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EPA Rejects Petitions to Reverse Climate Change Endangerment Finding
WASHINGTON, DC - The Environmental Protection Agency today turned back 10 petitions from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Commonwealth of Virginia, Peabody Coal and others that asked the agency to rescind its scientific finding that heat-trapping greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.
Smoke stacks are seen at a coal power plant in West Virginia. The EPA turned back 10 petitions from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Commonwealth of Virginia, Peabody Coal and others that asked the agency to rescind its scientific finding that heat-trapping greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. (AFP/File/Saul Loeb)
In December 2009 the EPA determined that climate change is real, is
occurring due to emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities,
and threatens human health and the environment. This determination
triggers the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under
the Clean Air Act.
The petitions to reconsider EPA's Endangerment Finding claim that climate science cannot be trusted, and assert a conspiracy that invalidates the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program.
"After months of serious consideration of the petitions and of the state of climate change science," the agency said today that it can find "no evidence" to support these claims.
By contrast, EPA's review shows that "climate science is credible, compelling, and growing stronger."
"The endangerment finding is based on years of science from the U.S. and around the world. These petitions, based as they are on selectively edited, out-of-context data and a manufactured controversy, provide no evidence to undermine our determination. Excess greenhouse gases are a threat to our health and welfare," said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.
The scientific evidence supporting EPA's finding is "robust, voluminous, and compelling," the agency asserts on its website.
"Climate change is happening now, and humans are contributing to it," the EPA states. "Multiple lines of evidence show a global warming trend over the past 100 years. Beyond this, melting ice in the Arctic, melting glaciers around the world, increasing ocean temperatures, rising sea levels, altered precipitation patterns, and shifting patterns of ecosystems and wildlife habitats all confirm that our climate is changing."
But Robin Conrad, executive vice president of the National Chamber Litigation Center, today said the U.S. Chamber of Commerce intends to appeal the EPA's denial of its petition.
"The U.S. Chamber, policymakers, numerous trade groups, state governments, and businesses throughout the country have collectively raised strong concerns about the significant negative impact EPA's endangerment finding will have on jobs and local economies," said Conrad.
"We are deeply disappointed with the EPA's failure to reconsider its flawed decision to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. We intend to appeal the ruling."
"Defenders of the status quo will try to slow our efforts to get America running on clean energy. A better solution would be to join the vast majority of the American people who want to see more green jobs, more clean energy innovation and an end to the oil addiction that pollutes our planet and jeopardizes our national security," Jackson said.
The nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists says the EPA made the right decision based on science.
"The EPA's decision to reject these claims is backed by decades of research and on-the-ground observations, including from more than 7,000 weather stations that take air temperatures around the world," said UCS President Kevin Knobloch. "Pronounced warming has occurred over the last 30 years, and the last decade has been the hottest in 130 years of recordkeeping."
"Anyone who sweltered through the recent heat waves can attest to the fact that extreme temperatures are a threat to human health," Knobloch said. "If we don't swiftly and deeply reduce our emissions, heat waves are likely to occur more often and be more severe, eventually making these temperatures commonplace in summer."
"Heat waves already have led to an increase in heat-related deaths and sicknesses, especially among the poor, children and the elderly, and this trend is likely to get worse," he warned.
The petitioners say that emails disclosed from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit provide evidence of a conspiracy to manipulate global temperature data.
The EPA responds that its review of every one of these emails found "this was simply a candid discussion of scientists working through issues that arise in compiling and presenting large complex data sets." Four other independent reviews came to similar conclusions.
The petitioners say that errors in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, issued in 2007, call the entire body of work into question.
The EPA reponds that of the alleged errors, EPA confirmed only two in a 3,000 page report. The first pertains to the rate of Himalayan glacier melt and second to the percentage of the Netherlands below sea level. IPCC issued correction statements for both of these errors.
The errors have no bearing on Administrator Jackson's endangerment decision. None of the errors undermines the basic facts that the climate is changing in ways that threaten our health and welfare.
The petitioners say that because certain studies were not included in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, the IPCC itself is biased and cannot be trusted as a source of reliable information.
The EPA responds that these claims are "incorrect." In fact, the agency says, "the studies in question were included in the IPCC report, which provided a comprehensive and balanced discussion of climate science."
Finally, the petitioners say that new scientific studies refute evidence supporting the Endangerment Finding.
But the EPA responds that the petitioners "misinterpreted" the results of these studies. Contrary to their claims, many of the papers they submit as evidence are consistent with EPA's endangerment finding.
"Other studies submitted by the petitioners were based on unsound methodologies," the agency says. Detailed discussion of these issues are found in Volume One of the response to petition documents, on EPA's website at: http://epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/petitions.html.
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37 Comments so far
Show Allthese 'deniers' must live on some other planet...............
You have to wonder about their reasoning abilities.
AGW can't be happening because it's bad for business. I think those greed-mongers are a different species.
No matter, the real truth is you cannot mandate this, you cannot force people to comply with something that is rejected by the majority at the moment.
If the EPA tries to do by edict what Congress couldn't do, you can forget making any progress. People will send folks to Washington that will stop it for decades and decades.
Mightymite....progress is not fracking for Natural Gas and destroying our land and water..I can't see were you would believe such a backward thing. The only people that argue with the EPA are people that want to do something that could be dangerous to the enviroment. Why would you even want to gamble with our enviroment. We only have the one Earth, we can't make the wrong mistake and try it again on our other planet because we don't have one. Why would the EPA try to hurt us. We already know the oil and gas companies do hurt us. It is a fact, these things are dirty and full of toxins. I can not imagine why anyone would feel comfortable risking the only home we have. What if they are right ? If they are wrong, then we will see, but that sure is taking a big chance. Either way it is a FACT that FRACKING is very bad for the enviroment. OIL and GAS are the OLD way of doing things, just like beheading people in the town square....we must move forward not backward.
You are not understanding what I'm saying.
What we should do, what is right or wrong, if its bad or not is irrelevant. I look at things that are possible, the political reality. And the political reality is that Congress won't do anything about this because the vast majority of Americans are opposed to it.
So what I'm saying is that trying to do something by edict that should only be done in Congress will not stand and will simply result in a short lifespan and decades of "in the ditch" You cannot make Americans do what they don't want to.
Its like Health Care, No one wanted it and they forced it thru and killed themselves politically. And most of it will be reversed or collapse under its own weight. Think of the polling on Arizona's law and illegal immigration, before the ruling opposition was in the very low 70% supporting, the latest after the "victory" is appox. 78% supporting the law countrywide. You CANNOT impose things like these, people will reject them and not think kindly of it next time around.
My point is simply...force it down peoples throats, but don't be surprised when reject it and change it back and reject any further conversation period.
Dictating is not leading, passing some bill is not success, going behind peoples backs always pisses them off...big surprise.
It will all be moot soon.
When the sun starts up higher activity again, in another year, this already hottest year and hottest decade will be cool by comparison to the next decade. There won't be enough power to cool the cities in summer. Crops will fail. The ocean's fisheries that are already depleted will collapse.
Fun times ahead.
It will be quite a time before any catastrophe happens. Far longer than the predictions.
If not, its a waste of time even talking about it. Nothing could be accomplished in 20 or 30 years unless everyone was on board.
I frankly don't know where you are seeing this. The reason Cap and Trade is a dead duck is exactly because people don't want it.
The polls say people do not want Congress passing any environmental legislation, particularly GW right now.
I'd also say Obama's ban will drive it further off the agenda.
People are really pissed off at this bunch of clowns and now it looks as if they trust them even less than they did GWB's bunch. Congress is about 11% I think.
Unfortunatly, Mighty Might-be right:
Gallup:
"The average American is now less convinced than at any time since 1997 that global warming's effects have already begun or will begin shortly."
http://www.gallup.com/poll/126560/americans-global-warming-concerns-continue-drop.aspx
But this was taken in March and ppl are fickle.
Before I've heard "but water is a much more prevalent green-house gas than carbon dioxide!" . . . . blub blub. So I say: "if we increase temperatures 0.0001% on a planetary scale. . .will that result in more evaporation? And will that in turn result in more heating, etc,etc;etc". Reply: 'dazed look of deer in head lights'
This quick snippet drives that point home:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge0jhYDcazY&feature=related
The reason mightymite is right, is because people are not given the whole story on subjects, and are mislead by a corrupt congress that looks out for it's own agenda. They tell people what they want them to hear. It is easy to get people to believe anything, and once a particular way of thinking is established, then the mob mentallity starts working. It is unfortunate that this is the way America is working these days. The Religious gang isn't helping any. Take that Natural Gas fracking situation, If the people that rented their land to the gas company were told in advane, that their water, and land would be poisened for many decades, and that they could light their water on fire with the gas, and that their animals would die, and many of their family members would get cancer etc. do you thimk for one minute these people would rent their land for any amount of money...no of course not. That is what goes on everyday with the American people. If we were all shown the real truth about the wars we are in right now, and how this is affecting the people of these countries, and how it has nothing to do with our safety, and is only about oil, and power would we continue to pay little or no attention to these wars. Mightymite is right, but I wish he wasn't....
I wish I wasn't too, but I think I am.
And this is the way it works everywhere. And people are indeed fickle, with little patience. Just human nature.
(the majority of Americans want us out of both occupations)
OH Bones 288, who cares what Gallup says! The AVERAGE American doesn't change things until they see a direction and a leader.
Average? Was Mother Jones average, or Thomas Jefferson, or Ralph Nader, or Buckminster Fuller, Eugene Debs, or Martin Luther King, or Rosa parks, or Ceasar Chavez, Tesla, the Grimke sisters, Harriet Tubman?????
NO! Maybe people around them thought they were... at least at one time, but please STOP being so cynical! isn't that what the Corporations and lobbyists want to you think? THINK! When people do think they really can be incredible, and EVERYBODY is incredible from time to time!
Isn't NOW the time?
just because people see through one of the scams offered to "fix" climate change, doesn't mean they don't want action on it and a host of other environmental problems.
MM. First, to assert that Americans will do this or that, or believe one thing or another is lazy, misguided, and as narrow an ideology as any crackpot teapartiest might voice. See Elizabeth Pelosi's "Two Americas"
And, by the way, a large majority of Americans desperately want Universal Health Care.
Second, you can certaily get people to act in ways contrary to their own welfare.
By controling the message, spinning the facts, and just plain lieing. See: The Battleship Maine, The Gulf of Tonkin, WMDs in Iraq, etc, etc.
There are a variety of people who have in common a physical location we call America. In many cases that is the only thing they have in common.
Lock and load and have a nice day.
You're right, mightymite. Our Congress is corrupt because they go to Washington for only ONE REASON - for the perks of our "lobbying system" (legalized bribery) which can make them millionaires faster than any other means in our country! And they'll SAY or DO ANYTHING to get it!!!
I hate to admit it but it gives me some sick pleasure to see Conservatives being forced to deal with the absolute intransigence of reality on its inexorable march toward the grim and implacable consequences of anthropogenic global warming that now doom the planet’s biosphere. They always seem to think that everything is just politics and spin and liberal conspiracies. They deny the existence of anthropogenic climate change because it means that the natural world is imposing its own limitations and sanctions on global industrial capitalism, sanctions that cannot be spun, nor frightened into submission by willful ignorance, inane lies, or contrarian propaganda. And worst of all, nature, as some have recently pointed out, is a liberal in this matter—and ay, there’s the rub!
“Listen, and understand! Reality is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until we are dead.”
….paraphrased (but only slightly so) from Kyle Reese in The Terminator
Very nice post!
This is so right:
"They deny the existence of anthropogenic climate change because it means that the natural world is imposing its own limitations and sanctions on global industrial capitalism, sanctions that cannot be spun, nor frightened into submission by willful ignorance, inane lies, or contrarian propaganda."
Generally, the real, obstinate, resistant world of matter, which couldn't care less about ideology, is going to kick human ideology and phantasies very hard over the next decades -- especially neo-liberal ideology, its cult of the economy and industrialism, its disregard for nature and humanity, its militaristic sentimentalism, its misplaced and abstract patriotism, and its cheap religiosity.
Nemesis is going to be knocking on our doors, and nature is going to bite back very hard.
Time to get into shape: run, swim, exercise, stay away from junk food, get manuals of survival, get ready, for the storm is building, and when the tipping is reached, nothing will stop the flood.
I am thrilled this has happened, and I hope Virgina keeps fighting. This means my State will not let those gas fracking freeks come in and destroy our water and land !!
We have all been worried because the Natural Gas freeks, Dick Cheaneys gang, has been trying to get into our State and poisen it. So for now we are good. Why should any State allow that to happen to it's land and people. I feel sorry for Colorado because they are already ruined. I think it is very unfair that they did not warn their people about what was getting ready to happen. The people that rent their land out for some quick cash learn right away what a mistake they had made, but since these deals were made privately the rest of the people in the State had no control over what others were doing. Thanks to the documentary Gasland now people are informed. It is ashame that the stupid mainstream media doesn't report real news to us. We have to see a documantary on cable T.V. in order to get informed.
I sure hope we start to go GREEN everywhere, our Planet may thank us, if it is not to late already.People are just scared we don't like new things. think about the guys that used to make buggys...they made buggys for thousands of years, and then cars came along and the buggy man was out of business. Should we all have stopped progress for the buggy man ? No we kept moving forward and the buggy man had to find a new way to make a living. These fcking Oil and Gas companies need to find other ways to make a living. We the public do not nee to worry about them. We need to move forward onto the future and leave the old ways behind.
"...they made buggys for thousands of years, and then cars came along and the buggy man was out of business. Should we all have stopped progress for the buggy man ?"
Maybe we should have. What you deem "progress" is an illusion born of desperation.
The move from hunter/gatherer to agriculture was not "progress", it was a desperate, albeit succesful, attempt to ward off starvation for a growing population that could no longer survive on gathering and hunting a few hours each day. The cost was "enslavement" to a social order and forced labor in the fields for 12 hrs a day, 7 days a week.
Was that truly "progress" for the "Fetile Crescent", which was a paradise 6000 yrs ago, today it is a desert - thanks to "progress".
The 19th century move from wood to coal to oil was not progress, but acts of desperation as burgeoning populations, again, outstripped the ability of the living planet to provide adequate material gains.
The clock, the electric light, the car, did not progress the human race, it enslaved it further to an industrial machine that benefitted the few at the expense of the many, out of desperation. For in your example, the world could no longer afford the limitation of moving people at 15 mph.
Imagine, in the "dark ages" it took a craftsman maybe a 1/2 hr to walk from his home to his place of work inside the manor. How long do you now sit in your car getting from your home to the corporate manor? YAY! Progress!
None of this has been "progress" any more than is a starving cat eating her young.
Look lets face some reallity, we are intelligent creatures. For some reason we developed much differently than all other creatures on this planet ever have. Now Progress is what we do, all the horrors mankind has inflicted on itself, and the world around him has been truley terrible, no doubt. But we are, and because we are, the human condition is...The goal hopefully, is that as we progress, we do things better, and smarter and kinder. We are not perfect, and we are full of different views, therefor it takes time for everyone to catch up, to one good thought. For some of these advancements we have had to wait thousands of years, others we have figured out quite quickly. Most medical discoveries took place because of war...The point about the buggy, is that when we did make cars we changed our lives forever, and the safety of traveling in cars compared to cold wooden buggys was tremendoeus, travel time etc. However once we found out the dangers, and all the evils of oil, and gas as early as the 40's we should have progressed in the right direction, and started turning green at least by the 60's or 70's, but progress was hamperd, by greedy corrupt oilmen, and politicians. Don't blame progress on the bad people that corrupted all things in history from going smoothly to the next level... That honor goes to whomever the bad guys were throughout history.
We are supposed to progress, or we would not have the ability. Wether we do it responsibly or not, is up to us.
I face reality, you live your delusion: the belief in human exceptionalism.
All species "progress", it's called evolution. Sometimes that progression leads to their extinction. Humans are no different. Your "progress" is only an attempt to keep increasing our numbers. You can't maximize both population and quality of life.
If you can't accept that, take a differential calculus class. If you have and don't understand that, I'd suggest attempting to get a refund from your instructor.
Okay, thinking like you do, there is no hope, no reason to even try.If progress is not capable of creating a better life for all, then whats the point. Should we all just Jim Jones our asses ? I look back fom where we have come, and I see so much good progress, yes I see the bad too, but if we the good left it all up to the bad, then your dismal future will sustain life, but full of misery and no hope. I would prefer as long as I'm alive to at least try to be good, and try and make the world around me good. Each day trying to make things just a bit better.
sorry to let you know that natural gas wells already dot the southwest tail of your fine state, as do lots of huge strip mines.
American Business!
Profits Before Lives! Always!
Greed Before Reason! Always!
Lies Before Truth! Always!
Rah Rah Rah!
Environment News Service sez: "Finally, the petitioners say that new scientific studies refute evidence supporting the Endangerment Finding.
But the EPA responds that the petitioners "misinterpreted" the results of these studies."
***
Yuh.
Using the same methodology employed by Cheneybush in "misinterpreting" intelligence on Iraq.
Some good news for a change!
Its not "Global Warming" nor is it "Climate Change".
"Catastrophic Climate Instability" is a much more accurate and meaningful name.
head over to Cryosphere Today to see how bad of shape the polar ice Cap is in. A massive rift is developing between Banks Island in the Beafort sea and Siberia.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
2 to 1 odds 2010's september ice cap is smaller than 2007.
You mean there's actually one department in this debased administration that is actually making the right decisions? Or should we wait for Obama to apologize to the coal companies and announce that the EPA has made a mistake?
You are right, mightymite !
Climate Change or better, "Catastrophic Climate Instability" is not the problem.
It is the petitioners and their sources who are. It is not enough to counter their arguments. It is not enough to close them down. They must be openly investigated, audited and exposed. Names must be named of both the proponents of the silliness that is extensively evident and the financiers of these proponents, since it is they who are the cause of continuing and increasing Catastrophic Climate Instability.
This will kill many really nasty birds with one stone for they are at the core of the USA's present insanity in Iraq and Afghanistan; the cause of the collapse of the USA. They presently control The USA and would prefer a war and the destruction of the people of the USA to exposure and personal loss. They are preparing accordingly by brewing war and conflict in many parts of the world.
The EPA report is in fact 'anti American', 'not with us but against us', and that is the side most of the world is on. Many governments elsewhere will fall as the exposure of these trolls proceeds.
The report lifts a corner of the cover of Prime Evil.
Rip it off!
YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! Thank you, LISA JACKSON! Thank you EPA!
George Washington would agree with you:
"The administration of JUSTICE is the firmest pillar of government."
Justice and Science have been served!
Finally, we have a government agency who seeks, finds and reports the truth.
Take that, MMS, or whoever you are now. There is one planet, and one opportunity to save it, and EPA, thank you. Real science, real government workers, real opportunity to serve the Earth, the nation and the People.
We have seen the future of BP and the Chamber of Corporpratists, Peabody Coal et al; it kills, maims, and destroys!
How very odd that the creatures of the fossil age are turning up, now all over the planet! The baby mammoth et al, of fossil birth age are returning to the scene and reminding us that the Religion of Fossil Fuels shall perish, when we substitute brains for greed!
So, you old Fossils of Profits, ( it is YOU who endanger public health and welfare) and who seek to destroy our nation and the world's environment, The gauntlet of TRUTH has been thrown down, and WE the THNIKING People are ready to take you on, you denying old FOSSILS! ! It's time YOU were reversed too! Thank you, EPA!
"YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!...LISA JACKSON"
But when she wakes up the next morning and realizes she spurned the Chamber of Commerce for the public good...
Will Obama still respect her in the morning?
MIchael F. That was funny! I'm not sure about him, but Michelle will say, "One must cultivate her own garden."
He'll be glad too actually, because his daughters are the "AIR apparent" along with the rest of their generation! Who would want to deny the " ....spacious skies and amber waves of grain, and purple mountains majesty..." to their own kids?
As to the U.S. Chamber of Horrors, well they can spend all the NON-transparent money they want ( it will create some jobs) but' WE will know that the biggest ads are for the biggest sell outs, and BREATHE a sigh of relief, that in their NON- transparency, WE can see right through them!
But, but ... they've cut emissions in half; just look, look at the picture!
1st point: FINALLY! Movement by Empire monkeys who bring us war to obtain non-renewable oil so we can burn it to pollutoxicate the planet while enriching Empire monkeys.
2nd point: Last year I made a rash prediction out of frustration with the lack of response to GW/CC by the Powers---That within 2 yrs CC would first show its teeth over Antarctica, and a couple years later over the N Hemisphere.
Check out the satellite pix over Ant'a today to see the shape of things to come:
http://aviationweather.gov/data/obs/sat/intl/ir_ICAO-J_bw.jpg
This is the pic from 3AM Monday. Gotta catch it while it's there.