EPA’ s Lisa Jackson panders to Copenhagen on opening day. Planned for months of course, with public comment ignored. It is now the people -vs- the EPA, coming to a courtroom near you.
From the EPA press release:
EPA: Greenhouse Gases Threaten Public Health and the Environment
Science overwhelmingly shows greenhouse gas concentrations at unprecedented levels due to human activity
WASHINGTON – After a thorough examination of the scientific evidence and careful consideration of public comments, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that greenhouse gases (GHGs) threaten the public health and welfare of the American people. EPA also finds that GHG emissions from on-road vehicles contribute to that threat.
GHGs are the primary driver of climate change, which can lead to hotter, longer heat waves that threaten the health of the sick, poor or elderly; increases in ground-level ozone pollution linked to asthma and other respiratory illnesses; as well as other threats to the health and welfare of Americans.
“These long-overdue findings cement 2009’s place in history as the year when the United States Government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution and seizing the opportunity of clean-energy reform,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “Business leaders, security experts, government officials, concerned citizens and the United States Supreme Court have called for enduring, pragmatic solutions to reduce the greenhouse gas pollution that is causing climate change. This continues our work towards clean energy reform that will cut GHGs and reduce the dependence on foreign oil that threatens our national security and our economy.”
EPA’s final findings respond to the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that GHGs fit within the Clean Air Act definition of air pollutants. The findings do not in and of themselves impose any emission reduction requirements but rather allow EPA to finalize the GHG standards proposed earlier this year for new light-duty vehicles as part of the joint rulemaking with the Department of Transportation.
On-road vehicles contribute more than 23 percent of total U.S. GHG emissions. EPA’s proposed GHG standards for light-duty vehicles, a subset of on-road vehicles, would reduce GHG emissions by nearly 950 million metric tons and conserve 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the lifetime of model year 2012-2016 vehicles.
EPA’s endangerment finding covers emissions of six key greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride – that have been the subject of scrutiny and intense analysis for decades by scientists in the United States and around the world.
Scientific consensus shows that as a result of human activities, GHG concentrations in the atmosphere are at record high levels and data shows that the Earth has been warming over the past 100 years, with the steepest increase in warming in recent decades. The evidence of human-induced climate change goes beyond observed increases in average surface temperatures; it includes melting ice in the Arctic, melting glaciers around the world, increasing ocean temperatures, rising sea levels, acidification of the oceans due to excess carbon dioxide, changing precipitation patterns, and changing patterns of ecosystems and wildlife.
President Obama and Administrator Jackson have publicly stated that they support a legislative solution to the problem of climate change and Congress’ efforts to pass comprehensive climate legislation. However, climate change is threatening public health and welfare, and it is critical that EPA fulfill its obligation to respond to the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that determined that greenhouse gases fit within the Clean Air Act definition of air pollutants.
EPA issued the proposed findings in April 2009 and held a 60-day public comment period. The agency received more than 380,000 comments, which were carefully reviewed and considered during the development of the final findings.
Information on EPA’s findings: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment.html
Hey Anthony, I know you will be interested in this story.
Note, how that NASA is still writing up global warming documents and submitting them to the media that this past decade was the hottest in recorded history.
And, knowing the future, that 2008 was an anomaly.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34282711/ns/us_news-environment
Next comes water vapor. http://www.ecoenquirer.com/EPA-water-vapor.htm
This EPA finding is unfortunately a very bad sign.
Obama already has a bad track record on civil liberties – now CO2-crimes can be added to the warrentless wiretapping and illegal detention tactics.
Note that building a house itself generates lots of CO2.
I calculated in a post at iTulip.com that the slab alone for an average sized house is responsible for 74 tons of CO2 emissions:
http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13136
Thus every single construction company would be regulated by the EPA…
Any company that makes anything in the US also almost certainly will then fall under the EPA categories: every manufacturer, every corporate consumer of electricity over a certain amount, every energy producer/supplier/distributor, every transportation company, even large farms.
This is clearly a publicity stunt.
I fervently hope it rebounds but am not optimistic.
Runners will be shot
And when they catch me they will kill me. But first they must catch me.
Tomorrow I am taking the catalytic converter off my car. I suggest everyone else do the same so as to comply with the new EPA regulations. After that I am going to purchase another rifle.
Pamela Grey said
“Sad to say, but both the Republicans and Democrats are to blame for this one. I am intent of belonging to a 3rd party without religious affiliation and that is dedicated to personal freedoms and responsibility. Neither party will get my vote “just because” ever again”
It seems to me that third parties generally give victories to Democrats/leftists/statists.
What do the religious people have to do with this problem? And are you under the impression that an affiliation with the religious precludes a party from being dedicated to personal freedoms and responsibility?
Was the planet flooded during the Medieval warm period?
It’s Ba-ack.
3″ of snow in Modesto, CA. Snow in the valley reminiscent of the 70’s when “The Coming Ice Age” looked very real.
3rd night of skirting with alltime lows here.
Expecting 12 degrees tonight. 10 tomorrow night.
Running 5-10 degrees below last winter.
Global Warming is over, hope you enjoyed the show.
Lisa Jackson and the EPAs declaration of C02 Cold Turkey.
If implemented, the US will fall behind on new power plant construction, and this place will soon look like S. Africa with rolling blackouts the norm.
Crises are a way for them to make us feel that we are ‘in this together’, to give us a common sense of identity. This works on a national scale every day and is the reason that people in Iowa aren’t refusing to pay bills for people in California; we are all the same people based on national identity. ‘climate change’ represents an attempt to create a common world identity based on sharing a common ‘crisis’. I hate to sound like a ‘one world govt’ conspiracy nut but think about it…
There’s nothing like holding a gun to Congress’ head. Obama knows exactly what he’s doing, and it is not good for this country.
People will say how he could ever get re-elected in 2012. Well, FDR kept the country in a perpetual state of Depression whereby he created an entire generation dependent on government for their subsistence. Obama is FDR on steroids.
Think about it.
captainfish (19:13:30) :
“And, knowing the future, that 2008 was an anomaly.”
Yeah, and 1997 was normal!
CNN started this morning to take in questions from viewers about climate change. here it is:
http://newsroom.blogs.cnn.com/2009/12/07/climate-change-your-questions/
pls make a post like you did w/ “Send a greeting to Copenhagen Conference” so ppl can take action
I think our public officials have gone stark raving mad. There is no other way to put it.
Robert E. Phelan (18:37:41) :
“What’s make these people think a revolution isn’t coming?”
Because they are not as smart as we probably give them credit, Robert.
They will not see it [the revolution] coming when it happens [and it has already begun]….just like they are refusing to look at the real data that falsifies the quasi-religious dogma of their CAGW junk-science.
They are sheeple on an executive level, drunk with the intoxicating drug of group-think.
They are automatons and bureaucrats and narcissists and are too blinded by their own narcissism…to see the revolution coming.
My blood boileth right now….and it will take every reasonable person around the globe, whose blood boils as well….TO PUT ASIDE THEIR DIFFERENCES…and fight this crap.
Rise up and take arms.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Sieg. Heil! Sieg. Heil! Sieg Heil!
The Brown Shirts of globalwarming win again.
Socialism works only so long as you have capitalist to pay the bills. This junk-science decision by the EPA greatly speeds the demise of capitalist bill payers.
I still think that the more freedom is squeezed out of the lives of the American people the more they will remember the Founding Fathers.
“…that who we are is who we were.”
Wouldn’t someone hyperventilate and pass out in the absence of CO2?
Rise up and take arms.
Take up pens. And voting booth levers.
Beware the “take up arms” thing. It can cut both ways.
Bozell: ‘Networks Finally Cover ClimateGate, And They Couldn’t Be More Biased’
http://mrc.org/press/releases/2009/20091207012943.aspx
Glenn Beck Climategate Part 2 12-07-09
Inhofe has a better handle on the American resources than Markup.
DaveE.
Shale gas! 50-60 year supply minimum (probably double that). So take the oldest coal burning power stations off line and bring on new natural gas ones. Sounds so simple but it would only cut 100% of the mercury, 99% of the nitrous, 33% of the sulfur currently emitted by the coal plant. It would also reduce the evil CO2 emissions by 40% if you still think that is important (god knows how you could after the last 3 weeks).
So instead we will pass trillions through a cap and trade system with Mr 1% Gore and his GoldmanSachs pals in the middle collecting on every transaction. No real progress will be made.
How stupid is the EPA and the environmental movement not to seize this natural gas bonanza? This is the bridge to the future we have been looking for. It just isn’t in a field that isn’t renewable and politically correct to embrace.
Listening to some of the Youtube presentations in this post, I get the idea that the EPA’s declaration is a way to coerce (some say blackmail) Congress into passing Cap & Tax. Two points. First, assuming congress kowtows to the EPA, how will that defer the EPA from acting as it sees fit? Kowtowing doesn’t hinder tyranny, it emboldens it.
Second, doesn’t the EPA get its funding, if not its existence, from Congress? If so, coercion can work both ways. If I was a Congressperson and an agency I funded tried to coerce me, that agency’s funding would be at a minimum cut to the bone.
Wake up America. In 2010 vote the members of Congress who support (a) Cap & Tax and/or (b) the EPA out of office. If you don’t, you too will have to learn how to kowtow.
My God when is all this insanity going to stop? First we have Maurice Strong who, through the UN, wants the standard of living of all the Western civilizations reduced to the lowest common denominator where we all live in mud huts, ride bikes and eat grubs. Then the global warming-climate change alarmists (the best science money can buy) cobble together a bunch of fiddled data and produce phony results saying we are all doomed. Next, the UN IPCC takes this phony data and tries to regulate the world. Next, to try to lend an air of respectability to this whole con job, we have the charlatan Al Gore and his sci-fi horror flick terrifying a whole generation of children and the more impressionable people. And now the last straw, Obama has added the EPA thugs as future enforcers to make it happen in the US.
Is there any possible way that this whole mess can be stopped? Will common sense and good science ever be able to turn this disaster around?