Thursday, October 14, 2004
Blaming the bad summer on Bush -a joke or serious matter?
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
As Midtown Manhattan gets drenched in torrential rains, while Gramercy, Union Square, Stuyvesant and Madison Square parks perk up, refreshed by Mother Nature’s bounty of water, we the acute and observant cityites ask each other; “What happened to our weather? Has something changed?”
Yes, something has changed in nature, say the independent weather people, while the big-business controlled EPA types deny it. Actually, it is the US-funded National Institute on Atmospheric Research that produces the analysis of greenhouse gasses that the Bush EPA pooh-poohs. On NPR’s environmental series Living on Earth, NCAR’s Director of Climatic Research Dr.Kevin Trenberth has stated that greenhouse gases (GHG) have produced global warming responsible for 10-15% of increase in the intensity of hurricanes over the past 30 years. The gases trap Earth’s radiation in the atmosphere, not letting it dissipate into space. Polar ice caps melt. Coral reefs die, changing the food chain in the warm oceans. The warming of oceans contributes to evaporation, and water vapor itself is a powerful GHG that feeds on itself. Evaporation gives birth to thunderstorms, which collect into hurricanes, propagated by trade winds, around Cape Verde Islands west of Senegal. The hurricanes start earlier, last longer and the rainfalls are more severe, the ocean surges are larger. Their impact washes out beaches and destroys coastal areas.
This scenario has been recognized in the US Senate where the Lieberman -McCain Climate Stewardship Act, though defeated in October 2003, received an impressive 43-55 vote. Senator McCain, chairman of the Senate Commerce and Science Committee, continues the effort. The bill requires the EPA to promote regulations that limit GHG emissions in industry and commerce, particularly energy and transportation, with loan incentives.
Global warming has long been recognized by the Congress, US has participated in the Montreal (1989), Rio de Janeiro (1992) and Kyoto (1997) conferences, in which the thrust has been to limit GHG emissions in the 40 industrial and the EEC countries (“Annex 1”) without hampering industrial development in the 130-plus participating developing countries. Of the six GHGs, three – carbon dioxide ((CO2, from use of fossil fuels), methane (ground and animal emissions) and hydrofluorcarbons (from refrigeration and spray can propellants) – are most damaging. The US is responsible for 22% of the world’s output of CO2.
US has long refused to sign the protocols (Kyoto, the latest, requires the Annex 1 countries to reduce emissions by an average of 5.2% below 1990 volume) without imposing some limits also on the developing countries, among which China is a major producer. George W. Bush, in his campaign for the Presidency, promised to control GHG emissions. In March 2001 he reversed, breaking the campaign pledge because limiting CO2 emissions from power plants would deal a severe blow to the industry and American economy. Since then, in February 2002, he decided to mend his image, and delivered a major speech, promising an 18% reduction in GHG emissions y 2012, based on a tricky linkage to GDP, produced voluntarily by the industry, and created another Committee, on Climate Change Science and Integration, chaired by the Secretaries of Commerce and Energy in rotation. How this integrates with the 1990 US Global Change Research Program Act (USGCRP), the President’s Climate Change Research Initiative (CCRI), and National Climate Change Technology Initiative (NCCTI), only budget experts can tell. Meanwhile the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is crying for research funds, to help deal with deteriorating waters and climate.
Meanwhile the federal administrator of energy industry, a former electric industry lobbyist, is sabotaging the effort, quietly destroying President Nixon’s Clean air Act of 1970, by gradually changing the regulation that requires the energy producers to install scrubbers and such whenever they make repairs and upgrades that cost 2% a year of the total value of the plant. He raised the number to 20%, and any CEO can hold expenses in check, so as not to overstep the limit. Consequently, forget about scrubbers and clean air.
Also, the limiting mileage per gallon pollution rules governing Detroit is eroded, since they do not apply to the truck-based SUVs.
So, Midtown Manhattan people, do not complain about the deteriorating quality of your air, the rains, colds and sniffles and coughs. It is all perfectly legal, the rainfalls that bring acids from Midwest factories are also within acceptable limits. You must be dreaming, imagining things.
Meanwhile, there’s hope from an unexpected source. The Chinese, big air polluters, have set strict emission and mileage rules for their automotive industry, some 5% more stringent than those applicable to Detroit. Since GM and Ford want to build cars in that huge expanding market, they will have to develop the product. In the long run we, the people of T&V Country, may be driving in cleaner air cars thanks to China. But we all know what John Maynard Keynes said about the long run.
As Midtown Manhattan gets drenched in torrential rains, while Gramercy, Union Square, Stuyvesant and Madison Square parks perk up, refreshed by Mother Nature’s bounty of water, we the acute and observant cityites ask each other; “What happened to our weather? Has something changed?”
Yes, something has changed in nature, say the independent weather people, while the big-business controlled EPA types deny it. Actually, it is the US-funded National Institute on Atmospheric Research that produces the analysis of greenhouse gasses that the Bush EPA pooh-poohs. On NPR’s environmental series Living on Earth, NCAR’s Director of Climatic Research Dr.Kevin Trenberth has stated that greenhouse gases (GHG) have produced global warming responsible for 10-15% of increase in the intensity of hurricanes over the past 30 years. The gases trap Earth’s radiation in the atmosphere, not letting it dissipate into space. Polar ice caps melt. Coral reefs die, changing the food chain in the warm oceans. The warming of oceans contributes to evaporation, and water vapor itself is a powerful GHG that feeds on itself. Evaporation gives birth to thunderstorms, which collect into hurricanes, propagated by trade winds, around Cape Verde Islands west of Senegal. The hurricanes start earlier, last longer and the rainfalls are more severe, the ocean surges are larger. Their impact washes out beaches and destroys coastal areas.
This scenario has been recognized in the US Senate where the Lieberman -McCain Climate Stewardship Act, though defeated in October 2003, received an impressive 43-55 vote. Senator McCain, chairman of the Senate Commerce and Science Committee, continues the effort. The bill requires the EPA to promote regulations that limit GHG emissions in industry and commerce, particularly energy and transportation, with loan incentives.
Global warming has long been recognized by the Congress, US has participated in the Montreal (1989), Rio de Janeiro (1992) and Kyoto (1997) conferences, in which the thrust has been to limit GHG emissions in the 40 industrial and the EEC countries (“Annex 1”) without hampering industrial development in the 130-plus participating developing countries. Of the six GHGs, three – carbon dioxide ((CO2, from use of fossil fuels), methane (ground and animal emissions) and hydrofluorcarbons (from refrigeration and spray can propellants) – are most damaging. The US is responsible for 22% of the world’s output of CO2.
US has long refused to sign the protocols (Kyoto, the latest, requires the Annex 1 countries to reduce emissions by an average of 5.2% below 1990 volume) without imposing some limits also on the developing countries, among which China is a major producer. George W. Bush, in his campaign for the Presidency, promised to control GHG emissions. In March 2001 he reversed, breaking the campaign pledge because limiting CO2 emissions from power plants would deal a severe blow to the industry and American economy. Since then, in February 2002, he decided to mend his image, and delivered a major speech, promising an 18% reduction in GHG emissions y 2012, based on a tricky linkage to GDP, produced voluntarily by the industry, and created another Committee, on Climate Change Science and Integration, chaired by the Secretaries of Commerce and Energy in rotation. How this integrates with the 1990 US Global Change Research Program Act (USGCRP), the President’s Climate Change Research Initiative (CCRI), and National Climate Change Technology Initiative (NCCTI), only budget experts can tell. Meanwhile the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is crying for research funds, to help deal with deteriorating waters and climate.
Meanwhile the federal administrator of energy industry, a former electric industry lobbyist, is sabotaging the effort, quietly destroying President Nixon’s Clean air Act of 1970, by gradually changing the regulation that requires the energy producers to install scrubbers and such whenever they make repairs and upgrades that cost 2% a year of the total value of the plant. He raised the number to 20%, and any CEO can hold expenses in check, so as not to overstep the limit. Consequently, forget about scrubbers and clean air.
Also, the limiting mileage per gallon pollution rules governing Detroit is eroded, since they do not apply to the truck-based SUVs.
So, Midtown Manhattan people, do not complain about the deteriorating quality of your air, the rains, colds and sniffles and coughs. It is all perfectly legal, the rainfalls that bring acids from Midwest factories are also within acceptable limits. You must be dreaming, imagining things.
Meanwhile, there’s hope from an unexpected source. The Chinese, big air polluters, have set strict emission and mileage rules for their automotive industry, some 5% more stringent than those applicable to Detroit. Since GM and Ford want to build cars in that huge expanding market, they will have to develop the product. In the long run we, the people of T&V Country, may be driving in cleaner air cars thanks to China. But we all know what John Maynard Keynes said about the long run.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 5:18 PM 
