Global Warming, Cap-and-Trade, and Morality

It became a moral issue for me when I saw a picture of what New York City could look like as early as 2015 as a result of the melting of the polar ice caps. The picture showed Manhattan, where I lived for 13 years and where my son practices law, completely underwater, with only the tall buildings sticking out. This could happen to cities all around the world.

It is a moral question because the Republicans in Congress are trying to prevent President Obama from doing anything about the problem. Despite the overwhelming weight of proof from the most distinguished climate scientists on earth, some Republicans still claim that global warming is not caused by human activity resulting in the emission of greenhouse gases. They do not make this claim because they are in possession of the best evidence. They make this claim because they are subordinate to the fossil-fuel industry which has produced phony scientific reports by paid scientific flunkies.

On February 15 of this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a U.N. sponsored group of leading international climate experts, warned that without decisive action global warming in the 21st century is likely to accelerate at a much faster pace and cause more environmental damage than predicted. In 2007, the IPCC and Al Gore were awarded the Nobel Prize.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), an organization founded by a Nobel Prize laureate and the faculty at MIT, says that “human activities are contributing to global warming by adding large amounts of heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere. Our fossil fuel use is the main source of these gases.” In 1997, the UCS circulated a petition entitled "A Call to Action." The petition called for the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, and was signed by 104 Nobel Prize-winning scientists.

The increased warming of our planet has, unfortunately, become a political issue because of the financial subjugation of the Republican Party to its corporate masters in the fossil fuel (oil, gas, and coal) industries. For the last eight years, while the Republicans were in power, nothing was done to fight global warming. It may now be too late to completely stop the onrush of this catastrophe. If we experience the kind of disaster being predicted by scientists, the American people should hold the Republicans responsible.

The bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions currently before the Congress is the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES), HR 2454. The purpose of ACES is to create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming, and effect a transition to a clean energy economy. It includes a “Cap-and-Trade” global warming reduction plan designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent by 2020. Other provisions include new renewable energy requirements for utilities, studies and incentives regarding new carbon capture and sequestration technologies, energy efficiency incentives for homes and buildings, and grants for green jobs.

The idea behind Cap-and-Trade is that various industries are given a cap on the amount of pollutants they are allowed to emit. The government will assess penalties for exceeding the cap. Companies are issued emission permits and are required to hold an equivalent number of “credits” which represent the right to emit specific amounts of pollutants. Companies that need to increase their emission allowances must buy credits from those who pollute less. It balances out and keeps the nation below the overall cap. It might work.

Republicans are strongly opposed to Cap-and-Trade and are threatening to filibuster the legislation. They have not come up with anything better. It seems that Republicans, who howl about saddling future generations with the debt incurred in order to get us out of the recession, have no problem saddling those generations with apocalyptic environmental devastation.