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Global Warming Pollution

IMPORTANT RECENT DEVELOPMENT

Environmental Protection Agency Finds Greenhouse Gases Pose Threat to Public Health, Welfare (4/17/2009)

 
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skyscape2Global climate change is one of the biggest challenges we now face.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency underscored that threat in April 2009 by declaring that CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions endanger "the health and welfare of current and future generations." 

In 2008, MEIC joined several other conservation groups in a lawsuit challenging the Bureau of Land Management to consider global warming before selling federal oil & natural gas leases in Montana.

Increasing dependence on fossil fuels such as coal—especially  converting coal to liquid fuels—is a disturbing and destructive trend. MEIC is fighting this by promoting energy conservation as well as a market for renewable energy alternatives such as wind and solar power and acting as a watchdog over new coal plant permits and other fossil fuel-based power plants.

MEIC also supports the adoption, by the State of Montana, of greenhouse gas (GHG) vehicle emission standards.  Such standards have been adopted or are in the process of being adopted by 17 states.  (MEIC supportied a bill before the 2009 legislature that would direct the State to adopt the California clean car standard.)  MEIC has joined with several other state-based and regional groups to promote a new and somewhat novel approach to reducing carbon emissions to the atmosphere:  “Cap and Dividends.”

MEIC has been focusing on education as the key to creating an awareness of how devastating climate change can be to Montana and the entire world.  MEIC participated in the Montana Climate Change Advisory Council, whose mission is to advise the governor on ways to reduce Montana’s global warming pollution.

 

"REQUIRED READINGS"

Climate Expert Calls for Complete Phase-Out of CO2 Emissions from Coal-Fired Power Plants: An affidavit filed by Dr. James Hansen (379 K pdf) in connection with MEIC’s lawsuit against the Montana Department of Environmental Quality for failing to regulate CO2 emissions from the Highwood Generating Station.

NATURE’S TRUST: A Legal, Political, Economic, and Moral Frame for Global Warming—A lecture by University of Oregon Law Professor Mary Christina Wood, presented at the 2007 Southwest Renewable Energy Conference in Boulder, Colorado on August 2, 2007.


For more information

  • Global Warming LINKS (including "Climate Crocks" videos that will help you debunk the arguments of those who say global warming isn’t real!)
  • MEIC Files Suit over Highwood CO2 Emissions NOTE: This lawsuit has implications for all power plants in the state.]
  • View the PBS special DARK ENERGY: The Clean Coal Controversy (first aired July 29, 2008). This hour-long documentary examines both the potential for liquid coal to meet energy needs and the very real environmental and economic costs of the technology. It also scrutinizes proposals to capture carbon dioxide emissions and pump them deep into the ground in the hopes of trapping the CO2 there for hundreds of years. Interviews include Governor Brian Schweitzer, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Air Force William Anderson, Congressman Henry Waxman, and MEIC Program Director Anne Hedges.

 

In the News
Do you know...
How do CO2 emissions from coal-to-liquid fuel (syngas) production compare to conventional production of petroleum-based diesel fuel?
 50% lower
 50% higher
 same
 8% higher
 
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