Dems Crafting New Climate Change Message

Reps. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) accused Republicans on Monday of being in denial over climate change.

The pair held a briefing during which they called on experts to provide them with talking points to use against GOP members who disagree that global warming is a mad-made problem.

“If a member of Congress came up to Mr. Waxman and I and said, ‘there is no global warming,’ can I tell them they’re wrong?” Markey asked Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project Director Dr. Richard Muller. 

“The evidence is compelling that there is global warming,” Muller responded. “But if you say to them, ‘but we’re uncertain how much of it is due to humans,’ you may have a chance of winning them over.”

After further questions regarding a response to the GOP’s attribution of climate change to the “heat island effect,” Muller responded they should cite the Berkley Earth study that reported climate changes in rural stations and thus could not be attributed to the effect.

Dr. Ben Santer, research scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Dr. William Chameides, dean of Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and vice chairman of the National Academies’ Committee on America’s Climate Choices, provided Markey and Waxman with a persuasive argument on the urgent need to pass legislation to control global warming.

“To make a choice to not act now is extremely imprudent,” Chameides said. “The prudent thing to do is to begin to act now and address climate change to give us the room to continue to adjust as we learn more.”

“Everything that I understand about this problem…does indeed suggest that there is a marked imprint of human activity on our climate system,” Santer added. “To ignore that would mean jeopardizing not only our own futures but the life and livelihood of our future generations. They will be inheriting a different climate future if we do nothing about this problem.”

The GOP-controlled House has voted 21 times, in this session alone, to block actions to address climate change, said the Democratic lawmakers.

Top NASA Climatologist Protests Transnational Oil Pipeline

As President Obama’s deadline to approve or disapprove licensing of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline draws closer, NASA’s lead climatologist, Dr. James Hansen, addressed reporters at the National Press Club to explain the grave consequences of approving such a project. 

“We have a planetary emergency,” Hansen, an adjunct professor at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and at Columbia’s Earth Institute, told reporters Monday. 

The Keystone XL Pipeline is a proposed 1,700 mile pipeline system that would be utilized to transport crude oil from Canada to oil refineries in the midwestern region of the US. Environmentalists, including some in Congress, oppose it on the grounds that it could disrupt and taint domestic clean water supplies, and could jeopardize efforts to shift to clean energy sources.

Hansen argued that if humans continue to burn fossil fuels at the current rate, 20-40 percent of species on the planet will become extinct by the end of the century. The hydraulic cycle, he said, has become more extreme, resulting in extreme floods and drought intensification. Coral reefs are being destroyed, sea levels are lowering and glaciers are receding, causing rivers to run dry, he added.

Hansen warned that if the next phase of the Keystone pipeline is approved, America will continue to feed its “oil addiction” and will continue to burn fossil fuels, further destroying the environment. 

“Fossil fuels are finite,” Hansen stated. “We’ll have to move to clean energy at some point so we may as well do it before we burn all the fossil fuels and ruin the future of our children.”

Hansen was among the first group of scientists to spread such warnings of global warming 30 years ago. Frustrated that his cries over the threat of climate change was going unheard, Hansen turned to civil disobedience in 2009. He has been arrested twice for protesting mountaintop removal coal mining, once in West Virginia and once outside the White House.

Following his remarks at the NPC, Hansen joined more than 60 religious leaders outside the White House to spread awareness of the environmental dangers of the Keystone XL pipeline as part of a civil disobedience act that has been going on for weeks. 

Boxer: America Is Taking Action On Climate Change

Travis Martinez, University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

As leaders from across the world converge in Copenhagen for climate change talks, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) a lead proponent in climate change, explained Monday that America has been making changes that the rest of the world should follow.

“Take a look at America, because what you see, will please you,” Boxer said.

Boxer stressed in her remarks that America has stepped up their efforts from the state and local government fronts, to consumer and private sectors.

“A [California] 2006 law requires action to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020... The California Air Resources Board produced its first cap-and-trade blueprint,” said Boxer. “The actions by states are powerful evidence that our states are committed to participating in the clean energy transformation."

She also spoke on recent actions by the Obama Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency who released findings that confirmed global warming presents a danger to people and the environment.

"The Clean Air Act provides EPA with powerful tools for addressing greenhouse gases, and the Supreme Court found it is their responsibility," Boxer said. “The Obama Administration has done the right thing for the nation, for the planet and if you listen to our business community for the economy."

Boxer said she is deeply concerned that “Personal” events on climate change could “Get in the way of science”. She explained that nothing from the stolen emails in the “Climate Gate” saga has contradicted the overwhelming science.

“The science is clear, the challenge is real, and the time to act is now... Our nation will be a full participant in crafting a global solution to this global challenge,” Boxer said.

Got Dengue Fever? Blame Climate Change

By Travis Martinez - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

As if melting glaciers, higher sea levels and unpredictable weather weren't enough, because of global warming, the human race faces the potential spread of infectious diseases. A panel of climate experts on Monday discussed the possibility of this occurring in North America.

“Climate change will likely alter the current distribution of vectors and/or pathogens,” said Mary Hayden, a scientist with Centers for Disease Control. “Two major climate factors that promote the reproduction of infectious mosquitos are precipitation and temperature.”

Hayden predicts that by 2050, Aedes aegypti, the yellow fever mosquito, will likely migrate from areas in Mexico to U.S. cities along the Eastern seaboard. Additionally, outbreaks of Dengue fever have already been reported in Key West, Florida.

“Unfortunately, we’re seeing that Dengue Fever is increasing in number and severity. In Mexico alone, since 2005, there has been a 600 percent increase in cases, with no known vaccine,” said Hayden.

The panel used years of data that shows correlations between increased rainfall accumulations in Africa and the reproduction of water-thriving mosquitoes, with the spread of diseases including Dengue Fever, Malaria, Cholera and Hantavirus.

According to the World Health Organization's website: “Change in world climate would influence the functioning of many ecosystems and their member species. Likewise, there would be impacts on human health. Some of these health impacts would be beneficial. For example, milder winters would reduce the seasonal winter-time peak in deaths that occurs in temperate countries, while in currently hot regions a further increase in temperatures might reduce the viability of disease-transmitting mosquito populations. Overall, however, scientists consider that most of the health impacts of climate change would be adverse.”

The panel on Monday urged Congress to develop a comprehensive disease control and monitoring system that will help combat the onset of diseases that have increased in recent years.

“I believe Congress should be focused on our ability to monitor and track diseases generally, but particularly with diseases related to climate change,” said panelist Lynn Goldman, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Right now we are doing a good job, but certainly monitoring can be very much improved.”

Graham Climbs Aboard Climate Change Bandwagon

By Ravi Bhatia - Talk Radio News Service

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has teamed up with Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) to find common ground on creating bipartisan climate change legislation, with hopes of making progress before the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen next month.

“The green economy is coming. We can either follow or lead,” Graham said at a press conference on Wednesday. “Those countries who follow will pay a price. those countries who lead in creating a new green economy for the world will make money.”

Graham and Kerry wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times published on Oct. 11 that highlighted some of the goals of the legislation, which include acknowledging that climate change is real, investing in wind, solar and nuclear energy and breaking U.S dependence on foreign oil.

Republicans boycotted the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee markups of the Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act on Tuesday and Wednesday in an attempt to urge the committee to submit the legislation to the Environmental Protection Agency for economic analysis. Ranking member Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) was the lone Republican to attend Wednesday’s meeting, although he departed after only 15 minutes.

“I do believe that all of the cars we have on the road and the trucks and the energy we use that produces carbon daily is not a good thing for the planet,” Graham said. “But if environmental policy is not good business policy you’ll never get 60 votes.”

According to Lieberman, the stakes are “too high” to wait on drafting climate change legislation.

“We will be held accountable by history unless we make every effort to find common ground,” he said.