CE Week #1: “Leading the way”
Leading the way
Western states take the initiative to fight global warming
Tri-City Herald
September 5, 2007
The following editorial appeared Thursday in the Tri-City Herald.
It’s more a leveling than it is a breakthrough, but the Western Climate Initiative is good news just the same.
In it, eight Western states and Canadian provinces have agreed to a regional goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 15 percent by 2020.
That’s not exactly a new goal. According to the Associated Press, it is an aggregation of goals set individually by the states and provinces and does not change any existing targets.
But by combining forces and agreeing on some minimal regional standards, the initiative members serve as pathfinders for other regions and the Canadian and U.S. national governments.
Members of the initiative are Washington, Oregon, Arizona, California, Utah, New Mexico, British Columbia and Manitoba.
Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski says the group is “leading the way for North America in adopting real measures and programs to combat global warming and to secure economic and environmental opportunity.”
It’s easy to understand why the West is out front. Dam operators, water district managers, farmers, conservationists and scientists are predicting dire water shortages in the region if the effects of global warming aren’t curbed.
Already, snowfall is diminishing and spring runoff is coming earlier. In the mid-Columbia, where much of the agricultural industry depends on melting snow in the Cascades to irrigate summer crops, the potential damage would be devastating.
Among the revelations before a Senate committee: The spring snowpack already has declined at nearly 75 percent of all weather recording stations in Washington, Oregon and California.
If trends continue, tens of thousands of irrigated acres could fall out of production in the West as water supplies tighten, the senators were told this summer.
The regional initiative’s aims include mandating use of renewable energy resources, imposing stricter standards on new power plants and buying alternative-fuel vehicles where practical. These are hardly radical ideas, and their costs shouldn’t be prohibitive.
Also important is that the initiative should help reduce the ever-popular notion that if one state undertakes something, those who oppose it need do nothing more than cross state lines to get a bargain.
Not any more – not in these states.
And the planet may just benefit. That, in the end, is the whole idea.
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This article is right. The west really does need to step up to lead the nation because we are already dealing with the effects of global warming. California is already talking about water shortages and from personal experience Idaho too. Every winter when I go skiing at Schweitzer it seems like the snow is getting worse and worse, meaning less of it each year. Also that summer when I go boating on Pend Orielle, the river can’t be lowered at far because their not getting as much run off and it’s coming earlier each year. Also going fishing in the back Idaho woods, all of the creeks are dried up almost before summer starts. Global warming is effecting us some people just don’t realize it yet. In small ways, gradually getting big the effects will come, and yet we’re not doing much about it. Many other countries are cutting their greenhouse gases outputs by 75% by 2050. What is our country promising? Nothing. Yes that’s right our country isn’t doing anything. Hopefully with the west coast starting this trend of cutting our emissions, the rest of the country will catch on and we can make some head way in the already up-hill battle.
I find this article very interesting. I think that it is important that we think about the environment and what kind of pollution that we put off, but at the same time we need to think of the effects that this could have on the economy. At the same time though if nothing is done and global warming is in reality a major threat to our world, we might not even have a economy to be worrying about in the future. A big question I have about the Western Climate Initiative is how are they planning to achieve their goal of dropping the green house gas emissions by 15 percent by 2020. It is a good idea; I just don’t think that it is very possible or even achievable. The thing is though how do the officials of the Western Climate Initiative intend to measure the amount of green house gases. If they do have a way of finding out the amount of greenhouse gasses in just these regions I think that it could be a great idea, but how do they enforce people to keep their greenhouse gas emissions down. I do think though that it is a good step toward the betterment of our planet.
It is very important that someone takes the initiative and attempts to take on global warming and its integrity. If it is us that start to fix global warming so be it. Either way someone needs to take the first step and lead everyone else to fixing global warming. Meaning that we need to start watching what sort of pollution we’re putting into our environment. Who’s to say how that might affect everything else on this side of the United States? I’m talking about economically, socially, anything. It may start off as something that may not be helping us, like have to spend extra money, but in the long run it will be a definite positive. Although I haven’t had any first hand experiences with global warming, I can understand how it is a real problem now from news of less snow and other things. Its one of those things that people “shrug off” at first and don’t believe it, but once they notice something small it will grow until it becomes a huge problem for the entire world. That may sound bad, like some “dooms day” event is coming or something, but realistically if something isn’t done soon it could happen.
~Ryan Brannan
I’d have to agree with Ian’s statement about the Western Climate Initiative. I believe he is right in wondering how they plan on achieving the goal of 15% less emissions by 2020. I also think that is questions about this initiative are viable, because of this sort of broad idea it would be difficult to calculate green house emissions and regulate them just because of the vast amount of things on this earth that create emissions. I mean how many cars on average do you think a family owns? I would have to guess at least 2 or 3. Just the emissions from cars alone are a lot, making it very difficult to regulate. Then there are emissions from industry buildings and any other emissions from industries in general. So in order to regulate that I would predict that they would have to have an “expert” come in to each industry and check–up on them, making it very time consuming and expensive, which is where I understand Ian’s concern for cost and the “how to”. Over all, it needs to be done, so I think that we as a country need to make some sacrifices in order to make this world a better place. Reminds me of a patriot fighting a war, make a sacrifice to make “his world” a better place, weird coincidence? I think no, it’s an idea that applies to everything. Make a sacrifice, to make the world a better place.
~Ryan Brannan