The Political Climate: an ongoing commentary on the NH Primary and Climate Change

Is Canada backing out of the Kyoto Protocol Agreement?  Yesterday the government announced new legislation, the Clean Air Act (CAA,) that they believe will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2050. 

Canadian environmental activists are in an uproar over the announcement.  John Bennett, a member of the Canadian Sierra Club, believes that implementation of the CAA will show that Canada has ”no intention now to even try to achieve what we had pledged; we have decided to abandon our international commitment.”  Canada, who ratified the Kyoto Protocol and committed to cutting their emissions by 6% from 1990 levels by 2012, is currently 30% above 1990 levels (click here to read the complete story in the Boston Globe.)

Money seems to be the theme in New Hampshire as Election Day draws near.  The Union Leader’s “Granite Status” reports on allegations that Rep. Jeb Bradley is illegally overpaying his Chief of Staff and campaign manager Debra Vander Beek.  Also, Carol Shea-Porter is finishing up the last few weeks of her campaign with $49,269–she received $5000 from Sen. Chris Dodd’s PAC and $5000 from Virginia’s former Gov. Mark Warner.  Shea-Porter’s opponent Jeb Bradley is finishing his campaign a little more comfortably with over $500,000 left in funds.  Bradley has raised money from PACs as well as from individuals and corporations, something that Shea-Porter vowed not to do.  For more information on how much money was raised and where it came from check out Opensecrets.org.

This weekend potential presidential candidates are in the state.  On Saturday Sen. Chris Dodd will be in Epping, Sen. John Kerry will be in Nashua, Laconia, and Portsmouth, and General Wesley Clark is travelling all over the state.  To view all candidates visiting the state check out our candidate calendar.

Who said climate change was all bad?  Government’s inability to take formal action to combat global warming has only created common ground for a schmorgousboard of people and organizations that might not typically see eye-to-eye.

Last Wednesday the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition held mock-funerals in 14 cities across the nation.  The symbolic “funerals for their future” were held to protest the “death of Canada’s environment” projected by many to be inevitable  if the current Conservative government remains complacent to climate change (the story from Canada.com.)

This editorial in the Minnesota Daily describes evangelical Christian leader involvement in the fight against global warming.  “As the US government continues to hem and haw about the state of global warming (they still can’t decide it actually exists,) religious groups are positioning themselves to lead America to a greener future.”  Since last winter 86 Christian leaders have signed a statement that acknowledges human impacts on climate change, and churches across the country are taking active approaches to get the word out.  In fact, churches across the Granite State have been showing “An Inconvenient Truth” to help get the word out about climate change.  Using religion to help spread civic awareness can be very beneficial to the cause and in this case “the leaders of this new movement aren’t praying for change, they are actively pursuing it, and people of any faith can appreciate that.”

A new report published by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, announced that many top US companies “anticipate that a US federal law regulating greenhouse gas emissions could take effect as early as 2010.”  This article in MarketWatch describes a rise in recent voluntary activity by many companies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.  The Pew report says, “Sustainabable climate strategies cannot be an add-on to business as usual; they must be integrated with a company’s core business activities.” 

The newest word on the street: fuel efficiency.  On Monday the Environmental Protection Agency released their annual list ranking vehicle fuel economy.  The hybrid-electric Toyota Prius received the top ranking, and luxury cars had the least efficient ratings with the Lamborghini Murcielago bottoming out the list with an average 9-14 mpg.  The Boston Globe reports on it here, and visit MSN to view the entire list.

The New York Times recently ran this article about Honda’s goal to “develop a new generation of high-efficiency diesel engines that would lead a major company into a fuel-sipping low-emissions future.”  The company introduced such an engine (i-CTDi) in their 2003 Accord in Europe, and hopes to release the the i-CTDi engine in the US within the next 3 years.  Because this newly developed diesel engine is cleaner, it meets California’s and the Northeast’s automobile regulations, which have prohibited the sale of diesel vehicles due to tailpipe pollutant levels. 

The green “L” in Google on the search engine’s home page is no longer going to stand alone.  This article in the New York Times reports on the companies new plans to become “green.”  Google announced Monday that it will build a 9,200 cell solar electricity system (an amount that could electrify 1,000 homes in California) at its 1 million square-foot office complex in Mountain View, California.  The solar electricity system will provide 30% of the daily electricity used at the office complex, and the company expects the project to pay for itself within 5-10 years of completion. 

David Radcliffe, VP for real estate at Google, says the company is building this power system to save money over time, but more importantly to be socially responsibile and to help attract “smart, high level engineers who want to work for a company trying to diminish the damage it does to the environment.”

Solutions to global warming are spreading from coast to coast.  Well, sort of.  It’s one sea to another shining sea, but with just about everything in the middle still holding back, the issue of global warming still has a long way to go before it’s truly a united effort.

Fortunately, California and the Northeast haven’t let the couple thousand mile vacuum deter them from working together.  This article in the Concord Monitor reports on the new partnership between California and the Northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) states–Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont.  The basis of the partnership between these states is to create a cap and trade system allowing power plants (that beginning in 2009 will have a carbon dioxide emission limit) to trade “credits” based on the amount of emissions they do or do not produce.  California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger hopes the “cooperation can be a model to the rest of the states and to other countries.”