Word: co2
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...highway, which somehow averages out, according to the government, to 18 mpg. That's right on the cut-off for the program, but let's say they vote me in. Given our relatively light usage - around 8,000 miles per year - this translates to about 5.4 tons of CO2 emissions and 10.1 barrels of oil consumed each year. Could be worse, though in the category called "air pollution" the old van rates a pitiful 1 on a scale of 10 (and that's not counting the stench of fossilized chicken nuggets...
...long-awaited "endangerment finding," formally declaring that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases are pollutants that threaten public health and welfare. Under the Clean Air Act, that finding means that the EPA has a responsibility to address the damage caused by greenhouse gases, possibly through direct regulation of CO2 - just as it regulates other air pollutants, like acid rain-causing sulfur dioxide. (See the top 10 green ideas...
...environmental regulation in U.S. history. The EPA's finding triggers a 60-day public-comment period before any proposed regulations could be announced, and most observers expect it would take months, if not years, for the EPA to produce rules that could control the 7.3 billion metric tons of CO2 the U.S. produces, from sources that range from giant power plants to planes and cars. The initial regulations would likely center on emissions from motor vehicles - the cause behind the 2007 Supreme Court case that originally spurred the endangerment finding. (In the case, Massachusetts v. EPA, the court found that...
...clean renewable fuels is the point). Advocates argue that new green jobs created by acting on climate change will more than offset the price of cap-and-trade and that, in any case, the long-term cost of delaying on global warming will be far worse. But regulating CO2 would presumably also cause energy prices to rise - and if cap-and-trade proves unpopular in Congress, EPA regulation could end up a political loser for the Obama Administration as well. "Republicans would love for Democrats to regulate carbon and raise energy prices," says Michael Shellenberger, a political strategist and president...
...widespread increase in tree mortality rates in the western U.S., thanks in part to regional warming trends and growing water scarcity. Another study published last month, also in Science, found that even the seemingly limitless Amazon rainforest could be highly vulnerable to drought. And since living trees suck up CO2 from the atmosphere, massive tree mortality due to warming could produce a feedback effect, further intensifying climate change. In the end, we might need a bigger Biosphere 2, because we're on track to screw up Biosphere 1 - otherwise known as the Earth...