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Global Warming Pollution

IMPORTANT RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

Vintage Oil AdGlobal 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." 

On the federal level, MEIC has joined with several other state, regional, and national groups to promote a new and somewhat novel approach to reducing carbon emissions to the atmosphere known as  “Cap and Dividend.”

Clear Act logoThere is a bipartisan climate bill in the Senate that uses a simple system to reduce global warming pollution while at the same time spurs clean-energy job growth and returns money directly to consumers. Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) have introduced the Carbon Limits and Energy for American Renewal (CLEAR) Act which would set up a mechanism for selling “carbon shares” to fuel producers and would return most of the resulting revenue in checks to every American.

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 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"

The Smooth-Talking King of Coal—and Climate Change
How Duke Energy's Jim Rogers helped break down his industry's resistance to the carbon cap.  Interesting (rather long) article in Businessweek that chronicles the back-room deals and negotiations that got us “cap and trade” legislation.

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...
If every commuter car carried an extra passenger, eliminating half the automobiles on the road, the U.S. would save eight billion gallons of gas each year and cut CO2 emissions from cars by 50%.
 eight million gallons of gas and 25% of CO2 emissions from cars each year.
 eight billion gallons of gas and 50% of CO2 emissions from cars each year.
 eighty billion gallons of gas and 75% of CO2 emissions from cars each year.
 one billion gallons of gas and 30% of CO2 emissions from cars each year.
 
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