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Global Warming Pollution
IMPORTANT RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
- S.E.C. Adds Climate Risk to Disclosure List (By JOHN M. BRODER, NYTimes.com, January 27, 2010)
- Financial Reform Debate May Influence Future of Climate Bill (by Katherine Ling, ClimateWire, posted in the NYTimes.com, December 2, 2009)
- DEQ will propose CO2 emission limits. Environmental group hails EPA ruling; industry fears heavy cost (by Karl Puckett, Great Falls Tribune, December 8, 2009)
Global 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.”
There 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"
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.
- pdf reprint from MEIC's Down to Earth (with images, 1 MB)
- pdf of text-only document (196 K)
- LISTEN to an interview with Mary Wood — KUFM, Feb. 2008
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.
- This "YouTube" video — "How it all Ends" — is a good explanation of the risk of global warming inaction.
- Did you ever wonder what reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 1 million metric tons means in everyday terms? EPA's equivalency calculator can help you understand just that.
- Global warming frequently asked questions
In the News
- Major impacts resulting from climate change are starting to occur in the Arctic. (Sept. 4, 2009)
-
U.S. in Historic Shift on CO2; Businesses Brace for Costly New Rules as EPA Declares Warming Gases a Threat (by Jonathan Weisman and Siobhan Hughes, Wall Street Journal, 4/18/09)
- Air Force drops plan to make fuel from coal in Montana (by Renee Schoof, McClatchy Newspapers, 01.29.09)
- EPA files objections to (coal-fired) Big Stone II (by Dennis Gale, AP, 1/25/09)
- Utilities shrink the role of coal on global-warming worries (by Paul Davidson, USA TODAY. 9/21/08)
- "Remember This: 350 Parts Per Million,"
(by Bill McKibben, washingtonpost.com, 12/28/07)
- Power Plant Rejected Over Carbon Dioxide For First Time (by Steven Mufson, Washington Post, 10/19/07)