President Obama is giving a speech today at Georgetown University in Washington unveiling his strategy to combat climate change, with a concentration on building homegrown energy while cutting carbon pollution. The plan includes goals to reduce carbon pollution by at least 3 billion metric tons cumulatively by 2030, and by helping commercial, industrial and multi-family buildings cut waste and become at least 20 percent more efficient by 2020. Even before the speech, advocates and critics have already weighed in on the plan.
"The centerpiece of the strategy is a proposed rule to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants by June 2014, an add-on to already proposed standards for new or future plants," Jason Samenow notes for The Washington Post. "The strategy also features initiatives to improve energy efficiency, increase renewable energy sources, reduce methane, build/enhance international partnerships to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and prepare for/adapt to climate change." Advocates of the plan say the president is tackling a national threat head-on to improve the environment and economy, while critics say the plan kills jobs.
The White House released a video over the weekend promoting the speech. Chris Clayton of DTN The Progressive Farmer wrote, "For biofuel advocates, the president's brief video provided some positive indications that the administration would continue supporting efforts to grow renewable fuels and more investment into research on renewables. The president said, "We’ll need scientists to design new fuels, and farmers to grow them. We’ll need engineers to devise new sources of energy, and businesses to make and sell them. We’ll need workers to build the foundation for a clean energy economy." (Read more)
Some disagree that the plan will provide new jobs. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, running for re-election in the nation's third-largest coal producing state, noted in a speech that one of Obama's climate advisers, Daniel P. Schrag of the Harvard University Center for the Environment, "finally admitted something most of us have long suspected anyway. He said ‘A war on coal is exactly what’s needed’ in this country. . . . It’s an astonishing bit of honesty from someone that close to the White House. But it really encapsulates the attitude this administration holds in regard to states like mine, where coal is such an important part of the economic well-being of so many middle-class families." Citing the importance of energy costs to business, McConnell said "Declaring a war on coal is tantamount to declaring a war on jobs."
UPDATE, 5 p.m.: In his speech, Obama said "he will not approve the Keystone XL pipeline if building it would generate more greenhouse gas emissions than not constructing it," Juliet Eilperin reports for The Washington Post, which has a graphic illustrating the plan. Click here.
"The centerpiece of the strategy is a proposed rule to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants by June 2014, an add-on to already proposed standards for new or future plants," Jason Samenow notes for The Washington Post. "The strategy also features initiatives to improve energy efficiency, increase renewable energy sources, reduce methane, build/enhance international partnerships to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and prepare for/adapt to climate change." Advocates of the plan say the president is tackling a national threat head-on to improve the environment and economy, while critics say the plan kills jobs.
The White House released a video over the weekend promoting the speech. Chris Clayton of DTN The Progressive Farmer wrote, "For biofuel advocates, the president's brief video provided some positive indications that the administration would continue supporting efforts to grow renewable fuels and more investment into research on renewables. The president said, "We’ll need scientists to design new fuels, and farmers to grow them. We’ll need engineers to devise new sources of energy, and businesses to make and sell them. We’ll need workers to build the foundation for a clean energy economy." (Read more)
Some disagree that the plan will provide new jobs. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, running for re-election in the nation's third-largest coal producing state, noted in a speech that one of Obama's climate advisers, Daniel P. Schrag of the Harvard University Center for the Environment, "finally admitted something most of us have long suspected anyway. He said ‘A war on coal is exactly what’s needed’ in this country. . . . It’s an astonishing bit of honesty from someone that close to the White House. But it really encapsulates the attitude this administration holds in regard to states like mine, where coal is such an important part of the economic well-being of so many middle-class families." Citing the importance of energy costs to business, McConnell said "Declaring a war on coal is tantamount to declaring a war on jobs."
UPDATE, 5 p.m.: In his speech, Obama said "he will not approve the Keystone XL pipeline if building it would generate more greenhouse gas emissions than not constructing it," Juliet Eilperin reports for The Washington Post, which has a graphic illustrating the plan. Click here.
As a veteran, having seen what bombs and bullets can do to human bodies, having seen what massive resources and even greater ignorance can do to a country (Iraq), having witnessed what I can only describe as Hobbesian anarchy in the summer of 2006 I think the loss of 5,500 mining jobs here in Eastern Kentucky, terrible though it is, simply does not rise to the level a war.
ReplyDeleteBoth the proponents and opponents of the war on coal, or women, or crime, or drugs, or whatever other issue they designate as a war cheapen the meaning of the term, and that is dangerous. The 4th of July is an excellent occassion to step back and regain our perspective on just what it is we're talking about when we use the word war. Because when real war becomes just another addition to the ever growing list of inferior causes, it is that much easier to start. The more we lower the standard for war, the more we eliminate the need for any resistance to it. The casual approach to war inevitably leads to greater casualties, and I'd just assume it didn't. I can't speak for other veterans, but I suspect most would agree.
Lets's honor the sacrifices of those who gave their lives and of those who suffered their losses by restricting the designation of war to the real thing.