Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 10:07 am
GOVERNORS FROM MD AND VA URGE FEDERAL ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
WASHINGTON - As scientists and activists warned of the catastrophic effects that they said higher ocean temperatures and rising sea levels would have on the Chesapeake Bay, the governors of Maryland and Virginia called on lawmakers Wednesday to formulate a federal response to global warming.
Speaking before a Senate panel Wednesday, Gov. Martin O'Malley said the time had come for national programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, automobiles and other sources.
"We must transition from a carbon-based economy to a green, sustainable economy," O'Malley told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
"The coastal senators are already seeing and feeling this problem," said Mikulski, who asked committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer to schedule the hearing.
"Our sea levels are rising, our wetlands are disappearing and our islands are underwater. We're looking at the possibility that our agriculture will be wiped out and there won't be a Baltimore Harbor," Mikulski said.
Her comments echoed the findings of a report released in July by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation that said rising sea levels threaten hundreds of thousands of people living in low-lying coastal or river valley areas along the bay.
William C. Baker, president of the foundation, told the panel that warming oceans will likely increase storm intensity in the bay, and may expand the size and duration of oxygen-deprived "dead zones."
He asked lawmakers to support agricultural practices such as covering winter crops, rotational grazing and no-till farming, which a Yale study has estimated would sequester approximately 4.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually -- the equivalent of taking 786,000 Hummers of the road.
"Fossil fuels burning in Indianapolis or India, as well as a host of other greenhouse gas-producing activities, will negatively affect the people and creatures of the Chesapeake Bay just as toxics and other well-known pollutants do," he said.
"The policy choices you and your counterparts in other nations make will determine how severe those negative effects will be and how long they may last," Baker said.
Two committee members are developing legislation that would introduce a "cap and trade" approach to reducing emissions of the greenhouse gases that scientists say cause global warming.
Boxer and others expressed interest in the bill to be introduced by Republican Sen. John Warner of Virginia and Democratic Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, which would create a market for emissions permits that could be bought and sold.
O'Malley detailed efforts by the state to cut down on greenhouse gases, including participation in a multistate agreements to reduce emissions from power plants and plans to expand electricity from solar energy.
Maryland is among a dozen states waiting for the federal Environmental Protection Agency to sign off on new greenhouse gas emission standards on automobiles.
"Maryland will continue to be a leader," O'Malley said, but "we need our federal government to act. State-by-state reductions simply don't make sense for this global problem and the time is now for federal action."
Former State Department analyst Dennis T. Avery, author of Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years, disputed the worth of government intervention.
Avery said climate change was more likely the effect of a long natural cycle of cooling and warming than any human activity.
"You are headed for enormous anguish, frustration and misspent capital in this effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," Avery told the lawmakers. "It will not halt the temperature cycle."
His comments echoed those of Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the senior Republican on the panel and Congress's leading skeptic of manmade climate change.
Inhofe objected to Boxer's decision to allow Mikulski to join the panel for the hearing. Mikulski is not a member of the committee, but chairs the appropriations subcommittee that controls 85 percent of the funding for the nation's climate change science. Boxer overruled Inhofe.
Baker, of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, told the skeptics that even if global warming didn't exist, reducing reliance on fossil fuels and other strategies to counter climate change would "make great environmental sense."
Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, who joined Boxer and Mikulski on a recent trip to Greenland to see the impact of warming ocean temperatures, called climate change "a threat to public safety, a threat to key bay species such as blue crabs and rockfish and a threat to the fragile lands that surround the Chesapeake."
"Global warming threatens all of us and it's time that we work together to develop effective solutions," he said.
matthew.brown@baltsun.com
WASHINGTON - As scientists and activists warned of the catastrophic effects that they said higher ocean temperatures and rising sea levels would have on the Chesapeake Bay, the governors of Maryland and Virginia called on lawmakers Wednesday to formulate a federal response to global warming.
Speaking before a Senate panel Wednesday, Gov. Martin O'Malley said the time had come for national programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, automobiles and other sources.
"We must transition from a carbon-based economy to a green, sustainable economy," O'Malley told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
"The coastal senators are already seeing and feeling this problem," said Mikulski, who asked committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer to schedule the hearing.
"Our sea levels are rising, our wetlands are disappearing and our islands are underwater. We're looking at the possibility that our agriculture will be wiped out and there won't be a Baltimore Harbor," Mikulski said.
Her comments echoed the findings of a report released in July by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation that said rising sea levels threaten hundreds of thousands of people living in low-lying coastal or river valley areas along the bay.
William C. Baker, president of the foundation, told the panel that warming oceans will likely increase storm intensity in the bay, and may expand the size and duration of oxygen-deprived "dead zones."
He asked lawmakers to support agricultural practices such as covering winter crops, rotational grazing and no-till farming, which a Yale study has estimated would sequester approximately 4.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually -- the equivalent of taking 786,000 Hummers of the road.
"Fossil fuels burning in Indianapolis or India, as well as a host of other greenhouse gas-producing activities, will negatively affect the people and creatures of the Chesapeake Bay just as toxics and other well-known pollutants do," he said.
"The policy choices you and your counterparts in other nations make will determine how severe those negative effects will be and how long they may last," Baker said.
Two committee members are developing legislation that would introduce a "cap and trade" approach to reducing emissions of the greenhouse gases that scientists say cause global warming.
Boxer and others expressed interest in the bill to be introduced by Republican Sen. John Warner of Virginia and Democratic Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, which would create a market for emissions permits that could be bought and sold.
O'Malley detailed efforts by the state to cut down on greenhouse gases, including participation in a multistate agreements to reduce emissions from power plants and plans to expand electricity from solar energy.
Maryland is among a dozen states waiting for the federal Environmental Protection Agency to sign off on new greenhouse gas emission standards on automobiles.
"Maryland will continue to be a leader," O'Malley said, but "we need our federal government to act. State-by-state reductions simply don't make sense for this global problem and the time is now for federal action."
Former State Department analyst Dennis T. Avery, author of Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years, disputed the worth of government intervention.
Avery said climate change was more likely the effect of a long natural cycle of cooling and warming than any human activity.
"You are headed for enormous anguish, frustration and misspent capital in this effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," Avery told the lawmakers. "It will not halt the temperature cycle."
His comments echoed those of Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the senior Republican on the panel and Congress's leading skeptic of manmade climate change.
Inhofe objected to Boxer's decision to allow Mikulski to join the panel for the hearing. Mikulski is not a member of the committee, but chairs the appropriations subcommittee that controls 85 percent of the funding for the nation's climate change science. Boxer overruled Inhofe.
Baker, of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, told the skeptics that even if global warming didn't exist, reducing reliance on fossil fuels and other strategies to counter climate change would "make great environmental sense."
Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, who joined Boxer and Mikulski on a recent trip to Greenland to see the impact of warming ocean temperatures, called climate change "a threat to public safety, a threat to key bay species such as blue crabs and rockfish and a threat to the fragile lands that surround the Chesapeake."
"Global warming threatens all of us and it's time that we work together to develop effective solutions," he said.
matthew.brown@baltsun.com
