General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPresident Obama Just Finalized His Plan to Fight Climate Change
President Obama Just Finalized His Plan to Fight Climate Change
The EPA's new rules will crack down on emissions from coal-fired power plants.
By Tim McDonnell
| Mon Aug. 3, 2015 10:08 AM EDT
President Barack Obama has been more vocal than any previous president about the need to combat climate change, and on Monday his administration released a package of rules that will likely be the most importantand most controversialpiece of his climate legacy.
"Climate change is not a problem for another generation," Obama said in a video released early Sunday morning. The Clean Power Plan, as the rules finalized Monday are known, is "the biggest, most important step we've ever taken to combat climate change."
Coal-fired power plants are the country's biggest source of carbon dioxide emissions and the chief culprit driving global warming. They're responsible for even more CO2 pollution than all the nation's passenger vehicles. The new plan aims to slash those emissions by requiring every state to reduce the carbon "intensity" (that is, emissions per unit of energy produced) of its energy sector. By 2030, the plan is expected to slash the carbon footprint of the nation's power sector by 32 percent below 2005 levelsa more rigorous target than the 30 percent reduction outlined in a draft version of the rules released last summer.
In the final draft, the administration has relaxed deadlines for meeting the new carbon targetsstates will now have until 2018 to propose a carbon-cutting strategy and until 2022 to implement ita serious concern for environmentalists who have stressed the necessity of immediate action to limit climate change. And although the targets might sound ambitious, they might not actually be too different from what many states would achieve without them, thanks to a boom in clean energy that is already underway. Moreover, many of the changes required by the rules will play out under Obama's successor, leaving open the possibility that they could be undermined by a climate change-denying president.
Still, the significance of this official crackdown on the gas behind global warming is hard to overstate, said David Doniger, director of the clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"The very fact that they're regulating carbon pollution from power plants is a historic step, a huge step," he said. "This is part of using the existing law to turn the US from doing nothing, to playing a leadership role to curb climate change."
more...
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/07/obama-epa-clean-power-plan
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)Oath of Office.
This is a great step, and an important part of his legacy, as long a we keep Republicans out of the White House.
ananda
(28,866 posts)There is all that approval for drilling, the TPP, and
the boom in trucks and SUV's now that oil prices
are down and gas is so cheap.
Tarheel_Dem
(31,235 posts)By Juliet Eilperin
President Obama signed a massive lands package into law today, protecting more than two million acres as wilderness and creating a new national system to conserve land held by the Bureau of Land Management.
The measure, a collection of 170 different bills that represents the most significant wilderness law in at least 15 years, would provide the highest level of federal protection to areas such as Oregon's Mount Hood and part of Virginia's Jefferson National Forest, along with other sites in California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, New Mexico, Utah and West Virginia. It also authorizes the first coordinated federal research program to investigate ocean acidification and additional funding to protect ecologically-valuable coastal areas and estuaries.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/03/30/obama_signs_major_land_conserv.html
ananda
(28,866 posts)I was referring only to approval and promotion of drilling.
Bringing up conservation is a straw man. While conservation is wonderful and all, why don't you address the serious problems of drilling and fracking, along with the TPP?
If you are not informed on this, you should do some searching and reading. It WILL open your eyes.
Tarheel_Dem
(31,235 posts)How much land is enough land to be set aside for you? In a world filled with unicorns and lollipops, there would be no drilling ever, but that's not the real world. Solar & wind are on the rise, but they cannot meet the demands of our energy hungry society. And you should probably look up "straw man" before you use it again.
Diversion doesn't work on me. None of the debate fallacies do.
Basically all drilling and fracking gotta go. Peiriod.
If you don't subscribe to this necessity, then I don't think you are very well researched or informed.
And that is because I don't want to think of you, or anyone here, as that cynically or hopelessly acquiescent to thevevils being perpetrated by big oil and politicians who sell out to yhese interests, and that includes Obama.
Tarheel_Dem
(31,235 posts)enough"; "doesn't go far enough"; "blah...blah...blah". No matter what he does, from certain factions on the left & the right, he only gets this:
ananda
(28,866 posts)... in your over-emotional desire to -- what?
You have to know that I am not a supporter of ANY politician or public official
who toes the corporate line... and that includes Obama and Clinton.
Obama has some very iffy credentials when it comes to corporatism -- and he
has approved of drilling in sites that should be off limits, and what has he or his
admin done to stop extraction of natural gas and oil by means of fracking and shale
deposits ...
... when this country and the entire world needs to wean itself off of fossil fuels NOW,
immediately, ASAP, STAT!
You are talking to the wrong person if you think you can divert me from this problem
or try to force me in some manner to see Obama in a glowing light just because he
does some things I DO approve of. But I think -- what exactly ARE these things in
light of the drilling, the fracking, the TPP, the use of drones, the unwillingness to go
after corporate and banking criminals and criminality, etc.
No, I will never vote Reep; and I WILL vote for the next Dem candidate, even if it's
Hillary Clinton. But as with Obama, if it's Clinton, I will hold my nose.
Sanders would be the best president of the entire lot. I hope HE wins!
Tarheel_Dem
(31,235 posts)He'll peak out somewhere in the mid 20's (the space left by Elizabeth Warren), and if Joe Biden gets in the race, we probably won't hear from him again.
As for the rest of your post, it's clear to me that at some point you swallowed an Occupy manifesto, and that's where BS' strength & his greatest liabilities lie. It's clear to anyone who supports President Obama that BS & his supporters take every opportunity to trash the Prez for some perceived misstep, but they're too silly to recognize that we're the ones BS needs to a)win a primary & b)win the GE.
His lackluster performance among minorities speaks to a serious disconnect between his throngs of angry white supporters & the very groups he needs to win. And FWIW, BS won't stop oil & gas extraction, Congress will keep him tied up in court throughout his entire administration. "All or nothing" sounds good as a slogan, it just doesn't work in practicality.