EPA makes major turn to Climate Change Adaptation

by beach babe in fl

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released it's Draft Plan for Climate Change Adaptation (pdf). Essentially, the agency is mainstreaming Climate Change adaptation and mitigation into it's core policies, planning, practices and programs whenever possible.

The plan published today for public consideration is meant to guide the agency’s response to global warming, which it says is occurring at a rapidly increasing rate.

“Until now, EPA has been able to assume that climate is relatively stable and future climate would mirror past climate. However, with climate changing at an increasingly rapid rate and outside the range to which society has adapted in the past, climate change is posing new challenges to EPA’s ability to fulfill its mission.”

The behemoth of a plan includes emphasis on clean air and water which when implemented will impose strict new regulations on industry. Expect a major pushback from the usual suspects.

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EPA has identified priority actions it will take to begin integrating climate change adaptation into its programs, policies, rules and operations. These priorities represent EPA’s commitment to address the known vulnerabilities of its mission to climate change, and to continue to identify other vulnerabilities its programs may have to climate change.

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As stated this is a draft document which will be open for public review and comment until 4/9/2013. This is the perfect time to get your input into national standards for climate adaptation. After reviewing the document, you can make your comment here.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/08/1185522/-EPA-makes-major-turn-to-Climate-Change-Adaptation