quote: The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider whether the Bush administration must regulate carbon dioxide to combat global warming, setting up what could be one of the court's most important decisions on the environment.
quote: A dozen states, a number of cities and various environmental groups asked the court to take up the case after a divided lower court ruled against them.
Personally, I think it's about damned time that someone or something is considering forcing us to watch how we pollute the Earth with an abundance CO2 like this. Hopefully, it will turn into a ruling where we ARE forced to change our habits- for the sake of the environment.
posted
I think it should be up to the states. Why should California and Wisconsin be dealt with the same way?
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Hopefully, it will turn into a ruling where we ARE forced to change our habits- for the sake of the environment.
I'm all for changing some of our habits, but who gets to decide who changes and how much to change? I'm not sure a supreme court ruling is the best answer here.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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The topic title begs the question...exactly what kind of emissions is President Bush freely..errr...emitting? I didn't know it required a SCOTUS decision to get him to stop. I know if it was me, a few choice words from the First Lady might do the trick.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:A federal appeals court sided with the administration in a sharply divided ruling.
One judge said the EPA's refusal to regulate carbon dioxide was contrary to the clean air law; another said that even if the Clean Air Act gave the EPA authority over the heat-trapping chemical, the agency could choose not to use that authority; a third judge ruled against the suit because, he said, the plaintiffs had no standing because they hadn't proven harm.
It was sharply divided only over which mechanism was used to reject the primary contention.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by BaoQingTian: The topic title begs the question...exactly what kind of emissions is President Bush freely..errr...emitting? I didn't know it required a SCOTUS decision to get him to stop. I know if it was me, a few choice words from the First Lady might do the trick.
The man is from Texas, people. It's his God given right to eat beans, Kyoto or no Kyoto.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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When states in the west put out large amounts of pollution, it blows east. States like Illinois who use a lot of local heavy sulfur coal for thier electricity are happy. States like Maine, who are seeing their lumber industry decimated by the pollution, or cities like Phili who fail to meet EPA guidelines because of all the imported pollution, are not happy. Yet these eastern states can do nothing.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Pretty soon everyone in the west will be dealing with it from China. I read an article in the New York Times about how a huge cloud of coal smoke and what not floated from China all the way to California, and was registered on a mountain top observatory as the most polluted air ever on record. It's no longer just a national issue, it's an international one.
Part of the problem is also two way. When California sets air standards and MPG standards that are higher than the rest of the nation, it means all auto companies have to change to be able to sell to the largest market in the country. It also means that Japanese companies have a huge advantage, since their cars have already met those standards for years. Auto companies complain that it isn't fair that a single state should be able to dictate policy for the entire nation, but at the same time, is is okay for a lazy behind the times auto company to be able to keep California behind, when they have a big air quality problem they've been trying to solve?
When it comes to air quality, the air doesn't just dissipate when it hits state lines, it hits across several states. As such, it is perfectly fair for Arizona to demand that California cut its emissions, or for Maryland to demand that Pennsylvania cut theirs.
You are going to see this MAJORLY crop up in Asia as an international issue in the next half decade. Japan, South Korea, and basically anyone else who might fall under the weather patterns of air from China are going to be blanketed by coal ash and dust from the ballooning Chinese energy industry. It's really staggering, and though they claim they are trying to be cleaner, and despute the huge influx of cash into their economy, they won't buy filters from the US for their coal fired plants. South Korea and Japan especially are going to start hammering them on that. Which is just the beginning of Chinese/Japanese problems to come. It's a little off topic, but, China will be pushing hardcore to stop North Korea from testing its long range ballistic missiles, not because they want to help the US, but because it gives Japan all the leverage they need to ask the US to help build a massive missile shield on the island, and maybe even make their own nukes. Scares the hell out of China, and takes away a chunk of their dominance in the area.
posted
Yet another product of the absurdities of the American Constitution. Why are we a federal Republic again, can anyone explain why this ever seemed like a good idea? Give me the Westminster system any day. Of cours in such a system, Prime Minister Bush would have ruined the country irreperably by now, but under such a system, which values public speaking much more than our own, Mr Bush would be lucky to make MP, let alone PM.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Yet another product of the absurdities of the American Constitution.
What does this have to do with the absurdities of the Constitution? The federal government isn't doing something someone else wants it to. How would this be different without a dual-sovereign system?
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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