Greens Hail Obama's OK to Regulate Greenhouse Emissions

[babylonsister]

Greens Hail Obama's OK to Regulate Greenhouse Emissions

by Jim Lobe


WASHINGTON - U.S. green groups hailed Friday's formal finding by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that carbon dioxide and several other greenhouse gases "endanger" public health and welfare as a landmark – if long overdue – step toward slowing global warming.

They said the finding, which gives the EPA the authority to regulate emissions under the Clean Air Act, should add to pressure on Congress to enact its own legislation establishing national standards and reduction targets as early as this year, possibly before December's U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen, the first formal effort to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

"Where the Bush administration lagged, the Obama administration is now leading," said David Bookbinder, the Sierra Club's chief climate counsel. "There is no longer a question of if or even when the U.S. will act on global warming. We are doing so now," he added.

"At long last, the EPA has officially recognised that carbon pollution is harmful to our health and to the climate," said David Doniger, a climate specialist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). "The heat-trapping pollution from our cars and power plants leads to killer heat waves, stronger hurricanes, higher smog levels, and many other direct and indirect threats to human health."

"Today's action is an important step toward making our climate and our planet safer for future generations," he added.

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/04/18-0

[MoJoWorkin]

1. Everyday, more change we can believe in!

I make NO APOLOGIES! I am very happy with my President. He has done a hell-of-a-lot in a very small amount of time.

[babylonsister]

2. Yes indeed! And I will continue to promote the progress he's made,

even though many of the naysayers aren't interested in anything positive.

So these posts will be for people like yourself who appreciate what's going on. :fistbump:

[Overseas]

3. K&R !! I hail it too !!

With the side effects of global warming accelerating at a faster pace than we had hoped, urgent change is required.

[ClarkUSA]

4. CHANGE I CAN BELIEVE IN is the presidential slogan that's translating into reality.

[Honeycombe8]

5. Yaaaaay! Maybe things will start to get cleaner before I die, so I can see it!

I'm not dying or anything, but I am middle aged, and it does take awhile for the effects of environmental changes to be seen, sometimes.

[Peacetrain]

6. Our future is in the green revolution, not only for the environment and safety

of the planet, but in job creation.

[Reterr]

8. Very true.eom

[Reterr]

7. This is an excellent move

Nice job Mr.President :thumbsup:!

[HopeOverFear]

9. k and r for positivity!