California’s recent move requiring significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 is the biggest in a series of steady steps taken by states to address global warming.
You wouldn’t think that world greenhouse gas emissions make up a problem best addressed in statehouses, but since Washington refuses to take meaningful action, the states have stepped up to the plate.
More power to them.
Last month, Gov. Ed Rendell announced that the Pennsylvania state government would buy 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources. In July, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed measures providing financial incentives to encourage production and use of alternative fuels. In June, Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle signed a bill increasing income tax credits for renewable technologies.
Those are just a sampling of the most recent actions. More are on the horizon. Seven eastern states have signed a compact to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
Oh, and then there’s us.
Colorado voters passed a constitutional amendment in 2004 requiring state utilities to get 10 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2015. On Thursday, a coalition of environmental groups, farmers and labor unions gathered on the steps of the Capitol to call on candidates for state offices to endorse a plan increasing that standard to 20 percent.
States are hoping to build alternatives to foreign oil, stimulate local development of alternative fuel industries and reduce emissions of harmful greenhouse gases that lead to global warming.
Certain gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, form an insulating layer in earth’s atmosphere, keeping heat from dissipating and causing temperature increases. Scientists have linked the phenomenon to coral reef die-off, disappearing glaciers, flooding and heat waves.
Evidence supporting the theory has been accumulating for years, and NASA scientists provided details last week on melting Arctic Ocean ice.
Nonetheless, the Bush administration has rejected the scientific conclusions and blocked any significant efforts to regulate emission levels.
It has been apparent since the U.S. backed away from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which committed 35 nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, that there has been little will at the federal level to take on this serious problem.
It’s a good thing for all of us that states are thinking globally.
