Small step for the planet
Toolbox
Published: June 29, 2009
he climate bill that passed the U.S. House on Friday isn't going to solve global warming. It is, however, at least a step in that direction.
Many Democrats felt the bill didn't go far enough toward addressing the effect pollution is having on the world's atmosphere; most Republicans preferred to continue their ubiquituous scare tactics, warning that no good and much fiscal harm would come out of the bill.
In the end, by a small margin (including eight GOP members), the bill passed. It now moves on to the Senate for further debate. Both sides hope the upper chamber will move it in their direction.
Ultimately, it is at least recognition from the government of the United States that our economy has been unsustainable, not only economically, as has been proven by the economic crash, but ecologically.
While climate change deniers are still fighting the losing fight, the larger world community has moved onto the bigger issue of how to address the warming trends that threaten so much of the natural world we each hold dear, whether that's Vermont skiing and sugaring or the survival of thousands of species including such high-profile ones as the polar bear.
The argument that "I bought a Hummer, damn it, and I intend to drive the thing regardless of the cost," is going the way of the dodo bird and the coal-oil lamp industry, and good riddance.
The pace of change is greatly dampened by allowing industries to buy into the cap-and-trade with free credits, eventually to be phased out. The trick there will be to ensure they are in fact phased out and don't become a permanent gimme the way corporate agribusinesses have made fortunes manipulating Farm Bill subsidies.
But phasing in fully paid credits also gets the corporate patrons of the GOP involved as active, supportive participants in the program, not as opponents, which means it has a much greater chance of actually creating change than a "greener" bill.
It also encourages companies large and small to aggressively research and develop environmentally friendly technologies.
It's an area Vermont has always done well in, and it's incumbent on the governor and the Legislature to support that work, as whatever lead we have in the area is going to come under pressure now that the rest of the country has a bottom-line reason to play catch-up.
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