EPA Gets Smart
The Environmental Protection Agency announced on Friday that carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping gases are now officially considered harmful pollutants to humans and to the environment. This means that emissions of these gases will soon be regulated by the agency, but there will first be a 60 day period for comments before any legislation proposals are made.
This ruling is, in my opinion, long overdue, but it was necessary for the EPA to conduct the research required to make such a claim and make sure there was enough evidence of the gases’ harm to place regulations on it. This is a crucial ruling in terms of the global warming debate, and it will be interesting to see what sort of EPA regulations are made.
Combined with Congress’ hopes of a cap-and-trade system, it finally seems as if the US is on it’s way to tackling this problem head on, and the time couldn’t be better. The EPA found that US greenhouse gas emissions rose 1.4 percent in 2007, mostly due to fuel and energy consumption. The efforts on the individualized, small scale level apparently are not enough.
For more on the Environmental Protection Agency’s findings, check out their climate change page.
