On Monday, August 3, 2015, President Barack Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency released final rules designed to curtail coal-based power plant emissions. Called the Clean Power Plan, the goal is to reduced carbon emissions contributing to man-made climate change. The impact of this plan will surprise a lot of Americans.
The following video is only a little over 2 minutes and worth watching:
Reaction has been about what you might expect. The Republican candidates for president and their Republican colleagues in the House and Senate have falsely attacked the plan for the usual false reasons. The Democratic candidates and in Congress largely agree that the steps proposed are necessary to deal with the unequivocal science demonstrating humans are warming the climate system.
Media reporting of the Clean Power Act shows its critical importance. Time magazine says that the President is taking the lead on this “superwicked problem.” CNN says the President “unveils major climate change proposal.” To the New York Times this is a “crucial step on climate change.” Other media outlets also note the unprecedented action by the White House and EPA.
Of course, there are also the denial lobbyists saturating the blogosphere with anti-Clean Power Act rhetoric. All provide opinions based on a single negative “report” produced by, you guessed it, one of the denial lobbyist organizations in their network. That’s a common tactic of lobbyists – create a biased report and then get all your friends to cite your biased report as “unbiased.”
Meanwhile, the response from the scientific community has generally been positive, as might be expected given that nearly every climate scientist agrees that 100+ years of published science unequivocally demonstrates a need to address man’s contribution to climate change. There are some, like outspoken climate scientist James Hansen, who feel the Plan is merely a drop in the bucket and won’t in itself create significant progress in dealing with our changing climate.
Hansen is probably right.
So let’s assume that the Clean Power Plan is insufficient to deal with climate change….
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David J. Kent has been a scientist for over thirty years, is an avid science traveler, and an independent Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and the e-book Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time. He is currently writing a book on Thomas Edison.
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