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In Climate Change Debate, U.S. Eyes Turn to California

 

 

 

June 21, 2007 — By Samantha Young, Associated Press

 

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- It celebrates tree-sitters like Julia Butterfly Hill, who

spent two years on top of a giant redwood to prevent it from being chopped down.

And its laws protect geckos, yellow-billed cuckoos and the Mohave ground

squirrel.

 

While sometimes ridiculed for its granola image and left-leaning tendencies,

California also has set the agenda for clean air, clean water and other health

standards that later become the norm in middle America. It was the first to kick

smokers out of bars, order tailpipe smog checks and put warnings on beer.

 

Today, the state where drivers of hybrid cars cruise solo in the carpool lane

serves as the template for other states on global warming policy. Even the

federal government has been forced to take notice.

 

The U.S. Supreme Court recently endorsed California's strategy to regulate

greenhouse gases from vehicles. That validates the state's claim that the

emissions should be classified as air pollutants over the objections of the Bush

administration.

 

At least a dozen other states are expected to follow suit should the

Environmental Protection Agency give California the right to limit auto

emissions. A final decision is expected later this year.

 

Meanwhile, the state is polishing up a new law that would bar its utilities from

buying electricity from out-of-state coal plants that don't meet certain

emissions standards. Coal produces more carbon dioxide than any other commonly

used U.S. fuel source.

 

" California definitely has been an early leader on a wide variety of

environmental issues, and I think that leadership has been continuing on global

warming, " said Judi Greenwald, a director at the nonprofit Pew Center on Global

Climate Change, a nonpartisan group based in Arlington, Virginia.

 

There's a reason for the state's progressiveness. California, the world's eighth

largest economy, is the world's 12th largest producer of greenhouse gases.

 

Global warming is expected to have a profound effect on the nation's most

populous state, home to one of every eight Americans. Rising temperatures

threaten to diminish its water supply, increase flooding and fuel more intense

wildfires, while parts of its famed coastline will be inundated by rising sea

levels. Agriculture, its No. 1 industry, also could suffer, even putting

California's famed wine country at risk.

 

A wide majority of residents support steps to curb the state's contribution to

climate change. A 2006 survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found

that eight in 10 residents believe global warming will be a very or somewhat

serious threat to the state's future economy and quality of life. Two-thirds

said the state should address the issue.

 

" I think all of us can just live a little better, " said Julie Cozzolino, a

teacher who was loading groceries into her Honda Civic hybrid after shopping at

a natural foods co-op in Sacramento. " My biggest concern is people should get

their heads out of the sand. It's amazing to me that people don't assume any

responsibility. "

 

The state's sheer size, its economic diversity and variable geography present

scientists and policy makers with a unique place to observe the changes wrought

by climate change, and to craft potential solutions.

 

It's an influential role that California has demonstrated in the past, becoming

the nation's de-facto lab for environmental policy.

 

California lawmakers enacted the first rules to reduce smog and required

utilities to use alternative energy. State standards led industry to develop

more efficient refrigerators and air conditioners, as well as the catalytic

converter.

 

Recognizing the state's pioneering status on environmental issues, Congress in

the 1960s gave California the ability to set its own air pollution controls.

Four decades later, it is using that special authority to make its own strides

on global warming.

 

Last fall, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation that imposed

the first statewide cap on greenhouse gases, garnering worldwide attention for a

move that put California at odds with the Bush administration.

 

The law, written by Democrats, requires California to reduce emissions by an

estimated 25 percent by 2020 -- an estimated 174 million metric tons.

 

Absent federal leadership, at least 15 states are exploring their own strategies

for reducing the gases blamed for global warming. They include increasing

renewable energy, selling agricultural carbon credits and encouraging energy

efficiency. It's a movement Schwarzenegger recently described as " hip " and

" sexy. "

 

" What we do in California has unbelievable impact and it has consequences, "

Schwarzenegger told an audience at Georgetown University this spring. " When you

look at the globe, California is a little spot, but the kind of power and

influence that we have on the rest of the world is an equivalent of a whole huge

continent. "

 

While California has moved aggressively to address climate change, it also has

borrowed ideas from others. In the Northeast, for example, seven states began an

effort in 2003 to cap emissions from power plants. Europe has been testing

carbon trading systems since 2005.

 

Nevertheless, other states are pointing to California as the next model on

global warming. In February, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine signed an executive

order patterned after California's greenhouse gas emissions law.

 

In May, Utah became the sixth state to join a Western coalition, initiated by

Schwarzenegger, that will set a regional target for emissions.

 

Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, who represents the state, has said she hopes to

model federal legislation after California's emissions law.

 

Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger and California lawmakers want to do even more. The

governor has asked state air regulators to adopt a low-carbon fuel standard,

while Democrats are pushing for increased use of alternative fuels, issues that

have seeped into the presidential campaigns.

 

The state also is demanding more of its cities and counties. Attorney General

Jerry Brown has sued San Bernardino County in Southern California for failing to

control urban sprawl in its 25-year growth plan, noting that transportation is

the state's major source of greenhouse gases.

 

Carl Pope, executive director of the San Francisco-based Sierra Club, said

California's political leaders have seized on the momentum and don't want to

relinquish it.

 

" Other states are fumbling over each other to catch up with us, " he said, " and

Washington is brain-dead on the issue. "

 

Source: Associated Press

 

 

When I see the price that you pay

I don't wanna grow up

I don't ever want to be that way

I don't wanna grow up

Seems that folks turn into things

that they never want

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