Barack Obama is going to do what he hinted at, and regulate the bottom line out of Carbon Dioxide emissions, regardless of whether there’s any elected representatives passing bills :-
“EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] Issuing U.S. Carbon-Limits Guidance Soon, Agency Administrator Says : By Kim Chipman – Sep 14, 2010 : The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will issue guidance soon that states and polluters can use to implement the agency’s new greenhouse-gas regulations, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said today. The guidelines will ensure that complying with the new rules “is practical and is manageable,” Jackson said at a conference in Washington celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Clean Air Act. The EPA is using the 1970 law to establish the first national limits on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases implicated in climate change. The first phase is set to start Jan. 2…”
For the Environmental Protection Agency to get in gear over this is a big deal, bigger than…Formula One, Jeremy Clarkson, and the Pope’s visitation to London, all rolled into one sorry, slightly pompous, if regal, spectacular.
It is time for sense, and it looks like President Obama can wield it.
