Commentary

Less environmentally savvy Americans would be interested in taking action on global warming because it’s effects were getting clearer: we are stuck in our 2nd war in an oil-rich country in the middle east, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, and An Inconvenient Truth was spreading the message.  (Not exactly a profound insight but I’m running with it anyway.)

As it turned out, this website took a wee bit longer to build than I thought.  (The hidden irony here is that the career that I left behind last year was managing the development and implementation of complex internet software projects for a large financial services firm.  I was pretty good at it.  Really, I was.) So instead of my being on the perceptive side of the issue, I’m struggling to catch up.  But that’s a good thing.  We all need to be moving faster on this issue.

Here are a few highlights from the last five months:

1. The Democrats won a majority of seats in the Senate in November.  Among other things, this means that Senator James Inhofe (R – Oklahoma), the guy who thinks that global warming is a hoax, is no longer the Chairman of the Senate committee responsible for the environment.

2. An Inconvenient Truth wins academy award for Best Documentary.  The publicity helps.

3. The UN’s IPCC report says climate change is unequivocal and “very likely” (greater than 90% probability) the result of human greenhouse gas emissions.

4. A group of investors offers $45 billion to buy a Texas based electric power company that had an aggressive plan for 11 new coal-fired power plants (and major increases in CO2 emissions).  The investors make their deal contingent upon winning the support of the environmental lobby and agree to cancel construction of 8 of the 11 plants.

5. Supreme Court tells Bush Administration that the EPA can regulate CO2.  The Bush Administration was hoping that they didn’t have the power to regulate CO2, I guess because they don’t want to.  President Bush promised to regulate CO2 during his presidential campaign against Al Gore in 2000, a promise that blunted any misgivings about his oil industry background.  He changed his mind in 2001.

What are the other global warming highlights that you see from the past 5 months?  Post a comment with your thoughts.