2000's

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">this is a node, tag has '</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">tisch maine 1997</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the Kyoto Conference on Climate Change, more than 150 countries meet to develop a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">plan to assign mandatory national targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Kyoto Protocol is an extension of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Change, intended to implement, though enforceable mandates, the goals of reducing global</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">greenhouse gas emissions. The United States enters Kyoto negotiations with a goal to reduce</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">emissions to 1990 levels by 2012, a substantially more modest goal than those urged by other</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">participants. Vice President Al Gore plays a major role in negotiations and President Clinton</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">signs the treaty, after participants agree to U.S. language authorizing emissions trading to meet</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">goals. The Natural Resources Defense Council describes Kyoto as “by far the strongest</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">environmental treaty ever drafted”; Senate Republican Majority Leader Trent Lott says it would</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“empower international bureaucrats to impose financial obligations on the United States”; and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Democratic Representative Henry Waxman predicts that an attempt at ratification will provoke</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“the mother of all environmental legislative battles.” A contemporary commentator invokes a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">previous observation by Al Gore: “The minimum that is scientifically necessary far exceeds the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">maximum that is politically feasible.”* The U.S. Senate passes a unanimous resolution (the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Byrd-Hagel” resolution) expressing its sense that the United States should not enter the Kyoto</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Protocol unless targets apply to developing nations such as China and India, and unless it would</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">not “result in serious harm to the US economy.” President Clinton never submits the protocol</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to the Senate for ratification.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Bud Ward, “Kyoto: The Mother of E-Law Battles,” Environmental Law Institute 15, no. 1(1998):1, Reprinted by permission from</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Environmental Forum, Jan/Feb 1998, https://www.eli.org/the-environmental-forum/kyoto-mother-e-law-battles</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">S. 98, 105th Congress, (1997), https://www.congress.gov/bill/105th-congress/senate-resolution/98</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1999 (October)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nineteen private organizations petition the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles under the Clean Air Act</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The petition, filed October 20, 1999, recites the fact that “90% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">from anthropogenic sources occurs because of the combustion of fossil fuel. U.S. mobile sources</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">are responsible for a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, in the United States,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the fossil fuel CO2 emissions from cars and light trucks are higher than the total nationwide CO2</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">emissions from all but three other countries (China, Russia, and Japan).” The petitioners argue</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">that greenhouse gases meet the definition of “pollutant” under the Clean Air Act, and must be</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">regulated if the EPA determines that they “cause[s] or contribute[s] to air pollution which may</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” Since “the EPA and other federal</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">agencies have already made numerous findings that greenhouse gas emissions from new motor</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">vehicles are air pollutants reasonably anticipated to endanger public health and welfare… the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Administrator has the statutory obligation to regulate the emissions of air pollutants from new</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">motor vehicles under Sec. 202(a)(1) in order to prevent future harm.”* The private petitioners are</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">later joined by various state and local governments, including Maine [see 2003 (September), 2007</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(April)].</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">International Center for Technology Assessment et al., Petition for Rulemaking and Collateral Relief Seeking the Regulation of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Greenhouse Gas Emissions from New Motor Vehicles Under Sec. 202 of the Clean Air Act,” Oct. 20, 1999,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.ciel.org/Publications/greenhouse_petition_EPA.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2000</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Al Gore runs against George W. Bush for President; candidate Bush promises to propose</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">legislation to force utilities to reduce carbon dioxide</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On September 29, 2000, presidential candidate George W. Bush unveils an environmental plan</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">that would require power plants to reduce emissions of four main pollutants. Bush says he will</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">propose legislation requiring “electric utilities to reduce emissions and significantly improve air</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">quality.” Specifically, he promises to “work with Congress, the Environmental Protection</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Agency, the Department of Energy, consumer and environmental groups, and industry to develop</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">legislation that will establish mandatory reduction targets for emissions of four main pollutants:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury, and carbon dioxide.” Twelve days later, in the second</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">presidential debate on October 11, 2000, he seems more ambivalent. Bush is asked about his</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">views on global warming. He replies: “I think it’s an issue that we need to take very seriously.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But I don’t think we know the solution to global warming yet. And I don’t think we’ve got all</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the facts before we make decisions. I tell you one thing I’m not going to do is I’m not going to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">let the United States carry the burden for cleaning up the world’s air. Like Kyoto Treaty would</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">have done. China and India were exempted from that treaty. I think we need to be more evenhanded, as evidently 99 senators…supported that position [referring to the Senate resolution</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">against Kyoto].” Candidate Gore responds: “I disagree that we don’t know the cause of global</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">warming. I think that we do. It’s pollution, carbon dioxide, and other chemicals that are even</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">more potent, but in smaller quantities, that cause this. Look, the world’s temperature is going up,&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">weather patterns are changing, storms are getting more violent and unpredictable. What are we</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">going to tell our children? I’m a grandfather now. I want to be able to tell my grandson when</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I’m in my later years that I didn’t turn away from the evidence that showed we were doing some</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">serious harm.” Third party candidate Ralph Nader meanwhile attacks Gore as a “broker of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">environmental voters for corporate cash.” On election day in Florida, Nader receives 97,421</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">votes, and Bush defeats Gore by 537. On the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5/4 refusal to authorize a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">recount in Bush v. Gore, Gore concedes the election.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">History Commons, Context of September 29, 2000: Presidential Candidate Bush Promises to Clean-Up Power Plants and Reduce CO2</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Emissions, http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=BushPromiseMandatoryEmissionCuts</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Second Presidential Debate (2000), transcribed at Climate Silence.org; http://climatesilence.org/data/debates/#2000</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Eric Pooley, The Climate War: True Believers, Power Brokers, and the Fight to Save the Earth (New York: Harper Collins 2010),</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">106.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2000</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank, begins a major initiative on combating</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">climate change science and policy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Heartland Institute was founded in 1984, and in the 1990’s worked with the tobacco industry</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to challenge the connections between smoking and health, and oppose smoking regulations. As</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">described in Naomi Oreskes’ and Erik Conway’s Merchants of Doubt, the Heartland Institute is</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">known “for its persistent questioning of climate science, for its promotion of 'experts' who have</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">done little, if any, peer-reviewed climate research, and for its sponsorship of a conference in New</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">York City in 2008 alleging that the scientific community's work on global warming is fake."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[see 2012 (May)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Smoke to Global Warming (London: Bloomsbury, 2010), 233.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2000 (November)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kyoto treaty talks break down at a United Nations Conference of the Parties meeting at</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Hague, Netherlands, even after an all-night negotiation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The lame duck U.S. Clinton Administration argues that countries should be able to satisfy up to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">80% of their reductions by emissions trading and by establishing carbon sinks, rather than by</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">actually reducing carbon emissions. The European Union opposes this position. As Andrew</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rivkin writes in The New York Times: “From the outset the talks were riven by conflicting</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">agendas as they aimed to fill in the fine print of a 1997 treaty, called the Kyoto Protocol, drafted</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by more than 170 countries. Poor countries sought billions of dollars to help them adapt to climate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">change, while rich nations aimed to blunt the economic impact of the treaty by finding the least</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">costly ways to cut their emissions of warming gases. But today the failure came down to persistent</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">disagreement between industrial powers on opposite sides of the Atlantic over the role of trees</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and properly managed farmland in acting as ''sinks'' to absorb carbon dioxide, the dominant</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">greenhouse gas.”* A post-mortem on the meeting’s failure by the Italian research institute</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei observes that “The American population still does not think that&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">climate change poses a heavy threat on its future nor that changes in its life-style are required.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hence public pressure for climate policy is almost non-existent in the U.S.; the environmental</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">movement increasingly co-operates with industries.” Still, the analysis notes that many</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">representatives of major businesses were present at The Hague and urging climate action: “Many</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">representatives were sent to The Hague to show the importance of the climate talks to the business</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sector and to lobby for a market-friendly realisation of the Kyoto Protocol. Since the business</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sector addressed climate issues much more progressively than ever before, the Umbrella Group,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and in particular the U.S., had no more excuses for delaying actions to combat climate change.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Notwithstanding the initial satisfaction that the The Hague-failure caused for America’s</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">smokestack industries, even they admitted that it would be much easier if the conference would</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">have agreed to a common strategy to reduce the GHG emissions. General Motors corporation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">spokesman Dave Barthmuss expressed the industry’s position in the following way: ‘If we were</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">given mandates, and targets to hit, there are a lot of technologies we have to meet them.’”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Andrew Revkin, “Treaty Talks Fail to Find Consensus in Global Warming,” New York Times, Nov. 26, 2000,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/26/world/treaty-talks-fail-to-find-consensus-in-global-warming.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Barbara Buchner, “What Really Happened in The Hague? Report on the Cop 6, Part I 13-25 November 2000 The Hague, the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Netherlands” Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, March 28, 2001, 29, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2000</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Environmental Protection Agency reports that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">13.5% higher in 2000 than in 1990.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ten years after the EPA prepared its first Emissions Inventory of Greenhouse Emissions and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sinks pursuant to obligations under the UNFCCC, total greenhouse gas emissions (CO2</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">equivalent) in 2000 are 7259 million metric tons [tonnes], 13.5% higher than in 1990</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990–2014 (Washington, D.C.,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2016), Table 2-1, Recent Trends in U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks (MMT CO2 Eq.),</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks-1990-2014</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2001(January)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">IPCC Third Assessment Report asserts “new and stronger evidence that most of the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">observed warming over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases its Third Assessment Report,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">with a far stronger position on human causation than in its 1995 assessment. The report attributes</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“most of the observed warming” to human activities and observes that “the globally averaged</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">surface temperature is projected to increase by 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius over the period 1990 to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2100… the projected rate of warming is very likely to be without precedent during at least the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">last 10,000 years, based on paleoclimate data. Temperature increases are projected to be greater</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">than those in the Second Assessment Report (SAR), which were about 1.0 to 3.5°C.” The report</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">warns that “Greenhouse gas forcing in the 21st century could set in motion largescale, highimpact, non-linear, and potentially abrupt changes in physical and biological systems over the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">coming decades to millennia, with a wide range of associated likelihoods. Some of the projected</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">abrupt/non-linear changes in physical systems and in the natural sources and sinks of greenhouse&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">gases could be irreversible, but there is an incomplete understanding of some of the underlying</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">processes.”* Media response is pronounced. The Washington Post reports: “approved</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">unanimously at a U.N. conference in Shanghai and described as the most comprehensive study</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">on the subject to date, [the report] says that Earth’s average temperature could rise by as much as</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">10.4 degrees over the next 100 years – the most rapid change in 10 millennia and more than 60</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">percent higher than the same group predicted less than six years ago.” The Post quotes Klaus</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Topfer, head of the U.N. Environment Program, as saying, “The scientific consensus presented</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in this comprehensive report about human-induced climate change should sound the alarm bells</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in every national capital and in every local community…We should start preparing ourselves.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2001: Summary for Policymakers (Geneva, Switzerland: IPCC</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Working Group II, 2001), 5, 8, 14, https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/07/wg2TARsummaries.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Originally published as “Scientists Issue Dire Prediction on Warming: Faster Climate Shift Portends Global Calamity This</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Century,” Washington Post, January 23, 2001, reprinted at</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=3591&method=full</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2001 (March)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President George W. Bush announces that the United States will not ratify the Kyoto</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Protocol</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Bush simultaneously announces what The Economist calls “a U-turn on a crucial aspect</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of his domestic policy on climate change: a campaign pledge to regulate CO2 through domestic</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">environmental laws.” The Economist notes that President Bush’s about-face on regulating CO2 is</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an “embarrassment [to] Christie Whitman, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">other top officials,” and argues that “The alleged uncertainties of climate science are not a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">justification for Mr. Bush's actions. It is notable that even such heavyweight companies as</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ford, BP and Royal Dutch/Shell, all of which opposed Kyoto, have since shifted their positions</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">towards supporting its general aims, if not its specific targets. This is because they recognize that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the overwhelming consensus among the climate scientists is that global warming is real, that its</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">effects will eventually be damaging or even catastrophic, and that the evidence of man's role in it</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">is strong enough to warrant some action now.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Oh, No, Kyoto,” The Economist, April 5, 2001, http://www.economist.com/node/561509</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2001(May)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Bush administration seeks unsuccessfully to enlist the National Academy of Sciences in</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">debunking the findings of the IPCC</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The George W. Bush White House asks the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for “assistance</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in identifying the areas in the science of climate change where there are the greatest certainties</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and uncertainties,” and “views on whether there are any substantive differences between the IPCC</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] Reports and the IPCC summaries.” The</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">subsequent NAS report is a strong endorsement of the IPCC. In the forward to the NAS Report,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">entitled, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, Bruce Alberts, President</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of the National Academy, notes that “the White House asked for a response ‘as soon as possible,’</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">but no later than early June—less than one month after submitting its formal request. The</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">National Academy has a mandate arising from its 1863 charter to respond to government requests</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">when asked. In view of the critical nature of this issue, we agreed to undertake this study and to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">use our own funds to support it.” In response to the White House’s question, “Are greenhouse</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">gases causing climate change,” the NAS responds: “The IPCC’s conclusion that most of the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The stated degree of confidence in the IPCC assessment is higher today than it was 10, or even 5</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">years ago, but uncertainty remains because of (1)the level of natural variability inherent in the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">climate system on time scales of decades to centuries, (2)the questionable ability of models to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">accurately simulate natural variability on those long time scales, and (3)the degree of confidence</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">that can be placed on reconstructions of global mean temperature over the past millennium based</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">on proxy evidence. Despite the uncertainties, there is general agreement that the observed</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">warming is real and particularly strong within the past 20 years.” In response to the President’s</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">inference that there were inconsistencies between the summary reports, in particular the Summary</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">for Policymakers, and the underlying reports, the NAS responds: “The committee finds that the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">full IPCC Working Group I (WGI) report is an admirable summary of research activities in</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">climate science, and the full report is adequately summarized in the Technical Summary…The</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Summary for Policymakers reflects less emphasis on communicating the basis for uncertainty and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">a stronger emphasis on areas of major concern associated with human-induced climate change.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This change in emphasis appears to be the result of a summary process in which scientists work</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">with policy makers on the document. Written responses from U.S. coordinating and lead</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">scientific authors to the committee indicate, however, that (a) no changes were made without the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">consent of the convening lead authors…and (b) most changes that did occur lacked significant</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">impact.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">National Academies of Sciences, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions,” (Washington, D.C.: The National</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Academic Press, May, 2001), https://www.nap.edu/read/10139/chapter/2</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2001 (November)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">165 nations, excluding the U.S., reach final agreement in a meeting in Marrakech, Morocco</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">on the Kyoto Protocol</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Participant nations agree to cut total emissions by 2012 to 5% below 1990 levels. As Andrew</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Revkin writes in The New York Times, “Negotiations were far tougher than those producing every</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">other past international environmental treaty, officials of many governments said, because cuts in</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">these emissions will come mainly from restricting the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the underpinning of industrial economies. …As happens to most international agreements, the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">treaty lost some of its initial vision over years of negotiation between blocs of countries that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">would be affected differently by its terms. For example, Russia, Canada and Japan sought and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">gained substantial credit toward their gas targets for the ability of their forests to absorb carbon</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">dioxide… In telephone interviews yesterday, American officials at the meeting gave no sign that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the Bush administration would reconsider joining the effort. ‘Other countries have chosen their&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">path, and our answer is still no,’ said a senior member of the American delegation.”[see 2004</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(December), 2005 (February)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Andrew C. Revkin, “Global Warming Impasse Is Broken,” New York Times, November 11, 2001,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/11/world/global-warming-impasse-is-broken.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2002 (June)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A study suggests that seeking to limit global mean temperatures to 2 degrees above 1990</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">levels is justified to protect the West Antarctic Ice Sheet</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an article entitled “Dangerous Climate Impacts and the Kyoto Protocol,” Brian O’Neill, of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Brown University, and Michael Oppenheimer, of Princeton University, suggest ways to define</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the level of temperature rise that would constitute "dangerous anthropogenic interference" with</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the climate system, under the terms of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. They</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">note that “both proponents and detractors of the Kyoto Protocol… have begun to demand a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">definition of long-term objectives. For example, on 11 June 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">stated that the emissions targets embodied in the Kyoto Protocol ‘were arbitrary and not based</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">upon science’ and ‘no one can say with any certainty what constitutes a dangerous level of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">warming, and therefore what level must be avoided.’” They suggest that markers for</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">policymakers for dangerous levels of warming could include “large-scale eradication of coral reef</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">systems,” “disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet,” or “weakening or shutdown of the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">density-driven, large-scale [thermohaline] circulation of the oceans.” Temperature rises that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">would trigger these three markers vary: “A long-term target of 1°C above 1990 global</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">temperatures would prevent severe damage to some reef systems. Taking a precautionary</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">approach because of the very large uncertainties, a limit of 2°C above 1990 global average</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">temperature is justified to protect [West Antarctic Ice Sheet]. To avert shutdown of the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[thermohaline circulation], we define a limit at 3°C warming over 100 years…”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Brian C. O’Neill and Michael Oppenheimer, “Dangerous Climate Impacts and the Kyoto Protocol,” Science 296, no. 5575 (June 14,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2002): 1971-1972, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-5347(02)02587-9</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2002</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Republican political consultant Frank Luntz advises Republicans to use the term “climate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">change” instead of “global warming,” because it sounds less “frightening”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a confidential memo obtained by the Environmental Working Group, Frank Luntz argues that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">opportunity to challenge the science…Voters believe that there is no consensus about global</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate." The party</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">should describe its policies as "conservationist" instead of "environmentalist", because</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"most people" think environmentalists are "extremists" who indulge in "some pretty bizarre</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">behaviour... that turns off many voters.” The environment, Luntz cautioned, "is probably</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the single issue on which Republicans in general - and President Bush in particular - are&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">most vulnerable.”* A Republican source, speaking to The Guardian on condition of anonymity,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">says party strategists agree with Luntz's conclusion that "many Americans believe Republicans</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">do not care about the environment.” The Guardian observes that “[t]he phrase ‘global warming’</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">appeared frequently in President Bush's speeches in 2001, but decreased to almost nothing during</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2002, when the memo was produced.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Frank Luntz, memorandum to Bush White House, “The Environment: A Cleaner, Safer, Healthier America,” (Luntz Research</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Companies, 2002), https://www.the-republican-reversal.com/uploads/1/2/0/2/120201024/luntzresearch.memo2.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Oliver Burkeman, “Memo exposes Bush’s new green strategy,” The Guardian, March 3, 2003,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/mar/04/usnews.climatechange</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2002 (October)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Analysis suggests rising carbon dioxide concentrations may adversely impact nutritional</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">qualities of plants</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a paper published in Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Irakli Loladze writes that “Here, I apply</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">stoichiometric theory to argue that high [CO 2], as a rule, should alter the elemental composition</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of plants, thus affecting the quality of human nutrition. The first compilation, to my knowledge,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of published data supports the claim and shows an overall decline of the (essential elements):C</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ratio. Therefore, high [CO 2] could intensify the already acute problem of micronutrient</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">malnutrition.” A 2017 follow up article in Politico documents the challenges Loladze faced in</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">gaining acceptance of his theory, and summarizes current research: “Within the category of plants</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">known as “C3”?which includes approximately 95 percent of plant species on earth, including</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ones we eat like wheat, rice, barley and potatoes?elevated CO2 has been shown to drive down</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">important minerals like calcium, potassium, zinc and iron. The data we have, which look at how</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">plants would respond to the kind of CO2 concentrations we may see in our lifetimes, show these</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">important minerals drop by 8 percent, on average. The same conditions have been shown to drive</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">down the protein content of C3 crops, in some cases significantly, with wheat and rice dropping</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6 percent and 8 percent, respectively.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Irakli Loladze, “Rising atmospheric CO2 and human nutrition: toward globally imbalanced plant stoichiometry?” Trends in Ecology</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and Evolution 17, no. 10 (October 2002): 457-461, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-5347(02)02587-9</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Helena Evich, “The Great Nutrient Collapse”, Politico, September 13, 2017,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-000511?cid=apn</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2002 (October)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The United States joins with OPEC, India, and China to block the European Union from</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">establishing a more inclusive regime after Kyoto expires in 2012</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Once the foremost advocate of requiring developing countries to control greenhouse gas</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">emissions [see 1997], the U.S. does another about face. At the 8th United Nations Framework</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties meeting in Delhi, the United States,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">having declined to join Kyoto, encourages developing nations to also reject binding emissions</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">targets. India’s Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee delivers a speech arguing that “poorer</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">countries could not be expected to invest money in tackling the causes of global warming. They</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">bear little responsibility… producing fewer greenhouse gases than industrialized countries, and&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">yet have been hit harder by the natural calamities, from drought to floods, caused by climate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">changes.” As Amy Waldman writes in The New York Times, “If Russia has been hesitant about</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ratifying the Kyoto pact because of the withdrawal of the United States, India may have been</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">emboldened by America's rejection of formal commitments to reduce emissions of warming</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">gases. ‘We do not see targets and timetables as realistic for developing countries,’ the head of the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">American delegation, Paula Dobriansky, the under secretary of state for global affairs, said in an</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">interview today. Instead, the American delegation here repeatedly sounded two themes: that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">adapting to climate change is as essential as preventing it, and that economic growth is the key to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">environmental progress.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Gardiner et al., Climate Ethics: Essential Readings (New York: Oxford 2010), 265.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Amy Waldman, “At Climate Meeting, Unlikely Ally for Have-Nots,” New York Times, November 1, 2002,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/01/international/asia/01DELH.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2003 (January)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scientist Robert Gagosian warns of the possibility of winters “twice as cold as the worst</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">winters on record in the eastern United States in the past century”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scientist Robert Gagosian, president of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, speaks to the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">World Economic Forum about the impact of climate change on the Ocean Conveyor, the deep</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">circulation system that drives the world’s ocean currents and affects weather. Gagosian opens his</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">report entitled, “Abrupt Climate Change: Should We Be Worried?” with the observation that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Most of the studies and debates on potential climate change, along with its ecological and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">economic impacts, have focused on the ongoing buildup of industrial greenhouse gases in the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">atmosphere and a gradual increase in global temperatures. This line of thinking, however, fails</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to consider another potentially disruptive climate scenario. It ignores recent and rapidly</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">advancing evidence that Earth’s climate repeatedly has shifted abruptly and dramatically in the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">past, and is capable of doing so in the future.” Models predict, Gagosian reports, that with</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">disruption of the Ocean Conveyor, the North Atlantic region would cool 3 to 5 degrees Celsius,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">producing winters “twice as cold as the worst winters on record in the eastern United States in</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the past century.” “It is important to clarify that we are not contemplating a situation of either</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">abrupt cooling or global warming. Rather, abrupt regional cooling and gradual global warming</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">can unfold simultaneously. Indeed, greenhouse warming is a destabilizing factor that makes</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">abrupt climate change more probable.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Robert Gagosian, “Abrupt Climate Change: Should We Be Worried?” Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, January 27, 2003,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/images/WEFwhitepaper.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2003 (January)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Camille Parmesan and Gary Yohe publish the first formal assessment of climate change</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">impacts on plant and animal species</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The report entitled “A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">systems” in the journal Nature, by Camille Parmesan of the University of Texas and Gary Yohe</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of Wesleyan University, analyzes more than 1,700 species. It finds that “recent biological trends</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">match climate change predictions:” “[g]lobal meta-analyses documented significant [species]&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">range shifts averaging 6.1 km per decade towards the poles (or metres per decade upward), and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">significant mean advancement of spring events by 2.3 days per decade…. This suite of analyses</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">generates 'very high confidence' (as laid down by the IPCC) that climate change is already</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">affecting living systems.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Camille Parmesan and Gary Yohe, “A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems,” Nature 421</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(January 2, 2003): 37-42, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01286</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2003 (July, August)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality embarks on a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">campaign to rewrite government scientific reports</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Philip Cooney, chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">a former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, makes close to 300 edits to the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">administration’s Strategic Plan of the Climate Change Science Program. The edits are to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“exaggerate or emphasize the scientific uncertainties or to deemphasize or diminish the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">importance of the human role in global warming,” according to a House committee investigation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Eric Pooley relates in The Climate War, “At CEQ, according to whistleblowers and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">congressional investigators, Cooney and others began a systematic effort to mislead the public</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and minimize the significance of climate change by editing scientific reports produced by the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">federal bureaucracy. This was not a rogue operative single-handedly trying to undermine the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">integrity of American science; it was a concerted action by the administration that has been</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">thoroughly documented by journalists as well as by the House Oversight Committee. [Myron]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ebell was in the thick of it. Cooney’s campaign came to an end in June 2005, when New York</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Times reporter Andrew Revkin wrote about what was going on. Two days after the scandal broke,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cooney resigned from the White House. A week later, he went to work for ExxonMobil.”[re</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Myron Ebell, see 2017 (November)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Eric Pooley, The Climate War: True Believers, Power Brokers, and the Fight to Save the Earth (New York: Harper Collins, 2010), 47.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2003 (July)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe calls global warming “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">on the American people”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Inhofe is Chair of the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works. In one of many</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">speeches over the years on the floor of the Senate against the notion of climate change he states:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Wake up, America. With all the hysteria, all the fear, all the phony science, could it be that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? I believe</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">it is.” Inhofe has a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Tulsa.* He will later</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">make DeSmog’s list of America’s “Top Ten Climate Deniers.” He is reported to have received</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">over $2 million in political contributions from the fossil fuel industry. He once compares the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Environmental Protection Agency to the Gestopo, and in 2014 brings a snowball into Senate floor</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to refute global warming. In 2012, he will write a book, The Greatest Hoax: How the Global</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. [see 2007 (January), 2015 (January)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DeSmog: Clearing the PR Pollution that Clouds Climate Science, accessed January 7, 2020, https://www.desmogblog.com/jamesinhofe</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Brendan Demille, “Top 10 Climate Deniers,” last updated 2019, https://www.beforetheflood.com/explore/the-deniers/top-10-</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">climate-deniers/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2003 (September)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Environmental Protection Agency denies the petition of states and environmental</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">organizations to regulate greenhouse gases in new motor vehicles</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The EPA concludes that, contrary to the opinions of two former EPA general counsels, the Clean</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Air Act does not authorize it to issue regulations to address climate change, and that even if it had</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the authority, it would be unwise to set mandatory greenhouse gas standards at this time. The</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA’s response acknowledges that it received almost 50,000 comments on the petition, “most of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">which were relatively brief expressions of support for the petition.” In concluding that now is not</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the time to regulate greenhouse gases, the EPA states, “We agree with the President that ‘we must</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">address the issue of global climate change’ … We do not believe, however, that it would be either</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">effective or appropriate for EPA to establish GHG standards for motor vehicles at this time. As</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">described in detail below, the President has laid out a comprehensive approach to climate change</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">that calls for near-term voluntary actions and incentives along with programs aimed at reducing</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">scientific uncertainties and encouraging technological development so that the government may</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">effectively and efficiently address the climate change issue over the long term.” The petitioners</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">appeal the denial to the federal courts. [see 1999 (October), 2007 (April)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Control of Emissions from New Highway Vehicles and Engines,” Federal Register 68</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(September 8, 2003): 52922-52923, https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2003-09-08/pdf/03-22764.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2004 (August)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An influential study analyzes policy alternatives for CO2 reduction as “stabilization</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wedges”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Steven Pacala and Robert Socolow, Princeton professors of Ecology and Engineering,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">respectively, publish “Stabilization wedges: Solving the climate problem for the next 50 years</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">with current technologies,” in the journal Science. The authors note that under “business as usual”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(1.5% annual carbon growth, 2% growth in primary energy consumption, and 3% growth in gross</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">world product), carbon emissions would more than double over the next 50 years. In order to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">stabilize CO2 concentration at 500 ?50 parts per million (ppm), fossil fuel emissions must be</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">limited to 7 gigatonnes carbon (GtC)/year over the next 50 years, then must decline by about twothirds in the following 50 years. They provide and graphically illustrate a menu of technological</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and policy “stabilization wedge” alternatives to achieve these goals. The authors caution: “To</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">develop the revolutionary technologies required for such large emissions reductions in the second</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">half of the century, enhanced research and development would have to begin immediately.” [see</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2008 (June)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Steven Pacala and Robert Socolow, “Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Technologies,” Science 305, no. 5686 (August 13, 2004): 968-972, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/305/5686/968/tab-articleinfo</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2004 (August)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Annual Report of the US Climate Change Science Program states: greenhouse gases are the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“only likely explanation” for global warming over the last three decades</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Andrew Revkin writing in the New York Times, calls this a “striking shift in the way the Bush</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">administration has portrayed the science of climate change:” “In delivering the report to Congress</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">yesterday, an administration official, Dr. James R Mahoney, said it reflected ‘the best possible</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">scientific information’ on climate change. Previously, President Bush and other officials had</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">emphasized uncertainties in understanding the causes and consequences of warming as a reason</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">for rejecting binding restrictions on heat-trapping gases…Still, the report was disputed by some</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">groups, aligned with industry, that oppose restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions and have</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">attacked science pointing to dangerous human-caused warming as flawed. Myron Ebell of the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute said the report was ‘another indication that the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">administration continues to be incoherent in its global warming policies.’”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Andrew Revkin, “U.S. Report, in Shift, Turns Focus to Greenhouse Gases,” New York Times, August 26, 2004,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/26/us/us-report-in-shift-turns-focus-to-greenhouse-gases.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2004 (September)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain urges international action on climate change, stating</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">that “[i]t is now that timely action can avert disaster.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tony Blair describes global warming as “unsustainable in the long-term. And by long-term</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I do not mean centuries ahead. I mean within the lifetime of my children certainly; and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">possibly within my own. And by unsustainable, I do not mean a phenomenon causing</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">problems of adjustment. I mean a challenge so far-reaching in its impact and irreversible in</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">its destructive power, that it alters radically human existence.” Blair acknowledges,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">however, that “the challenge is complicated politically by two factors. First, its likely effect</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">will not be felt to its full extent until after the time for the political decisions that need to be</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">taken, has passed. In other words, there is a mismatch in timing between the environmental</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and electoral impact. Secondly, no one nation alone can resolve it. It has no definable</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">boundaries. Short of international action commonly agreed and commonly followed</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">through, it is hard even for a large country to make a difference on its own.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tony Blair, “Speech given by the prime minister on the environment and the 'urgent issue' of climate change,” Guardian, September</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">14, 2004, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/sep/15/greenpolitics.uk</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2004 (December)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Study of peer-reviewed scientific journals over a ten-year period confirms consensus on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">climate change</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">University of California History of Science Professor Naomi Oreskes performs a review of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals from 1993 to 2003, to determine whether there is a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">consensus on human-caused global warming. She concludes: “[p]oliticians, economists,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect.” As reported in an essay entitled, “The</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,” published in Science, Oreskes analyzes 928 abstracts,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">published in refereed scientific journals, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords “global</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">climate change.” “The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the papers disagreed with the consensus position. Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point.” In 2016, authors of seven different</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“consensus studies” including Oreskes will collaborate on an analysis finding that: “Depending</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">on exactly how you measure the expert consensus, it’s somewhere between 90% and 100% that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">agree humans are responsible for climate change, with most of our studies finding 97% consensus</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">among publishing climate scientists.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Naomi Oreskes, “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,” Science 306, no. 5702, (December 3, 2004): 1686,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://science.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686.full</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* John Cook et al., “Consensus on Consensus: A synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming,”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Environmental Research Letters 11, no. 4, (April 13, 2016): 1, http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002; see</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">also Cook et. al, “The 97% consensus on global warming,” Skeptical Science, 2016, https://www.skepticalscience.com/globalwarming-scientific-consensus-intermediate.htm</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2004 (December)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Maine Climate Action Plan aims to reduce Maine’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">levels by 2010</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It also aims to be 10% below 1990 levels by 2020, and “by a sufficient amount to avert the threat</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of global warming over the longer term, which could be as much as 75%” Prepared by the Maine</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Department of Environmental Protection and State Planning Office, pursuant to state legislation,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the plan notes that “[m]ost of the recommended actions are expected to produce significant</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">cobenefits in addition to saving carbon. Of particular significance are those [sic] will have a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">positive impact on human health, are likely to reward efficiency, and/or can be expected to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">promote economic growth and development. Many of these occur in the realm of air quality</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">affecting human health, since lessening the emission of CO2 from combustion of fossil fuels for</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">electricity or transportation will also lead to reductions in other air pollutants. These include</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">smog-producing sulfur and nitrogen oxide, and those fine particulates implicated in asthma and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">other respiratory diseases. Other co-benefits are expected to arise from the development of new</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">technologies, particularly in the forestry sector, which in turn will produce additional economic</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">benefits. Many of the electricity demand management options, such as energy efficiency</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">measures, will save Maine people and businesses significant dollars, while contributing to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Maine’s energy security.”* [see 2016 (January)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Maine Department of Environmental Protection, A Climate Action Plan for Maine 2004.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.eesi.org/files/MaineClimateActionPlan2004Volume%201.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2004 (December)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The 10th UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP) in Buenos Aires explores next steps</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">after expiration of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012, over strong U.S. objections</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The United States seeks to block even informal discussion of post-2012 emissions regulation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the Climate Action Network (CAN) International newsletter reports during the proceedings:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The Bush Administration has made its position on post-2012 commitments crystal clear: it will</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">not engage in any negotiations or discussions about mandatory emissions limits. This</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">irresponsible stance leaves the rest of the world with three options. First, ignore the statements of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the US and try to engage them in negotiations anyway. This would be like beating one’s head</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">against a brick wall – painful and not very productive. Second, wait for the next US administration</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in four years. Given the increasingly evident impacts of climate change, the world cannot afford</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">such a delay. Third, start negotiations next year, as called for in the Kyoto Protocol, without any</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">expectation of meaningful participation by the US. While far from ideal, this is the only option</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">that holds out any prospect of progress.” CAN International holds a side event presenting a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">scorecard comparing performance of the nation participants in the conference. The scores are</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">based on leadership role in climate negotiations; emission trends and target fulfillment; national</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">policies; contributions to funding; and long term targets to reduce emissions: “The EU earned</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the highest score with six out of 10, mostly due to leadership, while the US, having distinguished</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">itself as the most destructive in negotiations and careless of emissions, was awarded a negative</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">score.”* [see 2001 (November)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Gardiner et al., Climate Ethics: Essential Readings (New York: Oxford, 2010) , 265.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Climate Action Network, “Ministers Urged to Move Forward Without the US,” ECO NGO Newsletter, December 15, 2004,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.climatenetwork.org/sites/default/files/ECOCOP1009.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Climate Action Network, “CAN Releases Scorecard Results,” ECO NGO Newsletter, December 10, 2004,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.climatenetwork.org/sites/default/files/ECOCOP1005.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2005 (February)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Kyoto Protocol becomes binding, without the participation of the United States</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With 55 nations ratifying, representing at least 55% of worldwide CO2 emissions, it sets binding</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">emissions targets for 37 industrialized countries, with a goal of reducing emissions to 5% below</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1990 levels by 2012. The reductions are to be achieved through national regulation and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">international market mechanisms, including emissions trading, clean development mechanisms,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and joint implementation.* Some commentators conclude, however, that as a result of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">modifications of the Protocol in earlier meetings, the agreement could countenance as much as a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">9 % increase in emissions from developed countries between 2000 and 2010. Mustifa Babiker in</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Environmental Science and Policy observes: “Only after the US has taken some domestic actions</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">will progress come in knitting together a more universally suitable, and sustainable, approach to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the issue. But should this happen, there may well be an opportunity to reconsider the international</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">architecture of climate policy and revise those features of the Protocol that make it politically</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">unsustainable as originally conceived.”[see 2001 (November), 2004 (December)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">United Nations FCCC, “Kyoto Protocol - Targets for the first commitment period”, accessed January 7, 2020,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Mustifa Babiker et al., “The Evolution of a Climate Regime: Kyoto to Marrakech.” Environmental Science and Policy 5, no. 3</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(June 2002):195-206, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/14629011/5/3</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2005 (November)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain speaks frankly to the G8 about “division” over the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kyoto Protocol</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Blair acknowledges that “The blunt truth about the politics of climate change is that no country</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">will want to sacrifice its economy in order to meet this challenge.” He states that this is a particular</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">concern in the developing world: “Now it has been extremely important to have the Kyoto Treaty</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and to have it come into force, and in particular some of the mechanisms associated with it are</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">absolutely essential, but in the end this will never be dealt with properly unless we manage to find</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the answer to this problem - how do we combine the need, not just for developed economies to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">grow, but in particular for the developing world to grow and the need for people, through</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">economic growth, to lift themselves out of poverty, to improve their living standards, with a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">proper responsible attitude to the environment?” Blair is “actually optimistic that it can be done,”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">but states that it is “essential” that conversations continue within the framework of the United</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tony Blair, “Speech to the London G8 Climate Change Conference,” (Speech, London, November 1, 2005), The National Archives,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20060715135117/http://number10.gov.uk/page8439</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2005 (December)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Seven northeastern states, including Maine, agree to create the Regional Greenhouse Gas</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Initiative (RGGI)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is the the first mandatory, market based CO2 trading program; RGGI aims to cap and then</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">reduce CO2 emissions from the power sector by 10% below starting levels by 2018. The founding</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">states are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rhode Island and Maryland will later join, and New Jersey will withdraw. The program is</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">implemented in 2009. In 2014 the New York Times will report that “Since 2009, the nine states</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">have cut their emissions by 18 percent, while their economies grew by 9.2 percent. By</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">comparison, emissions in the other 41 states fell by 4 percent, while their economies grew by 8.8</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">percent.” The states achieve emissions reductions by retiring coal-burning plants, expanding use</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of natural gas, and deploying wind and solar production facilities. The New York Times</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">comments: “Some critics of the Environmental Protection Agency’s new requirements for power</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">plants argue that forcing emissions reduction will curtail economic growth. But the recent</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">experience of states that already cap carbon emissions reveals that emissions and economic</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">growth are no longer tightly tied together.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">RGGI States, Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative Memorandum of Understanding (December 20, 2005),</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.rggi.org/sites/default/files/Uploads/Design-Archive/MOU/MOU_12_20_05.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Hannah Fairfield, “Best of Both Worlds? Northeast Cut Emissions and Enjoyed Growth,” New York Times, June 6, 2014,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/06/upshot/best-of-both-worlds-northeast-cut-emissions-and-enjoyed-growth.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2006</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">China surpasses the United States in annual CO2 emissions</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to figures released in 2007 by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">China produced 6200 million metric tons of CO2 (6.2 gigatonnes (Gt)) in 2006, versus 5800</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">million metric tons (5.8 Gt) from the United States. China’s emissions surged by 8.7% in 2006,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">while those of the United States decreased by 1.4%. Global fossil fuel-related CO2 emissions</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">have increased by 35% since 1990, according to the Agency’s 2007 analysis of industry and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">government data. China’s emissions per capita, however, are only about one-fifth of those of the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">United States.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, “China now no. 1 in CO2 emissions; USA in Second Position,” 2007, accessed on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">January 7, 2020, https://www.pbl.nl/en/Chinanowno1inCO2emissionsUSAinsecondposition</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2006 (March)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Study analyzes the connection between precipitation events and global warming, and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">advances the “wet-get-wetter, dry-get-drier” paradigm</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Isaac Held of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Brian Soden of the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">University of Miami publish “Robust Responses of the Hydrological Cycle to Global Warming”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in the Journal of Climate. The authors conclude that “assuming that the lower-tropospheric</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">relative humidity is unchanged and that the flow is unchanged, the poleward vapor transport and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the pattern of evaporation minus precipitation … increases proportionally to the lowertropospheric vapor, and in this sense wet regions get wetter and dry regions drier. Since the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">changes in precipitation have considerably more structure than the changes in evaporation, this</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">simple picture helps us understand the zonally averaged pattern of precipitation change.” As</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Professor Steve Sherwood reports to Carbon Brief, “[This paper] advanced what is known as the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“wet-get-wetter, dry-get-drier” paradigm for precipitation in global warming. This mantra has</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">been widely misunderstood and misapplied, but was the first and perhaps still the only systematic</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">conclusion about regional precipitation and global warming based on robust physical</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">understanding of the atmosphere.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Isaac Held and Brian Soden, “Robust Responses of the Hydrological Cycle to Global Warming,” Journal of Climate 19, 5686</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(March 2006), https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI3990.1</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Roz Pidcock, “The Most Influential Climate Change Papers of All Time,” CarbonBrief, June 7, 2015,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.carbonbrief.org/the-most-influential-climate-change-papers-of-all-time</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2006 (May)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Al Gore film An Inconvenient Truth is released, grossing $50 million and selling more</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">than 1.5 million DVDs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The film is produced by Lawrence Bender, a 1979 graduate of the University of Maine in Civil</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Engineering, and directed by Davis Guggenheim. It documents the efforts of former Vice</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Al Gore to educate the public about climate change with a slide show which he had, as</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of the time of the film, shown about 1000 times. The film wins two Oscars, including for Best&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Documentary Feature.* Critic David Remnick in The New Yorker lauds the film: “as a means of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">education, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ is a brilliantly lucid, often riveting attempt to warn Americans</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">off our hellbent path to global suicide. ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ is not the most entertaining film</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of the year. But it might be the most important.” Remnick laments, however, that the film is not</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">likely to have an effect on the man determining U.S. climate change policy: “The catch, of course,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">is that the audience-of-one that most urgently needs to see the film and take it to heart—namely,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the man who beat Gore in the courts six years ago—does not much believe in science or, for that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">matter, in any information that disturbs his prejudices, his fantasies, or his sleep. Inconvenient</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">truths are precisely what this White House is structured to avoid and deny.” Gore moves on to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">train thousands of people around the world to present his slide show through his nonprofit</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">organization, The Climate Reality Project.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“An Inconvenient Truth,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, accessed June 8, 2017,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Inconvenient_Truth</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Remnick, “Ozone Man,” New Yorker, April 24, 2006, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/04/24/ozone-man</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Climate Reality Project, accessed January 7, 2020, https://www.climaterealityproject.org/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2006 (July)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen sparks debate about whether geoengineering solutions would</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">be a viable response to climate change</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, publishes the editorial</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">essay “Albedo Enhancement by Stratospheric Sulphur Injections” in the journal Climatic Change.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He notes that sulfate particles from fossil fuel combustion reflect solar radiation and cool the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">planet, partially counteraction the warming greenhouse effect. However, “this fortunate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">coincidence is ‘bought’ at a substantial price” in terms of the health consequences of sulfate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">pollution. “This creates a dilemma for environmental policy makers, because the required</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">emission reductions of SO2, and also anthropogenic organics (except black carbon), as dictated</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by health and ecological considerations, add to global warming and associated negative</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">consequences, such as sea level rise, caused by the greenhouse gases.” Given “grossly</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">unsuccessful” international efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Crutzen suggests that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“although by far not the best solution, the usefulness of artificially enhancing earth’s albedo and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">thereby cooling climate by adding sunlight reflecting aerosol in the stratosphere … might again</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">be explored and debated as a way to defuse the Catch-22 situation just presented and additionally</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">counteract the climate forcing of growing CO2 emissions.” *</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Paul Crutzen, “Albedo Enhancement by Stratospheric Sulphur Injections,” Climatic Change 77, (2006): 211-219,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-006-9101-y</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2006 (September)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">California passes the Global Warming Solutions Act, intended to begin in 2012 to reduce</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">emissions to 1990 levels by 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This legislation aims for a 15% reduction over emissions expected under a “business-as-usual”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">scenario, and authorizes, but does not require, a cap-and-trade approach. The law includes a&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">legislative finding that “Global warming poses a serious threat to the economic well-being, public</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">health, natural resources, and the environment of California. The potential adverse impacts of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">global warming include the exacerbation of air quality problems, a reduction in the quality and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">supply of water to the state from the Sierra snowpack, a rise in sea levels resulting in the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">displacement of thousands of coastal businesses and residences, damage to marine ecosystems</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and the natural environment, and an increase in the incidences of infectious diseases, asthma, and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">other human health-related problems.” A fee system is implemented in 2010 to fund the program.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The “fee is collected annually from large sources of GHGs, including oil refineries, electricity</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">power plants (including imported electricity), cement plants and other industrial sources. There</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">are approximately 250 fee payers that emit 330 million metric tons of GHG emissions per year.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A statewide cap-and-trade system is initiated in 2012.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Assembly Bill 32 Overview”, California Environmental Protection Agency, accessed on January 2019,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/ab32/ab32.htm</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2006 (October)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sir Nicholas Stern releases the 700 page “Stern Review: The Economics of Climate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Change,” the most in depth such study to date</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stern is head of the British Government Economic Service, and a London School of Economics</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">professor. The report’s Executive Summary states: “Climate change will affect the basic elements</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of life for people around the world – access to water, food production, health, and the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">environment. Hundreds of millions of people could suffer hunger, water shortages and coastal</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">flooding as the world warms. Using the results from formal economic models, the Review</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">estimates that if we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20% of GDP or more. In contrast, the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">costs of action – reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">– can be limited to around 1% of global GDP each year. The investment that takes place in the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">next 10-20 years will have a profound effect on the climate in the second half of this century and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in the next. Our actions now and over the coming decades could create risks of major disruption</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to economic and social activity, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">economic depression of the first half of the 20th century. And it will be difficult or impossible to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">reverse these changes.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sir Nicholas Stern, Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change (London: HM Treasury 2006),</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130129110402/http://www.hmtreasury.gov.uk/d/CLOSED_SHORT_executive_summary.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2007 (January)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The U.S. Climate Action Partnership comes out in favor of a cap on carbon emissions,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">departing from business’s long-standing opposition to climate legislation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The U.S. Climate Action Partnership is a coalition of four environmental organizations and ten</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fortune 500 corporations, including Duke Energy (the 3rd largest emitter of greenhouse gases</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(GHG) in the United States), DuPont, Alcoa, and Caterpillar. Organized by James Rogers, Duke&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CEO and Chair of the Edison Electric Institute, and Fred Krupp, director of the Environmental</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Defense Fund, the coalition seeks to achieve U.S. emissions reductions of 10 to 30 percent from</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2007 levels within the next 15 years, and a 60 to 80 percent reduction by 2050. In hearings before</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, USCAP is represented by Peter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Darbee, CEO of PG&E, California’s largest energy provider. Darbee describes USCAP’s</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">proposal for “a program that creates a long-term price signal for carbon by creating a mandatory</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">cap on greenhouse gas emissions, combined with a trading program that uses the market to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">establish that long-term price signal and lets companies figure out how best to meet the goals.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">USCAP members share, Darbee explains, “a view that climate change is the most pressing</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">environmental issue of our time and …we agree that as the world's largest source of global</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">warming emissions, our country has an obligation to lead.” But Senator James Inhofe of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Oklahoma [see 2003 (July)] is a nay-sayer: “Some companies are coming together in an attempt</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to profit from Government intervention where they have failed in the marketplace. Economists</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">call this rent-seeking. But I think the Wall Street Journal is right: they are climate profiteers.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These companies will gain market share against their competitors, while the economy flattens</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and jobs are sent to China, which in an ironic twist of fate will soon become the biggest emitter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of CO2, passing the United States by 2009.” The coalition will become divided in future years on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">specifics of U.S. legislative proposals.* [see 2009 (January)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Eric Pooley, The Climate War: True Believers, Power Brokers, and the Fight to Save the Earth (New York: Harper Collins, 2010) 6,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">160, 161; U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Environment and Public Works, The U.S. Climate Action Partnership Report, 110th</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cong., 1st sess., 1997, 3-10, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-110shrg53824/html/CHRG-110shrg53824.htm</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2007 (February)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The IPCC’s Fourth Assessment report finds that “[w]arming of the climate system is</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">unequivocal”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The report reflects the input of more than 1,200 authors and 2,500 scientific expert reviewers</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">from more than 130 countries. The report strengthens its characterization of the human role in</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">global warming, finding that it is “very likely” that emissions of heat-trapping gases from human</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">activities have caused “most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mid-20th century.” Atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and methane “exceeds by far</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the natural range over the last 650,000 years.” Concentrations of these greenhouse gases since</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the beginning of the era of industrialization have increased at a rate that is “very likely to have</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">been unprecedented in more than 10,000 years.” Eleven of the last twelve years (1995–2006)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“rank among the 12 warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature (since</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1850).” Warming is evident “from observations of increases in global average air and ocean</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level.” * The</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Chair Rajendra Pachauri observes, “If</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">determine our future. This is the defining moment.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007),</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Elizabeth Rosenthal, “U.N. Report Describes Risk of Inaction on Climate Change,” New York Times, November 17, 2007,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/17/science/earth/17cnd-climate.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2007 (February)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vice President Dick Cheney questions climate science in a television interview</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Following release of the IPCC Fourth Assessment, Vice President Dick Cheney is asked about</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">climate change, “a subject Mr. Cheney has rarely addressed in the past,” in an ABC television</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">interview. He states that he has not seen Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth (“He didn’t</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">invite me to the showing…Not that I had planned to go anyway.”) He states that, “I think there's</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an emerging consensus that we do have global warming. You can look at the data on that, and I</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">think clearly we're in a period of warming. Where there does not appear to be a consensus, where</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">it begins to break down, is the extent to which that's part of a normal cycle versus the extent to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">which it's caused by man, greenhouse gases, et cetera.” When the interviewer Jonathan Karl asks</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">him, “So you think the jury is still out about whether or not this warming we're seeing has been</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">caused by human activity?”, Cheney replies, “Some of it has, I think. But exactly where you draw</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the line? I don't know. I'm not a scientist. I talk with people who supposedly know something</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">about it. You get conflicting viewpoints. But I do think it is an important subject, and it will be</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">addressed in the Congress. I think there will be a big debate on it in the next couple of years.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Vice President, Cheney, former head of the oil-services company Halliburton, has advocated</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">for “a government-backed push to find new domestic sources of oil and gas, including in protected</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">areas of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and an all-out drive to build power plants.”* [see</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2007 (October)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ABC News, “Exclusive: Cheney on Global Warming,” ABC News, February 23, 2007,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=2898539&page=1</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Joseph Kahn, “Cheney Promotes Increasing Supply as Energy Policy,” New York Times, May 1, 2001,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/01/us/cheney-promotes-increasing-supply-as-energy-policy.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2007 (March)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NASA scientist James Hansen testifies before the House Committee on Oversight and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Government Review, on political interference with government climate science</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Hansen testifies, “[i]nterference with communication of science to the public has been greater</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">during the current [G.W.Bush] Administration than at any time in my career. As I was quoted on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the 2006 calendar of the Freedom Forum ‘In my more than three decades in government, I have</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">never seen anything approaching the degree to which information flow from scientists to the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">public has been screened and controlled as it has now.’ The effect of the filtering of climate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">change science during the current Administration has been to make the reality of climate change</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">less certain than the facts indicate and to reduce concern about the relation of climate change to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">human-made greenhouse gas emissions.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">James E. Hansen, “Political Interference with Government Climate Science,” Testimony before the Committee on Oversight and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Government Review, U.S. House of Representatives, March 19, 2007,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.columbia.edu/_{jeh1/2007/Testimony_20070319.pdf</font></div><div>}<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2007 (April)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the Clean Air Act authorizes regulation of greenhouse</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">gases in motor vehicles</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency the U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">states, municipalities, and organizations claiming the Environmental Protection Agency’s</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(EPA’s) 2003 refusal to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from motor vehicles under the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Clean Air Act (CAA) was illegal. [see 1999 (October), 2003 (September)] The court rules 5/4,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in a decision by Justice John Paul Stevens, in favor of plaintiff petitioners on all three highly</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">contested legal issues. It concludes that petitioners have a right to sue even if the harm is widely</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">shared and the EPA can do little to alleviate much of it (“…the rise in sea levels associated with</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">global warming has already harmed and will continue to harm Massachusetts. The risk of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">catastrophic harm, though remote, is nevertheless real. That risk would be reduced to some extent</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">if petitioners received the relief they seek”); that the CAA gives the EPA authority to regulate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GHG emissions (“EPA never identifies any action remotely suggesting that Congress meant to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">curtail its power to treat greenhouse gases as air pollutants”); and that the EPA is required to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">regulate unless it determines that GHG emissions do not contribute to climate change or it</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">provides a reasonable explanation for declining to regulate (“…the use of the word ‘judgment’ is</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">not a roving license to ignore the statutory text. It is but a direction to exercise discretion within</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">defined statutory limits. If EPA makes a finding of endangerment, the Clean Air Act requires the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">agency to regulate emissions of the deleterious pollutant from new motor vehicles.”). *</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 US 497 (2007), http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-1120.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2007(June)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">China releases its first national plan on climate change</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">China pledges to reduce energy intensity (CO2 per unit of gross national product) to 20% below</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2005 levels by 2010, and increase renewables by 10% by 2010. As Margret J. Kim and Robert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">E. Jones characterize the plan in the ABA Natural Resources and Environment journal, “In reality,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the Plan simply rehashed China’s official stance: China is very aware of the global warming</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">conundrum but has no intention of sacrificing her economic growth to mitigate global warming.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moreover, in China’s view, as most of the GHG emissions were released by the developed</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">nations, those nations should bear the brunt of mitigation responsibility, not China. Even the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">modest “carbon intensity goal” of reducing intensity (CO2 per unit of gross national product) by</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">40 percent from 2000 levels by 2020, as suggested in an early draft report, was absent in the final</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Plan. Despite China’s ranking highest in annual CO2 emissions, the Plan defends China’s low</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">per capita emissions and states that its climate change policy will be guided by the principle of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">‘common but differentiated responsibilities.’ Under this doctrine, developed countries, such as</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the United States, should take the lead in reducing GHG emissions, rather than developing</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">countries, such as China, that are not responsible for the present climate predicament.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Margret J. Kim and Robert E. Jones, “China: Climate Change Superpower and the Clean Technology Revolution,” ABA Natural</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Resources & Environment 22, no. 3 (Winter 2008): 1,&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/natural_resources_environment/2008_winter/nre_win08_kim_jones.authch</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">eckdam.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2007 (October)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Al Gore and the IPCC win the Nobel Peace Prize</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The prize is awarded to former Vice President Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Change for illuminating “the processes and decisions that appear to be necessary to protect the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">world’s future climate, and thereby reduce the future threat to the security of mankind.” Gore</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">states in his acceptance speech, delivered December 10, 2007: “The distinguished scientists with</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">whom it is the greatest honor of my life to share this award have laid before us a choice between</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">two different futures – a choice that to my ears echoes the words of an ancient prophet: ‘Life or</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">death, blessings or curses. Therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live’…</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">However, despite a growing number of honorable exceptions, too many of the world's leaders are</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">still best described in the words Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler's</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">threat: ‘They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent.’… In the years since this prize</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">was first awarded, the entire relationship between humankind and the earth has been radically</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">transformed. And still, we have remained largely oblivious to the impact of our cumulative</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">actions. Indeed, without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on the earth itself. Now, we and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the earth's climate are locked in a relationship familiar to war planners: ‘Mutually assured</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">destruction.’” To avoid this consequence, Gore urges, “We must quickly mobilize our civilization</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">war.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Al Gore, “Nobel Lecture,” (Lecture, Oslo, December 10, 2007), https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/gorelecture_en.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2007 (October)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Office of Vice President Dick Cheney orders climate change warning deleted from</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Congressional testimony of the director of the CDC</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to a report in the Washington Post, former EPA deputy associate administrator Jason</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">K. Burnett, in a letter to California Senator Barbara Boxer in July, 2008, reports an official from</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cheney's office ordered that six pages be edited out of the testimony of Julie L. Gerberding,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including the statement that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern." The official’s concern about</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the testimony was that it could be used to justify a finding that climate change “endangered public</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">health or welfare” under the Clean Air Act, which would have required, under the recent Supreme</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Court decision, regulation of greenhouse gases. "The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and the Office of the Vice President (OVP) were seeking deletions to the CDC testimony,"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Burnett wrote in response to an inquiry from the Senate Environment and Public Works</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Committee, which Senator Boxer chairs. "CEQ requested that I work with CDC to remove from</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the testimony any discussion of the human health consequences of climate change."* [see 2007</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(February)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Juliet Eilperin, “Cheney’s Staff Cut Testimony on Warming,” Washington Post, July 9, 2008, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/07/08/AR2008070801442.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2007 (December)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">UNFCCC approves action plan for greenhouse gas reductions following 2012 expiration of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the Kyoto Protocol</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 13th Conference</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of the Parties (COP13) in Bali, general agreement is reached on a framework for achieving</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">greenhouse gas reduction goals following expiration of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012, over</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">objections of the United States. The Bali Action Plan calls for “measurable, reportable and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">verifiable nationally appropriate mitigation commitments or actions, including quantified</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">emission limitation and reduction objectives, by all developed country parties,” as well as</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“[n]ationally appropriate mitigation actions by developing country parties in the context of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sustainable development, supported and enabled by technology, financing and capacity-building,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner. The accomplishments of COP13 are achieved</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">despite significant obstacles posed by the United States. A headline in ECO, the conference</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">newsletter of the Climate Action Network, reads: “Late Breaking News! US Fails to Wreck Bali.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The newsletter reports: “The US made a last ditch attempt this morning to block progress on the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bali roadmap by submitting a proposal to ditch the Kyoto Protocol and replace it with a nonbinding bottom up, voluntary framework. This outrageous behaviour was met with stunned</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">silence by the delegates.” Former Vice President Al Gore, delivering a speech at Bali, states</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">that “I am not an official of the United States and I am not bound by the diplomatic niceties, so I</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">am going to speak an inconvenient truth. My own country, the United States, is principally</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali. We all know that.” Gore’s proposed response</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to that obstruction: “You can decide to move forward and do all of the difficult work that needs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to be done, and save a large, open blank space in your document, and put a footnote by it. And</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">when you look at the footnote, write… ‘this document is incomplete, but we are going to move</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">forward anyway on the hope that the blank will be filled in.’” As Eric Pooler describes in his</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">report on Bali negotiations in Climate War, “The blank space was there to fill when the U.S. was</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ready. For this was Gore’s larger message: Another American would soon be seizing the reins</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of power…Gore’s words in Bali were a promise to the world, at a time when it was badly needed,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">that there were two Americas.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> United Nations, Framework Convention on Climate Change; Part Two: Action taken by the Conference of the Parties at its</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">thirteenth session (Bali: United Nations, 2008), 3, http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2007/cop13/eng/06a01.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Climate Action Network, “US Fails to Wreck Bali,” ECO NGO Newsletter, December 14, 2007,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.climatenetwork.org/sites/default/files/ECOcop13n11.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Eric Pooley, The Climate War: True Believers, Power Brokers, and the Fight to Save the Earth (New York: Harper Collins, 2010),</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">14.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2007 (December)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requires new vehicles sold in the United</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">States to average 35 mpg by 2020, and enacts other energy efficiency measures</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The law institutes the first new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">automobiles since 1975, and the first such standards for medium duty and heavy duty commercial</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">vehicles. The stated aims of the act also include increasing the production of clean renewable</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">fuels; increasing the efficiency of products, buildings, and vehicles; promoting research on and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">deploying greenhouse gas capture and storage options. The law imposes a variety of new</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">standards for lighting and for residential and commercial appliances.* Early versions of the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">legislation in the House would have repealed about $22 billion of oil and gas subsidies that were</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">designed to offset the cost of supporting a variety of energy efficiency and renewable energy tax</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">incentives, but those were opposed in the Senate were not part of the final law.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, Public Law 110-140(2007), 42 U.S.C. sec. 17001 (2007) et seq.,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-energy-independence-and-security-act</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Congressional Research Service, Congressional Review Service Report for Congress: The Energy Independence and Security Act of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2007; A Summary of Major Provisions (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 2007), 1.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www1.eere.energy.gov/manufacturing/tech_assistance/pdfs/crs_report_energy_act_2007.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2007 (December)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA administrator rejects California’s petition to impose greenhouse gas standards for</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">motor vehicles, overruling the unanimous recommendation of his technical and legal staff</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since the 1970’s, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved all previous</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">California requests to adopt air pollution standards more stringent than federal ones. California</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">decides to sue the EPA. As reported in The Washington Post, “The decision set in motion a legal</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">battle that EPA's lawyers expect to lose and demonstrated the Bush administration's determination</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to oppose any mandatory measures specifically targeted at curbing global warming pollution. A</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">total of 18 states, representing 45 percent of the nation's auto market, have either adopted or</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">pledged to implement California's proposed tailpipe emissions rules, which seek to cut vehicles'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent between 2009 and 2016.” EPA Administrator Stephen</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Johnson cites the just enacted Energy Independence and Security Act’s national CAFE standards</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(which did not regulate greenhouse gases) as preferable to “a confusing patchwork of state</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">rules.” California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger responds that “California is ready to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">implement the nation’s cleanest standards for vehicle emissions, but we cannot do that until the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">federal government grants a waiver allowing us to enforce those standards…Our air quality, our</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">health and our environment are too important to delay any longer, and it is not just the people of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">California who are waiting. Those states that want to follow our lead cannot do so until federal</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">permission is granted. In fact, fourteen other states are expected to join our lawsuit later today.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Maine is one of those states which join the lawsuit. [see 2009 (June)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Juliet Eilperin, “EPA Chief Denies Calif. Limits on Auto Emissions,”Washington Post, Dec. 20, 2007,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/19/AR2007121902012.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">California Office of the Governor, “Governor Schwarzenegger Announces Lawsuit Against U.S. EPA for Failing to Act on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">California’s Tailpipe Emissions Request,” press release, Nov. 8, 2009. Cited in Jerry McNerney and Martin Cheek, Clean Energy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nation: Freeing America from the Tyranny of Fossil Fuels (New York: AMACON, 2012): 1 https://epdf.pub/clean-energy-nationfreeing-america-from-the-tyranny-of-fossil-fuels.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2007 (December)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">White House refuses to read, and attempts to suppress, a draft EPA finding that greenhouse</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">gases “endanger the public health and welfare”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A finding that pollutants “endanger the public health and welfare” is a prerequisite to regulating</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">them under the Clean Air Act, as confirmed by the Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA. [see</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2007 (April)] As a result of the court decision, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) staff</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">were directed to determine whether such a finding was warranted. As reported in a Union of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Concerned Scientist Scientific Integrity Program case study, EPA official Jason Burnett emailed</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">a draft endangerment finding to the White House Office of Management and Budget on December</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5, 2007. Within minutes the White House asks the EPA to retract the email and say it had been</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sent in error. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson refuses to do this, saying it had not been sent</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in error. As the Union of Concerned Scientist study finds, “The White House then requested that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA send an email asking the White House not to review the document because provisions in the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Energy Bill, then under consideration in Congress, might make the finding moot; Johnson again</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">refused. The White House then decided it would not open the EPA's email, because doing so</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">would require them to move ahead with the formal regulatory process and make the documents</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">public.” The endangerment finding is ultimately worked into a May, 2008 draft Advanced Notice</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of Proposed Rulemaking, which is leaked to the press.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Union of Concerned Scientists, “The EPA’s Elusive Climate Change Endangerment Report,” December 1, 2008,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/center-science-and-democracy/promoting-scientific-integrity/climate-change-endangermentreport.html#.VuRiWfkrLIU</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2008 (April)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NASA scientist James Hansen’s analysis suggests that IPCC estimates of the dangers from</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">increasing temperatures are significantly understated</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) analyses, the European Union</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">adopted a goal of keeping global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial times,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">which implies a maximum CO2 concentration of 450 ppm. National Aeronautics and Space</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Administration (NASA) scientist James Hansen and his coauthors in “Target atmospheric CO2:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Where should humanity aim?” argue that “humanity must aim for an even lower level of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">greenhouse gases (GHG).” This is based on feedback processes not included in most climate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">models, such as ice sheet disintegration, vegetation migration, and GHG release from tundra or</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ocean sediments. Hansen recommends a 300 to 350 ppm CO2 target to avoid irreversible changes</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to Arctic sea ice, sea levels, and coral reef health. “The present global mean CO2, 385 ppm, is</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">already in the dangerous zone.” “If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ppm. The largest uncertainty in the target arises from possible changes of non-CO2 forcings. An</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">initial 350 ppm CO2 target may be achievable by phasing out coal use except where CO2 is</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">captured and adopting agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon. If the present</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a possibility of seeing irreversible catastrophic&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">effects.” According to Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, this paper is “probably the most</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">important scientific paper published in this millennium to date.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">James Hansen et al., “Target atmospheric CO2: Where should humanity aim?” Open Atmos. Sci. J. 2 (2008): 217-231,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bill McKibben, speech at the University of Maine, Oct. 7, 2014</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2008 (June)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Joseph Romm delivers a critique and reanalysis of the Pacala/Socolow “stabilization</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wedges”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Physicist and climate expert Joseph Romm publishes the paper “Cleaning up on carbon,” in</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nature Reports Climate Change: “[C]arbon emissions from the global consumption of fossil fuels</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">are currently above 8 GtC [gigatonnes carbon] per year and rising faster than the most pessimistic</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">economic model considered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Yet</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">even if the high price of energy from fossil fuels and power plants combines with regional climate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">initiatives to slow the current rate of growth somewhat, we will probably hit 11 gigatonnes of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">carbon emissions per year by 2020.” Romm concludes: “The United States simply cannot wait</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">another decade to find out whether domestic cap-and-trade legislation will drive carbon dioxide</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to a high enough price to curb emissions growth sharply.” [see 2004 (August)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Joseph Romm, “Cleaning up on carbon,” Nature Climate Change 1 (June 2008): 85-87,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.nature.com/articles/climate.2008.59#citea</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2008</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Author Bill McKibben and a group of students at Middlebury College found activist</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">organization 350.org</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Based in part on the recent work of James Hansen [2008 (April)], 350.org calls for cutting carbon</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">emissions by 80% by 2050, and bringing CO2 concentration down to 350 ppm. From the 350.org</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">website: “When we started organizing in 2008, we saw climate change as the most important</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">issue facing humanity — but climate action was mired in politics and all but stalled. We didn’t</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">know how to fix things, but we knew that one missing ingredient was a climate movement that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">reflected the scale of the crisis. So we started organizing coordinated days of action that linked</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">activists and organizations around the world, including the International Day of Climate Action</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in 2009, the Global Work Party in 2010, Moving Planet in 2011, and Climate Impacts Day in</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2012. We held the ‘world’s biggest art installation’ and ‘the most widespread day of political</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">action in the planet’s history.’ We figured that if we were going to be a movement, then we had</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to start acting like one.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">350.org, “Our History,” accessed January 10, 2020, http://350.org/our-history/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2008 (July)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The EPA issues a rulemaking notice arguing that the Clean Air Act is “ill-suited for the task</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of regulating global greenhouse gases”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a first formal public response to the Massachusetts v. EPA decision [see 2007 (April),</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(October), (December)] Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Stephen</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Johnson issues an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) soliciting public input on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">effects of climate change, the applicability of the Clean Air Act (CAA) to greenhouse gases, and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“how to respond to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA.” Johnson</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">prefaces the ANPR by stating his concern that “One point is clear: The potential regulation of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">greenhouse gases under any portion of the Clean Air Act could result in an unprecedented</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">expansion of EPA authority that would have a profound effect on virtually every sector of the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">economy and touch every household in the land.” The CAA, Johnson argues, is “an outdated law</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">originally enacted to control regional pollutants that cause direct health effects, is ill-suited for</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the task of regulating global greenhouse gases. Based on the analysis to date, pursuing this course</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of action would inevitably result in a very complicated, time consuming and, likely, convoluted</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">set of regulations. These rules … would be relatively ineffective at reducing greenhouse gas</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">concentrations given the potentially damaging effect on jobs and the U.S. economy.”* [see 2009</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(December)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Regulating Greenhouse Gases under the Clean Air Act, Proposed Rule,” Federal Register 73</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(July 30, 2008): 44354, https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2008-07-30/pdf/E8-16432.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2008 (October)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The United Kingdom parliament enacts the Climate Change Act of 2008</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Spurred by the Stern Review [see 2006 (October)], the law “established the world’s first national</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">legislation mandating greenhouse gas reductions by 2050 of 80%, relative to 1990 levels.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Passing by a near-unanimous vote with multiparty consensus, it creates a Committee on Climate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Change led by experts who set carbon budgets every five years, and report periodically to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Parliament and the cabinet. A 2019 policy analysis published in Science will note that the Act</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“inspired the Paris Agreement’s inclusion of a long-term target and ratchet mechanism, and its</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">institutional features have been adopted by other jurisdictions.” [see 2015 (December)] * A 2018</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">review by the Grantham Research Institute will find that the Act “has been instrumental in</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">advancing British climate change policy over the 10 years it has been in force.” From 2010 to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2017, UK greenhouse gas emissions will fall by 23%.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* J.D. Farmer et. al “Sensitive intervention points in the post-carbon transition,” Science 364, no. 6436 (April 12, 2019): 1,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6436/132; Climate Change Act of 2008, http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/27</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Michal Nachmany and Joana Setzer, Global trends in climate change legislation and litigation: 2018 snapshot, (London:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Grantham Research Institute, May, 2018), 1, http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Global-trends-inclimate-change-legislation-and-litigation-2018-snapshot.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">U.K. National Statistics, Annex: 1990-2017 UK Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Final Figures by End User, (Crown, March 28,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2019): 1, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/789830/1990-2017-ukemissions-final-figures-by-end-user-sector-fuel-type.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2008 (November)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Barack Obama runs against John McCain for President, and wins; climate change receives</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">scant attention in televised debates and interviews</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The League of Conservation Voters researches how often presidential candidates are asked about</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">environmental issues in televised debates and interviews. Of 3,231 questions asked of the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">candidates by top political reporters at five networks, only eight had to do with climate change.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the first McCain-Obama debate, McCain touts his long term support for nuclear power; Obama</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">responds that McCain has “voted 23 times against alternative energy, like solar, and wind, and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">biodiesel.” In the second debate, when asked about climate change, McCain states that “when</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">we have an issue that we may hand our children and our grandchildren a damaged planet, I have</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">disagreed strongly with the Bush administration on this issue. I traveled all over the world</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">looking at the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, Joe Lieberman and I. And I introduced the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">first legislation, and we forced votes on it. That’s the good news, my friends. The bad news is</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">we lost. But we kept the debate going, and we kept this issue to—to posing to Americans the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">danger that climate change opposes.” McCain adds that the “best way of fixing” climate change</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">is nuclear power. Obama, in response to the same question, says, “This is one of the biggest</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">challenges of our times. And it is absolutely critical that we understand this is not just a challenge,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">it’s an opportunity, because if we create a new energy economy, we can create five million new</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">jobs, easily, here in the United States. It can be an engine that drives us into the future the same</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">way the computer was the engine for economic growth over the last couple of decades…And</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">that’s why we’ve got to make some investments and I’ve called for investments in solar, wind,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">geothermal.” Obama wins the election, declaring support for cap and trade to address climate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">change, but will defer largely to Congress to work out the details. He focuses his own efforts on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">healthcare reform as a major Administration initiative. Obama will incorporate billions for green</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">energy in the stimulus package.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Eric Pooley, The Climate War: True Believers, Power Brokers, and the Fight to Save the Earth (New York: Harper Collins, 2010)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">127, 297</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> First and Second Presidential Debates (2008), transcribed at Climate Silence.org, http://climatesilence.org/data/debates/#2000</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2009 (January)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NOAA study concludes that climate impacts will be largely irreversible for more than a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">thousand years after CO2 emissions completely stop</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Senior Scientist Susan Solomon and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">coauthors summarize: “The severity of damaging human-induced climate change depends not</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">only on the magnitude of the change but also on the potential for irreversibility. This paper shows</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">that the climate change that takes place due to increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop. Following cessation of emissions, removal of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">atmospheric carbon dioxide decreases radiative forcing, but is largely compensated by slower</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">loss of heat to the ocean, so that atmospheric temperatures do not drop significantly for at least</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1,000 years. Among illustrative irreversible impacts that should be expected if atmospheric</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">carbon dioxide concentrations increase from current levels near 385 parts per million by volume</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(ppmv) to a peak of 450–600 ppmv over the coming century are irreversible dry-season rainfall</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">reductions in several regions comparable to those of the “dust bowl” era and inexorable sea level</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">rise.”* In an analysis of the implications of Soloman’s paper, John Sternman, an analyst of risk&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">perception and management at the Sloan School, M.I.T., writes, “it’s important that people not</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">react to Solomon’s work with despair. Yes, a certain amount of climate change, due to past</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">emissions, is inevitable, and will not be reversible. But it would be tragic if people concluded that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">therefore there is nothing we can do, that it is futile to reduce emissions, and that therefore all</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">efforts should shift to adaptation. To the contrary: if nothing is done to cut emissions, and soon,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the climate our children and grandchildren will face will almost certainly be far less hospitable,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and there will be no turning back. By the time we know for certain how bad it will be it will be</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">too late to take any corrective action. The Solomon paper should finally bury the idea that we can</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wait and see. It further strengthens the case for immediate, strong mitigation. The good news is</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">that it’s getting cheaper every day to cut carbon emissions. Through learning, scale economies,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">R&D, and other forms of innovation, new technologies for carbon-neutral renewable energy are</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">becoming more available and less expensive.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Susan Solomon et al., “Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions,” Proc.Natl.Acad.Sci. USA 106, no. 6 (January</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2009): 1704-1709, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0812721106</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Andrew Revkin, “The Greenhouse Effect and the Bathtub Effect,” New York Times, January 28, 2009,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-bathtub-effect/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2009 (January)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The U.S. Climate Action Partnership releases A Blueprint for Legislative Action</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The plan calls for a national cap and trade program that will reduce CO2 emissions to 58 percent</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of 2005 levels by 2030 and 20 percent of 2005 levels by 2050. Among the 26 corporate members</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of USCAP signing on to the “Blueprint” are Ford, General Motors, BP America, Shell, Chrysler,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dow, Dupont and Alcoa. The introduction to the report is titled, “Climate Change Legislation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Can Benefit Our Economy and Energy Future.” The report argues: “New and emerging</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">technologies can put us on the right path, and the potential for other continued technology</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">improvement is high. But to assure success, we need well-aligned national energy and climate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">policies that set out a new direction for the country. These policies must establish an orderly and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">predictable schedule of GHG reductions that will move the private sector to develop and deploy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the new and advanced energy technologies of tomorrow. Thoughtful and comprehensive national</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">energy and climate policy will help secure our economic prosperity and provide American</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">businesses and the nation’s workforce with the opportunity to innovate and succeed.”* The</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Partnership argues that rather than auctioning emissions allowances as President Obama has</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">proposed, the government should give the allowances to industry for free. Henry Waxman, Chair</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of the Energy and Commerce Committee, praises the Blueprint, and incorporates much of the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">proposal into the Waxman/Markey bill, H.R. 2454.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">United States Climate Action Partnership, A Blueprint for Legislative Action, January, 2009. Cited in Jennifer Layke, “The USCAP</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Blueprint for Legislative Action”, Worlds Resources Institute, January 15, 2009, https://www.wri.org/blog/2009/01/uscap-blueprintlegislative-action</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Michael J. Graetz, The End of Energy: The Unmaking of America's Environment, Security, and Independence (Cambridge: MIT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Press 2011), 234-5.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2009</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">85 percent of lobbyists registered to work on climate change in Congress aim to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">slow down government action</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">About six lobbyists per member of Congress?2,340 lobbyists?are registered to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">work on climate change on Capitol Hill. The surge in lobbyists in Washington is</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">spurred by concern about new agendas for Congressional and administrative action</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">with the Obama administration. OpenSecrets.org reports: “In all, federal lobbyists’</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">clients spent more than $3.47 billion [in 2009], often driven to Washington, D.C.’s</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">power centers and halls of influence by political issues central to the age: health care</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">reform, financial reform, energy policy. That figure represents a more than 5 percent</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">increase over $3.3 billion worth of federal lobbying recorded in 2008, the previous</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">all-time annual high for lobbying expenditures. And it comes in a year when a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">recession persisted, the dollar’s value against major foreign currencies declined and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">joblessness rates increased.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Bill McKibben, Eaarth (New York: St. Martin’s 2011), 56.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> “Federal Lobbying Climbs in 2009 as Lawmakers Execute Aggressive Congressional Agenda,” OpenSecrets.org, Center for</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Responsive Politics, February 12, 2010, https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/02/federal-lobbying-soars-in-2009/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2009 (February)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The University of Maine Climate Change Institute publishes Maine’s Climate Future,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">representing a collaboration of more than 70 scientists across disciplines</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some of the conclusions of the report: “For the 21st century, models show a strong trend in Maine</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">toward warmer conditions with more precipitation in all four seasons…. increased intensity of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">precipitation…A warming ocean could increase the frequency and intensity of hurricanes.” “It</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">is difficult to predict the effect on specific species, but we may have fewer spruce, loons,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">chickadees, lynx, halibut and moose; and more oaks, bobcats, summer flounder and deer.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“[P]otential increases in commercially important fish or tree species could be tempered by similar</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">increases in toxic red tides, invasive species, pests or diseases.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> G.L.Jacobson et al., Maine’s Climate Future: An Initial Assessment (Orono, ME: University of Maine, 2009).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://climatechange.umaine.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/439/2018/08/Maines_Climate_Future.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2009 (April)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Malte and Nicolai Meinshausen initiate the “carbon budget” approach to measuring</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">progress on climate change</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">109 of the 192 signing countries of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Change are calling for warming to be limited to two degrees Celsius or lower relative to preindustrial levels. Malte and Nicolai Meinshausen, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Research and Oxford University’s Statistics Department respectively, publish “Greenhouse-gas</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">emissions targets for limiting global warming to 2 degrees C” in Nature. They assert that if&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">cumulative emissions from 2000 to 2050 are limited to 1,000 gigatonnes (Gt) CO2 equivalent</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(one trillion tonnes), there is a 75% chance that the globe will not warm more than 2 degrees</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Celsius. Between 2000 and 2006, 234 Gt CO2 were emitted, leaving 766 Gt to go. That is, a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">quarter of the “bathtub” had been filled in 1/10 of the time allotted. As the press release regarding</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the study states, “The new results have direct relevance to the international negotiations now</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">underway…(quoting coauthor Retto Knutti) ‘With every year of delay, we consume a larger part</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of our emissions budget, losing room to maneuver and increasing the probabilities of dangerous</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">consequences.’”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Malte Meinshausen et al., “Greenhouse-gas emissions targets for limiting global warming to 2 degrees C,” Nature 458 (April 30,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2009): 1158-1162, https://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/archive/2009/on-the-way-to-phasing-out-emissions-more-than50-reductions-needed-by-2050-to-respect-2b0c-climate-target</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2009 (April)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">House GOP leader (later Speaker of the House) John Boehner denies on ABC that carbon</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">dioxide is a carcinogen</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Boehner argues: “The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the world, you know, when they do what they do, you’ve got more carbon dioxide.” Comments</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Joe Romm, at ThinkProgress: “Almost comical? How about completely tragic? One of the GOP’s</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">senior leaders thinks this debate is about whether carbon dioxide is a carcinogen? And thinks</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">carcinogens harm the environment, rather than people? And thinks that cows are of concern</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">because they produce carbon dioxide, rather than methane? It bears repeating: Anti-science</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">conservatives are now the cement shoes on the American people, pulling us down into the ocean</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">hot, acidic dead zone.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Joe Romm, “House GOP Leader Boehner on ABC,” ThinkProgress, April 20, 2009,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://thinkprogress.org/house-gop-leader-boehner-on-abc-the-idea-that-carbon-dioxide-is-a-carcinogen-that-is-harmful-to-ourd013d4fa47b5</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2009 (June)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Obama EPA approves California motor vehicles emissions waiver, allowing it and 13</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">other states to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The decision reverses the Bush Administration denial of the waiver,* restoring a 40-year</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">interpretation the Clean Air Act. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson says in an interview that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">granting the waiver "preserves California's role as a leader on clean air policy," particularly on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">motor vehicles. "It feels good to know that we are able to move past -- address -- this issue,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">responding to the president's call." California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger calls the decision a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"huge step for our emerging green economy that will create thousands of new jobs and bring</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Californians the cars they want while reducing greenhouse gas emissions." A study by the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Environmental Defense Fund comparing the current federal Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">standards with the California standards approved by this action for its impact on costs in the 13</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">states which have adopted the California standards finds that “[c]ombined, the 13 states will avoid&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">consuming 16 billion gallons of fuel in 2030, saving drivers $40 billion in fuel costs based on an</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">average gas price of $2.50.”* [see 2007 (December)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “California Greenhouse Gas Waiver Request,” https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissionsvehicles-and-engines/california-greenhouse-gas-waiver-request, Federal Register 74 (July 8, 2009): 32744</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2009-07-08/pdf/E9-15943.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jim Tankersley, “California wins EPA waiver on greenhouse emissions”, Los Angeles Times, June 30, 2009,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/30/nation/na-california-waiver30</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Environmental Defense Fund, “13 States Adopting California Clean Car Standards Would Reap Significant Economic and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Environmental Benefits,” Environmental Defense Fund, June 30, 2009, https://www.edf.org/news/13-states-adopting-california-cleancar-standards-would-reap-significant-economic-and-environme</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2009 (June)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The House approves legislation for a national cap-and-trade system for regulating</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">greenhouse gases, but the proposal fails in the Senate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Waxman/Markey bill, H.R. 2454, entitled the American Clean Energy and Security Act, is</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">approved by a vote of 219 to 212 in the House of Representatives. It would authorize a national</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">cap and trade system to regulate greenhouse gases (GHG), but prohibit regional programs such</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Negotiations for comparable legislation in</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the Senate fail. A detailed analysis of the Senate negotiations by Ryan Lizza in The New Yorker</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">reveals significant failures of leadership, and the impact of a voracious right-wing press. Lizza’s</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">analysis also suggests that industries closely engaged in the negotiations preferred a simpler, more</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">predictable carbon fee approach to cap-and-trade. * Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Climate Justice Leadership Forum, and some other environmental groups oppose the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Waxman/Markey bill. Greenpeace states that “giveaways and preferences in the [legislation] will</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">actually spur a new generation of nuclear and coal-fired power plants to the detriment of real</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">energy solutions.” * NASA scientist James Hansen writes an opinion piece in</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">InsideClimateNews which is strenuously opposed to the cap-and-trade approach to regulating</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">greenhouse gases: “governments are retreating to feckless ‘cap-and-trade’, a minor tweak to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">business-as-usual. Oil companies are so relieved to realize that they do not need to learn to be</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">energy companies that they are decreasing their already trivial investments in renewable energy.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cap-and-trade is the temple of doom. It would lock in disasters for our children and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">grandchildren. Its fecklessness was proven by the Kyoto Protocol. It took a decade to implement</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the treaty, as countries extracted concessions that weakened even mild goals. Most countries that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">claim to have met their obligations actually increased their emissions. Others found that even</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">modest reductions of emissions were inconvenient, and thus they simply ignored their goals.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Instead, Hansen proposes a substantial carbon fee, ratcheted up over time.* Meanwhile Maine</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Senator Susan Collins and Washington Senator Maria Cantwell propose a “cap-and-dividend”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">bill which would auction allowances, return 75 percent of the proceeds to U.S. citizens per capita,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and use the remaining 25 percent for clean-energy R&D. The “CLEAR Act”, or “Carbon Limits</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and Energy for America’s Renewal Act,” provides no trading of the allowances, and contains no</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">provisions for offsets. Writes Michael Graetz: “This bill resembles a carbon tax and rebate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">system, but the dreaded word tax appears nowhere. The senators emphasize that their legislation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">takes only 39 pages of statutory language, saying, “Instead of a behemoth bill deigned to conceal&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">backroom deals and giveaways, our framework is a straight path that all Americans can</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">follow.” This proposal gets little traction in the Senate.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ryan Lizza, “As the World Burns,” New Yorker, October 11, 2010, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/11/as-the-worldburns</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Michael J. Graetz, The End of Energy: The Unmaking of America's Environment, Security, and Independence (Cambridge: MIT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Press 2011), 237, 242.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">James Hansen, “Cap-and-Trade is the Temple of Doom,”InsideClimateNews, May 6, 2009,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20090506/cap-and-trade-temple-doom</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2009 (October)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Pew Research Center survey finds a sharp decline in the percentage of Americans who</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">say there is solid evidence that global temperatures are rising</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Believers that there is “solid evidence” of global warming have declined from 71% to 57% in the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">past year. The Pew Research Center national survey of 1,500 adults on cellular and landlines also</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">finds that fewer Americans see global warming as a very serious problem—35% say that it is</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">serious in October,2009, down from 44% in April 2008. The percentage of those believing human</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">activity causes global warming also has significantly declined: 36% say in October 2009 that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">global warming is a result of human activity, versus 47% in April 2008. “The decline in the belief</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in solid evidence of global warming has come across the political spectrum, but has been</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">particularly pronounced among independents. Just 53% of independents now see solid evidence</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of global warming, compared with 75% who did so in April 2008.” Despite growing skepticism,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">a majority of Americans favor regulatory action to curb emissions: “the survey finds more</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">support than opposition for a policy to set limits on carbon emissions. Half of Americans favor</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">setting limits on carbon emissions and making companies pay for their emissions, even if this</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">may lead to higher energy prices; 39% oppose imposing limits on carbon emissions under these</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">circumstances.” *</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Pew Research Center, “Fewer Americans See Solid Evidence of Global Warming,” (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center Oct. 22,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2009), http://people-press.org/2009/10/22/fewer-americans-see-solid-evidence-of-global-warming/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2009 (November)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hacked scientist emails fan the flames of climate denial</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">University of East Anglia, United Kingdom, fuel public and media arguments that scientists</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">conspired to overstate the case for human influence on climate change. Andrew Revkin describes</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the hacked emails in the New York Times: “The e-mail messages, attributed to prominent</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">American and British climate researchers, include discussions of scientific data and whether it</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">should be released, exchanges about how best to combat the arguments of skeptics, and casual</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">comments — in some cases derisive — about specific people known for their skeptical views.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drafts of scientific papers and a photo collage that portrays climate skeptics on an ice floe were</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">also among the hacked data, some of which dates back 13 years.” After an analysis of the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">documents and discussions with various scientist whose emails were disclosed, Revkin&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">concludes, “The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument. However, the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">documents will undoubtedly raise questions about the quality of research on some specific</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">questions and the actions of some scientists.”* The hacked documents are leaked shortly before</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the Copenhagen Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Climate Change, and “was extensively referred to there,” according to an official inquiry into the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">hacked documents and their implication at the University of East Anglia. The key findings of the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">latter report are: “Climate science is a matter of such global importance, that the highest standards</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of honesty, rigour and openness are needed in its conduct. On the specific allegations made</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">against the behaviour of CRU [Climate Research Unit] scientists, we find that their rigour and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">honesty as scientists are not in doubt. In addition, we do not find that their behaviour has</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">prejudiced the balance of advice given to policy makers. In particular, we did not find any</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments. But we do</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">find that there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">both on the part of the CRU scientists and on the part of the [University of East Anglia], who</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">failed to recognise not only the significance of statutory requirements but also the risk to the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">reputation of the University and, indeed, to the credibility of UK climate science.” [see 2010</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(February)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Andrew C. Revkin, “Hacked E-Mail Is New Fodder for Climate Dispute,” New York Times, November 20, 2009,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/science/earth/21climate.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sir Muir Russell et al., The Independent Climate Change E-mails Review (Norwich, U.K.: University of East Anglia July, 2010),</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.cce-review.org/pdf/FINAL%20REPORT.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2009 (December)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Obama administration EPA issues a final “endangerment finding” on greenhouse gases.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In compliance with the ruling in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, the Obama</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issues a final “endangerment finding,” concluding that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">six greenhouse gases (GHG) “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">welfare.” The EPA proposes mandatory reporting of GHG emissions from large sources and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">announces that it is considering whether to regulate GHG emissions from coal-fired power plants.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The introduction to the finding states: “The [EPA] Administrator has determined that the body</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of scientific evidence compellingly supports this finding. The major assessments by the U.S.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Global Climate Research Program (USGCRP), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(IPCC), and the National Research Council (NRC) serve as the primary scientific basis supporting</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the Administrator’s endangerment finding. The Administrator reached her determination by</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">considering both observed and projected effects of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, their</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">effect on climate, and the public health and welfare risks and impacts associated with such climate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">change. The Administrator’s assessment focused on public health and the public welfare impacts</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">within the United States. She also examined the evidence with respect to impacts in other world</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">regions, and she concluded that these impacts strengthen the case for endangerment to public</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">health and welfare because impacts in other world regions can in turn adversely affect the United</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">States.”* [see 2007 (April), (October), (December), 2019 (December)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">U.S.Environmental Protection Agency, “Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases Under Section</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">202(a) of the Clean Air Act,” Federal Register 74 (December 15, 2009): 66495,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2009/12/15/E9-29537/endangerment-and-cause-or-contribute-findings-for-greenhousegases-under-section-202a-of-the-clean</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2009 (December)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">UNFCCC 15th COP meeting in Copenhagen ends with a three-page “accord” that is neither</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">legally binding, nor formally accepted</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“accord” contains no specific emissions-reduction goals, but sets an objective that world</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">temperatures should not rise by more than 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels by 2050.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Joss Garman in London’s Independent: “It is no exaggeration to describe the outcome of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Copenhagen as a historic failure that will live in infamy,” where “[t]he most progressive US</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">president in a generation comes to the most important international meeting since the Second</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">World War and delivers a speech so devoid of substance that he might as well have made it on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">speaker-phone from a beach in Hawaii. His aides argue in private that he had no choice, such is</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the opposition on Capitol Hill to any action that could challenge the dominance of fossil fuels in</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">American life. And so the nation that put a man on the Moon can't summon the collective will to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">protect men and women back here on Earth from the consequences of an economic model and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">lifestyle choice that has taken on the mantle of a religion.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michael J. Graetz, The End of Energy: The Unmaking of America's Environment, Security, and Independence (Cambridge: MIT Press</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2011) , 175.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Josh Garman, “Copenhagen – Historic Failure That Will Live In Infamy,” The Independent, December 20, 2009,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/joss-garman-copenhagen-historic-failure-that-will-live-in-infamy-1845907.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2010 (February)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For the first time, the U.S. Department of Defense assesses the impact of climate change on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">global stability and defense operations</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This assessment, in the Department’s primary planning document, the Quadrennial Defense</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Review, is required by a 2008 statutory amendment sponsored by Senators Hillary Clinton (DNY) and John Warner (R-VA). The report observes that “Climate change and energy are two</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">key issues that will play a significant role in shaping the future security environment. Although</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">they produce distinct types of challenges, climate change, energy security, and economic stability</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">are inextricably linked. The actions that the Department takes now can prepare us to respond</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">effectively to these challenges in the near term and in the future. .. Assessments conducted by the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">intelligence community indicate that climate change could have significant geopolitical impacts</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and the further weakening</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of fragile governments. Climate change will contribute to food and water scarcity, will increase</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the spread of disease, and may spur or exacerbate mass migration. While climate change alone</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">does not cause conflict, it may act as an accelerant of instability or conflict, placing a burden to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">respond on civilian institutions and militaries around the world. In addition, extreme weather</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">events may lead to increased demands for defense support to civil authorities for humanitarian</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">assistance or disaster response both within the United States and overseas. In some nations, the&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">military is the only institution with the capacity to respond to a large-scale natural disaster.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Proactive engagement with these countries can help build their capability to respond to such</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">events.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Brad Johnson, “Pentagon: ‘Climate Change, Energy Security, and Economic Stability are Inextricably Linked,’”ThinkProgress.org,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">February 1, 2010, http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2010/02/01/174552/qdr-climate-threat/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> U.S. Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report (Washington D.C.: United States Department of Defense,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">February, 2010):1, https://archive.defense.gov/qdr/QDR%20as%20of%2029JAN10%201600.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2010 (February)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Senator James Inhofe releases a report calling for criminal prosecution of 17 climate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">scientists</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The initiative by Senator Inhofe, ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Committee, is in response to the hacked e-mails from University of East Anglia, United Kingdom.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[see 2009 (November)] An editorial in the journal Nature calls Senator Inhofe’s proposal</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“nonsense that was hardly a surprise considering the source,” but observes that “[c]limate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">scientists are on the defensive, knocked off balance by a re-energized community of globalwarming deniers who, by dominating the media agenda, are sowing doubts about the fundamental</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">science. Most researchers find themselves completely out of their league in this kind of battle</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">because it’s only superficially about the science. The real goal is to stoke the angry fires of talk</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">radio, cable news, the blogosphere and the like, all of which feed off of contrarian story lines and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">seldom make the time to assess facts and weigh evidence. Civility, honesty, fact and perspective</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">are irrelevant.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Editorial, “Climate of fear,” Nature 464, no.141 (March 11, 2010): 1, https://doi.org/10.1038/464141a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2010 (May)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The EPA takes the first U.S. regulatory action to control greenhouse gases</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Environmental Protection Agency finally takes the action that a group of environmental</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">organizations, states, and municipalities asked it to do eleven years ago [see 1999 (October)].</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jointly with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Obama administration EPA</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">issues a final rule for Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) standards and greenhouse gas</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">standards for passenger cars, light-duty trucks, and medium-duty passenger vehicles. The rule</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">will apply to model years 2012 through 2016. The EPA notes that “Mobile sources emitted 31</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">percent of all U.S. GHGs in 2007…and have been the fastest-growing source of U.S. GHGs since</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1990,” and the vehicles regulated by this rule “are responsible for almost 60 percent of all U.S.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">transportation-related GHG emissions.” The EPA explains the relationship between fuel</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">economy and GHG pollution: “The National Program is both needed and possible because the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">relationship between improving fuel economy and reducing CO2 tailpipe emissions is a very direct</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and close one. The amount of those CO2 emissions is essentially constant per gallon combusted</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of a given type of fuel. Thus, the more fuel efficient a vehicle is, the less fuel it burns to travel a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">given distance. The less fuel it burns, the less CO2 it emits in traveling that distance. While there</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">are emission control technologies that reduce the pollutants (e.g. carbon monoxide) produced by&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">imperfect combustion of fuel by capturing or converting them to other compounds, there is no</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">such technology for CO2. Further, while some of those pollutants can also be reduced by</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">achieving a more complete combustion of fuel, doing so only increases the tailpipe emissions of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CO2.” The rules set standards for combined average fuel efficiency for passenger vehicles and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">light trucks beginning in 2012, increasing in stringency through model year 2016, when all fleets</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">will be required to achieve a fuel economy level of 34.1 mpg. The National Program “is estimated</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to result in approximately 960 million metric tons of total carbon dioxide equivalent emissions</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">reductions and approximately 1.8 billion barrels of oil savings over the lifetime of vehicles sold</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in model years … 2012 through 2016.”* [see also 2012 August]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">U.S.Environmental Protection Agency, “Light-duty Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards and Corporate Average Fuel Economy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Standards; Final Rule,” Federal Register 75 (May 7, 2010): 25323, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2010/05/07/2010-</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8159/light-duty-vehicle-greenhouse-gas-emission-standards-and-corporate-average-fuel-economy-standards</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2010 (June)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The EPA issues a final “tailoring” rule under the Clean Air Act for applying greenhouse</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">gas (GHG) emission standards to stationary sources</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The rule applies to permit proceedings for factories and power plants, and limits applicability of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GHG regulation to larger facilities, which account for 70% of all GHG emissions from stationary</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sources. The EPA details the legal justification under court decisions for regulating only the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">largest sources of greenhouse gases in Prevention of Significant Deterioration and Title V</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">operating permit proceedings, thus “relieving overwhelming permitting burdens that would, in</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the absence of this rule, fall on permitting authorities and sources.” The Obama EPA’s approach</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">avoids the scenario the G.W. Bush administration hypothesized as a basis for rejecting</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act, that the EPA “would be required to regulate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">a very large number of new and existing stationary sources, including smaller sources …indeed,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">a large single family residence could exceed this threshold if all appliances consumed natural</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">gas.’’[see 2008 (July)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Prevention of Significant Deterioration and Title V Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rule,”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Federal Register 75 (June 3, 2010): 32513, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2010/06/03/2010-11974/prevention-ofsignificant-deterioration-and-title-v-greenhouse-gas-tailoring-rule</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Regulating Greenhouse Gases under the Clean Air Act, Proposed Rule,” Federal Register</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">73 (July 30, 2008), 44354, https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2008-07-30/pdf/E8-16432.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2010</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Record breaking heat waves cause devastation across the globe</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2010 ties with 2005 as the warmest year on record, with 19 countries setting new hightemperature records. Pakistan registers the hottest temperature ever recorded on the Asian</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">continent (128.3 degrees F). Summer heat in western Russia cause wildfires and destroy onethird of Russia’s wheat crop; 56,000 deaths in Russia are attributed to the combination of extreme</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">heat, smog, and smoke. China’s Yunan province experiences extreme heat and the worst drought</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in 100 years, causing massive crop failures. In the United States on the east coast temperatures</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">reaches 106 degrees F as far north as Maryland.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dan Huber and Jay Gulledge, “Extreme Weather and Climate Change,” Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (December 2011):</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1, https://www.c2es.org/publications/extreme-weather-and-climate-change</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2010 (September)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Members of Americans for Prosperity (AFP) begin protesting at Regional Greenhouse Gas</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Initiative (RGGI) offices and attacking the program as a “stealth tax”</font></div><div>
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