Obstructionist Senators & A ‘Power Trip’
January 13th, 2010
As climate legislation continues to crawl through Congress, standing in the way of any real action on climate change are Senators who seem more concerned about oil company profits than climate change effects. On this hour of Earthbeat, host Mike Tidwell reviews two Senators who are obstructing climate change legislation.
Both come from powerful political families, both are Democrats, and both represent states that are uniquely affected by climate change.
Louisiana is arguably the US state that is most affected by climate change, and yet Senator Mary Landrieu has proudly proclaimed herself “the most fervent pro-drilling Democrat in the Senate.” Montana is the home to Glacier National Park and its forests are being ravaged by a explosion of beetles that now live through warmer winters. However Senator Max Baucus is proud to be the only Democrat to vote against climate legislation, and he did so be says its carbon emission targets are too high.
Joining us from Louisiana is Aaron Viles,the Campaign Director for the Gulf Restoration Network; and from Montana is Jim Jensen, the head of the Montana Environmental Information Center.
Then, the recent explosion in solar energy across America. Solar power is stronger, faster and cheaper than ever before. Joining us to discuss solar is author Amanda Little. Her book ‘Power Trip‘ describers her first-person journey across American to catalog our energy landscape.
Finally, a commentary by host Mike Tidwell about how – against the odds – we’re winning more than we’re losing when it comes to fighting climate change – based on his recent editorial in the Baltimore Sun.
Music: Two renditions of the Pink Panther Theme, one by Bobby McFerrin and a second by Alfred Choral. Our theme music is Baladi by Tony Anka, Bellydance Superstars vol. 2.
Photo by Hanneorla via Flickr.
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January 14th, 2010 at 2:25 pm
After the Earth Summit in Rio many thought it could not work because it was not binding. Nations didn’t do much, if anything, to live up to their agreement, made in 1992, to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases to a level that would prevent dangerous climate change. What “dangerous” might mean was not defined.
Hence, Kyoto, negotiated in 1997, was hailed as the first “binding” agreement. Many dismissed it because it didn’t aim for anything like what could possibly prevent dangerous climate change, and because the “binding” part of the agreement was questionable, given that the agreement was between sovereign countries, and more importantly, given that most, if not all of those countries were not politically unified internally that climate was any kind of problem at all.
And now we have Copenhagen. Nothing binding was signed, and the much clearer science of today was ignored. Mike’s declaration that we are fortunate that nothing binding was signed because the science was ignored is preposterous. This is Alice in Wonderland.
When the Montreal Protocol was signed it left developing the noncompliance measures to a later date. What was seen to be important about the Protocol is that it served as a framework agreement of basic principles that allowed quicker response when subsequent events (the confirmation that the Ozone hole was caused by the wastes of civilization, in this case, CFCs and halons) caused enough political will to develop. The timeframe and reduction targets were changed as political will developed.
Kyoto was negotiated, and justified when people attacked it over its preposterous inadequacies, because it was thought that at minimum, it could be a framework that could serve civilization well in the same way as the Montreal Protocol.
However, the framework of Kyoto was rejected at Copenhagen, and not much was substituted. Nations are not asked to bind themselves to anything, and as far as the written documents go,
We are in limbo, in need of international agreement to act decisively, wondering if Copenhagen will be seen by our descendants as the death knell of cvilization. This may be the end of the UN.
So, put whatever good face on it you feel like, but it is a bit much to listen to you hail Copenhagen because it didn’t commit us to the right thing.
We can look to the future with hope, as in hope springs eternal, but I wonder. I prefer to use the term faith.
We can set our faith that humanity can respond in this dark hour against whatever powers there are that are bent on our destruction, without hope, in the way a mother will attack a grizzly bear.