Global Warming In the News

Monday, May 29, 2006

OPINION/EDITORIAL

To start, cut carbon dioxide emissions

Each day’s news brings more disturbing evidence that global warming is already changing the world we live in, and more rapidly than we believed.

A near-unanimous chorus of scientists across the globe is warning that if we want to leave an inhabitable planet to future generations, we need to begin a quick shift toward less polluting energy sources.

But there’s more in the forecast than just doom and gloom. The most hopeful signs are to be seen in the efforts of states and cities to adopt their own global warming plans.

For example, California’s Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has set a goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, and is working to adopt policies required to meet this goal. New Mexico is following suit.

Ten states have adopted global warming pollution limits for automobiles.

Eight states have set emission caps for their electric power industry to reduce by 10 percent by 2019. Many of the clean energy policies that reduce global warming pollution also provide economic and quality-of-life benefits such as reduced energy bills, green space preservation, air quality improvements, reduced traffic congestion, improved transportation choices, and economic development and job creation through energy conservation and new energy technologies.

In other words, a lot of the things we can do to stop global warming we should be doing anyway for economic, national security and environmental benefits.

Illinois should join the states that are acting now, with concrete, achievable steps that will put our economy on better footing when the United States inevitably joins the rest of the industrialized world in adopting limits on global warming emissions.

Environment Illinois is asking state legislators to pledge support for a plan to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent in the next ten years. This is just a start, but that’s exactly what we need right now.

Rebecca Stanfield, Director, Environment Illinois