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July 28, 2010

Climate Bill Wilts; Planet Gets Hotter

For those of us who had been holding out hope for a comprehensive bill that would curb U.S. climate emissions and promote renewable energy, disappointment and frustration have officially set in.

The Senate has scrapped plans for an attempt to push through a climate bill this summer.

This is especially disturbing because the proposals being considered were designed to meet the industry halfway by using market-based solutions that allow companies to reduce emissions in the way that they believe is most cost-effective. This approach diverges from the approaches used before in the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, for example. But industry still shot it down. 

Sadly, this is a classic example of “political reality” versus “real reality”.

The “political reality” is that a climate bill wasn’t going to pass the Senate right now, according to Senate Democrats. Republicans, along with many Democrats, have been opposed to any real action on climate pollution, thanks to their corporate benefactors from the coal, oil, and utility industries, which are united in their effort to keep the status quo.

The “real reality” is that our climate is warming at a dangerous pace as a direct result of human activity, which is widely accepted by the global scientific community (and recent attempts to undermine this acceptance have proven false).

We are in the middle of what will possibly be the warmest year on record (having already set records for March, April, May, and June, according to NOAA). And if all this isn’t bad enough, the substance responsible for much of the warming– oil – is currently oozing through the Gulf of Mexico’s waters, beaches, and wetlands in record amounts.

The good news is that there are people out there like you who are eager to get involved to make sure climate change is dealt with once and for all, and we have not given up.

Please join our campaign to ban offshore oil drilling and promote offshore wind, a combination that will help to address climate change, reduce America’s dependence on fossil fuels and begin to bring about the clean energy future that awaits us all.

Matt Dundas is the Campaign Manager for Oceana’s Climate and Energy Campaign.