<![CDATA[Grist - Comment Feed for National climate change policy: A quick look back at Waxman-Markey and the road ahead]]> Grist Comment Feed en Comment #1 by newnoah http://www.grist.org/article/national-climate-change-policy-a-quick-look-back-at-waxman-markey-and-the-r/ Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:29:50 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/national-climate-change-policy-a-quick-look-back-at-waxman-markey-and-the-r/1 Clinging, flabby, consensual thinking of the late twentieth century (Lovelock http://www.conservationmagazine.org/articles/volume-10-number-2/war-peace/ )

"Worse, the bill locks us into a framework that will fail. Science tells us that immediately is not soon enough to begin repairing the planet.  Waiting another decade or more will virtually guarantee catastrophic levels of warming.  But the bill does not require any greenhouse gas reductions beyond current levels until 2030

"Today's bill is a fragile compromise, which leads some to claim that we cannot do better.  I respectfully submit that not only can we do better; we have no choice but to do better.  Indeed, if we pass a bill that only creates the illusion of addressing the problem, we walk away with only an illusion.  The price for that illusion is the opportunity to take substantive action."     Dennis Kucinich  www.opednews.com

Waxman-Markey and the present climate change lack of leadership is 'crowding out' what increasingly looks like our last chance for effective mitigation before it is too late.

China and the developing world are watching and we are already over a tipping point to failure at Copenhagen. Waxman-Markey will probably become the example:

"far too little emission reduction because systemic change is off the table; a weak semi-agreement on paper which most will understand as subvertable. It might be the best deal that negotiators can achieve but it will be failure for even those that still cling to 450 as the ceiling, 2050 as the target date, and still believe that mitigation is possible with instruments and regulation still firmly within BAU."
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/49264

Australian Green senator Christine Milne was talking about Waxman-Markey as well as Labour's not nearly good enough new climate change legislation in her recent very significant speech:

"Incrementalism is worse than useless in the face of the climate crisis. Just as you cant be a little bit pregnant, you cant stop climate change by doing 5% of what is necessary. Or even 25%. If we trigger tipping points, the heating process will gather its own momentum and there will be nothing we can do to stop it. Doing too little to avoid those tipping points is functionally equivalent to doing nothing."
Australia senator Christine Milne
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/49255












]]> Clinging, flabby, consensual thinking of the late twentieth century (Lovelock http://www.conservationmagazine.org/articles/volume-10-number-2/war-peace/ )

"Worse, the bill locks us into a framework that will fail. Science tells us that immediately is not soon enough to begin repairing the planet.  Waiting another decade or more will virtually guarantee catastrophic levels of warming.  But the bill does not require any greenhouse gas reductions beyond current levels until 2030

"Today's bill is a fragile compromise, which leads some to claim that we cannot do better.  I respectfully submit that not only can we do better; we have no choice but to do better.  Indeed, if we pass a bill that only creates the illusion of addressing the problem, we walk away with only an illusion.  The price for that illusion is the opportunity to take substantive action."     Dennis Kucinich  www.opednews.com

Waxman-Markey and the present climate change lack of leadership is 'crowding out' what increasingly looks like our last chance for effective mitigation before it is too late.

China and the developing world are watching and we are already over a tipping point to failure at Copenhagen. Waxman-Markey will probably become the example:

"far too little emission reduction because systemic change is off the table; a weak semi-agreement on paper which most will understand as subvertable. It might be the best deal that negotiators can achieve but it will be failure for even those that still cling to 450 as the ceiling, 2050 as the target date, and still believe that mitigation is possible with instruments and regulation still firmly within BAU."
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/49264

Australian Green senator Christine Milne was talking about Waxman-Markey as well as Labour's not nearly good enough new climate change legislation in her recent very significant speech:

"Incrementalism is worse than useless in the face of the climate crisis. Just as you cant be a little bit pregnant, you cant stop climate change by doing 5% of what is necessary. Or even 25%. If we trigger tipping points, the heating process will gather its own momentum and there will be nothing we can do to stop it. Doing too little to avoid those tipping points is functionally equivalent to doing nothing."
Australia senator Christine Milne
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/49255












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