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(Photo by Robin Holland)
This week on the JOURNAL, environmental advocates Mary Sweeters and Erich Pica joined Bill Moyers to discuss their disappointment with President Obama’s environmental policies and pending congressional legislation intended to address global warming. On June 26th, the House narrowly passed the Waxman-Markey climate bill, collecting crucial votes through extensive negotiation and compromise. The Senate is scheduled to debate its own climate bill in the coming weeks.
Many environmental groups have endorsed the Waxman-Markey climate bill as an important first step that will hopefully be strengthened over time. The Natural Resources Defense Council, for instance, issued a press release that said:
“The House of Representatives has made a dramatic breakthrough for America's future by choosing to create jobs, move to clean energy, and reduce global warming pollution. The passage of this legislation, which was almost unimaginable six months ago, will help set our country in a new direction by shifting to a clean energy economy and reducing the carbon pollution that causes global warming... But the work is far from over. Now, the bill will move to the Senate where it needs to be strengthened, so we can reach the full potential of our clean energy future and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.”
Erich Pica listed the reasons why groups like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace oppose the legislation:
“One, the bill doesn’t reduce global warming emissions in the United States fast enough and the emission reduction targets are just inadequate... Two, it strips away the [Environmental Protection Agency’s] authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, which is a key tool that environmentalists have been using to shut down coal plants. Three, it gives away a tremendous amount of money, hundreds of billions of dollars to the polluting companies that have essentially caused the problem of global warming... Four, and this is kind of overwhelming the entire system, is that it relies on Wall Street to help solve the problem of global warming by allowing them to manage the trading system that’s created underneath this bill... Wall Street is going to work feverishly to erode any of the standards and protections that are put into this bill to prevent Wall Street from gaming the system.”
Although the NRDC and groups like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace disagree about the Waxman-Markey climate bill, they agree that the United States should forge ahead in passing federal policy to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Others argue that U.S. emissions cuts are not worthwhile unless the rest of the world can commit to doing the same. Writing in the WASHINGTON POST, economics professor Martin Feldstein said that the legislation is “all cost, no benefit:”
“The proposed legislation would have a trivially small effect on global warming while imposing substantial costs on all American households... Americans should ask themselves whether this annual tax of $1,600-plus per family is justified by the very small resulting decline in global CO2. Since the U.S. share of global CO2 production is now less than 25 percent (and is projected to decline as China and other developing nations grow), a 15 percent fall in U.S. CO2 output would lower global CO2 output by less than 4 percent. Its impact on global warming would be virtually unnoticeable. The U.S. should wait until there is a global agreement on CO2 that includes China and India before committing to costly reductions in the United States... The proposed cap-and-trade system would be a costly policy that would penalize Americans with little effect on global warming.”
What do you think?
Do you support the Waxman-Markey climate bill? Why or why not?
How do you think the U.S. should respond to global warming? What measures do you think are politically feasible?
(Photo by Robin Holland)
In this week’s JOURNAL, Bill Moyers spoke with Daniel Goleman, author of ECOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE, about how to find truly eco-friendly goods amongst the sea of products now marketed as ‘green.’
Moyers said:
“You write in [your book] that ‘green’ is ‘a mirage,’ that much of what’s touted as ‘green,’ in reality, represents fantasy or simple hype. And here I had been working so hard to develop what THE NEW YORK TIMES calls “the green mind” and support a ‘green economy,’ and you tell me I’ve entered the land of fantasy.”
Goleman replied:
“Let me reassure you. Everything that we’ve done that’s ‘green’ is to the good. I recycle my papers and plastics, and I try to get the ‘green’ product. But once you realize, through the lens of the life cycle assessment, that every product has a thousand environmental, health, [and] social impacts, and you see that what we call ‘green’ has taken one slice and improved it, there’s still the 999 other things that we need to get better.”
What do you think?
How much positive impact do you think ‘green’ products have?
Are calls for a “green economy” based on “fantasy or simple hype,” or are they realistic? Explain.
Click here to access goodguide.com, the site Goleman mentioned with more information about products.
Click here to access Skin Deep, the site Goleman mentioned with more information on harmful chemicals in cosmetics.
Allen Johnson is coordinator for Christians for the Mountains, an advocacy group that organizes Christians to protect the environment. The organization, which was featured in the 2006 MOYERS ON AMERICA documentary IS GOD GREEN?, has a special focus on the region of southern Appalachia. We'd like to thank Allen Johnson, who previously wrote an update about mountaintop mining, for sharing his thoughts on the Bush administration's recent changes to the nation's environmental regulations.
Please note that the views and opinions expressed by Allen Johnson are not necessarily the views and opinions held by Bill Moyers or BILL MOYERS JOURNAL.
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A failed Bush administration is firing final salvos from its sinking ship in the form of administrative rules changes, “a thank you” to 8 years of special interest support. One particularly odious ruling revises a Clean Water Act prohibition of mine waste fill within 100 feet of a stream. Not that the prohibition had been enforced. Flagrant violations have buried many hundreds of miles of Appalachian streams in a coal mine extraction process called “Valley Fill.” Simply put, valleys make convenient places to dump waste rock separated from mined coal. But at least the prohibition on stream burial had given environmental groups legitimate ground for lawsuit. Bush’s farewell fiat knocks the legs out of these legal recourses.
Continue reading "Guest Blogger: Allen Johnson on Bush's Environmental Policies" »
This week on the JOURNAL, Bill Moyers spoke with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, about her efforts to advance “cap and trade” legislation as a response to climate change.
“We have to have a bill that gets the job done, that reduces greenhouse gas emissions so that temperatures don’t go up, you know, much above a couple of degrees over time, because if they do we’re in a lot of trouble here... There’s never going to be a good time. This is hard, we have to deal with it, and so we have to act. You cannot hide under the covers and say ‘wake me up when gas prices go under a dollar a gallon and then I’ll bring up global warming legislation’... I believe this can be structured in such a way that it actually brings around an economic renaissance.”
An article from the WASHINGTON POST highlights some of the challenges the “cap and trade” model has faced since its implementation in Europe and could encounter in the United States.
“What the snappy name ‘cap and trade’ means is that the market will put a price on something that’s always been free: the right of a factory to emit carbon gases. That could affect the cost of everything from windowpanes to airline tickets to electricity... In some ways, Europe’s program has been a success... in other ways, the approach has been a bureaucratic morass with a host of unexpected and costly side effects and a much smaller effect on carbon emissions than planned...
One key issue is how to deal with imports from countries that don’t price carbon. A U.S. system that raised costs for U.S. firms would make imported goods, especially from India and China, even more competitive, adding to the trade deficit and possibly driving U.S. companies out of business”
What do you think?
Should the government act on climate change? If so, should it pursue a "cap and trade" policy, or would you suggest alternative legislation?
Forty-five years ago next week, the modern environmental movement was launched with the  release of Rachel Carson's landmark book SILENT SPRING, amidst fiery controversy that still burns today.
Check out our pages on Rachel Carson and the DDT controversy and read an excerpt from one of Carson's kindred spirits, noted biologist E.O. Wilson, from his recent afterword to SILENT SPRING:
Continue reading "E.O. Wilson on Rachel Carson" »
As this week's story on the Earth Conservation Corps and Bill Moyers' interview with E.O. Wilson both demonstrate, local efforts can make a difference in helping to maintain a healthy and sustainable environment.
Back in October, when we aired "Is God GREEN?" the MOYERS ON AMERICA special about recent efforts within the evangelical movement to preserve our planet, many viewers wrote in about local environmental successes in their community. Here are just a few excerpts:
Joan Conley wrote:
I am very fortunate to live in the city of Syracuse, NY which is right next door to the Onondaga Nation. The Onondagas have a long history of dedication to the land. About a year ago they filed a land rights claim that is not about getting land back or getting money. It is their wish to work with us--their cousins, as they call us, to do a meaningful clean-up of Onondaga Lake, which is said to be the most polluted lake in the US; and also to engage in a real work of stewardship of the land and all of it's creatures. It has been my great privilige to learn about loving the creator through loving creation.
Jennifer Knott-Kimbrell wrote:
In Austin, Texas our church held a light bulb exchange. We encouraged members and visitors alike to bring in incandescent bulbs and trade them in for Compact Fluorescent bulbs. Now people want to know things like if the altar candles burning are petroleum-based, or if the insulation in the building is enough. It all starts with one person, one event and goes from there.
In the spirit of continuing the conversation, we ask you to tell us about environmental programs going on in your city or town, as evidence that little by little, important work is being done to save our planet and its diverse inhabitants. As E.O. Wilson reminds us, we've only discovered 10% of Earth's species. "We live in an unexplored planet." Only concentrated efforts, often starting humbly at the local level, can ensure that there's something left to explore.
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A Companion Blog to Bill Moyers Journal
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