Tag Archives: carbon dioxide

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Cleaner air a new focus

President Obama has unveiled a strategy that he hopes will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 30 percent.

Power-generating plants will have to reduce the emissions by 2030 or else face stiff penalties.

Cleaner air is a good thing. Spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is bad, as it contributes to the climate change scientists say is well under way around the world.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/06/02/epa_seeks_to_cut_power_plant_carbon_by_30_percent_122825.html

Oh, but just wait. This measure is going to be met with all kinds of hostile reaction.

The coal industry is going to lead the charge, as the coal-fired plants are the chief culprits. Who are the winners? Let’s try the natural gas industry — which, by the way, is flourishing in West Texas. Natural gas fires these plants, too, but does so more cleanly and it is cheaper than coal.

So, do you think our state’s government leadership will climb aboard the Environmental Protection Agency bandwagon and endorse the president’s new initiative?

Do … not … hold … your …. breath.

As with everything these days, politics gets in the way of doing the right thing.

The White House is occupied by a Democrat. Texas state government is populated by Republicans. Therefore, if one party proposes something, it’s a bad thing in the eyes of those in the other party.

Let’s remember something, though, if we’re going to politicize this argument. The 1970 Clean Air Act was signed into law — along with the creation of the EPA — by a Republican president of some note, a fellow named Richard M. Nixon.

Utility companies that rely heavily on coal-fired electricity likely will threaten to raise rates on customers to pay for the improvements being mandated by the EPA. Our electric utility isn’t as reliant on coal as many others, given that we have plenty of natural gas to fuel our electrical needs.

“The purpose of this rule is to really close the loophole on carbon pollution, reduce emissions as we’ve done with lead, arsenic and mercury and improve the health of the American people and unleash a new economic opportunity,” said Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The rule is worth enforcing. I happen to be all in favor of cleaner air, even if it might cost a little bit more to breathe it.

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Yep, the planet is warming

My late mother had a saying that took to task those who failed to see the big picture.

“That guy is so narrow minded,” Mom would say, “that he can look through a keyhole with both eyes.”

It always made for a good chuckle when she said it, but her wry wit seems a bit more topical these days when I hear people debate whether Planet Earth is getting warmer. More evidence has arrived that suggests it is doing exactly that.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac/2013/08/planet-continues-to-warm-to-new-normal/

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association has issued a report that talks about melting ice caps, rising sea levels, loss of marine habitat and threats to coastal communities on every continent. The average annual temperature worldwide is getting warmer, NOAA reports.

The San Antonio Express-News reports that the State of the Climate report also notes, “Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels reached 400 parts per million last May, and averaged 392.6 for 2012, the highest in 800,000 years.”

The CO2 level is troublesome in this regard: The deforestation of tropical regions in South America, Africa and Southeast Asia is well-known; those trees didn’t just die of “natural causes.” They were cut down by human beings and as we all learned in junior high school science class, vegetation — such as trees — consume CO2 while emitting oxygen.

The global-warming naysayers keep harping on anecdotal evidence that the world isn’t actually getting warmer. They chide environmentalists such as former Vice President Al Gore for crying “wolf!” over the global warming issue. Remember the brutal winter we had in the Amarillo in late 2012 and early 2013? The temps stayed cold for seemingly forever. Yes, the prolonged cold produced plenty of jokes debunking the global warming “alarmists” who supposedly are out to destroy the fossil-fuel industry because of all that gas it spews into the atmosphere.

Let’s not debate that global warming is in fact occurring. We can debate, perhaps, whether it’s manmade or part of the planet’s epochal cycle. Either way, a lot of human beings and wildlife are being put at risk.

Does humankind have a way to stem global warming? Sure it does. First, though, it has to find the will.