Comments tstreet has made

Dems Need Pressure

I have opened a "dialogue" with my local congressman from Colorado's 2nd District, Mark Udall.  Thus far, he or his staff seem to think that mentioning his support for a stalled bill introduced in 2005 which did very little on global warming (The Climate Stewardship Act) other than setting up a database and establishing greenhouse gas allowances is all that is necessary to show that he is on the GW case.

We need a bill that sets milestones beginning next year and continuing on to 2050 which require signficant reductions by 2010, 2015, 2020, and 2030. I have seen a fairly wide range of estimates for required co2 reductions, but the minimum required reduction by 2030 should be 50%.  Others like George Monbiot of the Guardian in his book "Heat" state that we need to reduce emissions by as much as 90%.  I don't know who is right but I do know that if we simply have a goal for 2050 without interim milestones that we will have pretended to solve a problem without actually solved it.

Once we put somelthing in place, the next step would be to figure out what to do with countries like China and India, especially China.  China cannot be given a pass just because it is a developing country.  In the not too distant future, they will probably exceed the U.S. in emissions.  They have chosen an energy intensive path to development which cannot be sustained. Once we get our own house in order, we should then join the EU in placing heavy tariff on those countries who refuse to sign up to a cap on global warming.

Although I think my congressman is basically an environmentalist, he doesn't appear to full get it when it comes to global warming.  All he wants to talk about is renewable energy like ethanol and how we still need to rely on coal and coal bed mathanol on an undefined interim basis.  

We need a moratorium on new or enhanced coal fired planets which won't be sequestering their co2 emissions.  That is a start while we iron out the details of a comphrehensive and tooth filled long term strategy to actually fixing the problem. On How green will the 110th Congress be? posted 3 years ago 3 Responses