Evening Must-Read: John Podesta: Climate Change Progress Is Possible
The proponents of do-nothing on global warming have now fallen back to their third line of defense. The first line of defense was to claim that the science was unsettled. The second line was to claim that it would be too expensive and that future generations would be better able to fix than we are to do our share in helping to prevent and reduce. The third line of defense is that since it is a global problem the United States should sit back and let other countries deal with it and free-ride on their efforts.
And it is definitely progress that John Podesta now feels that he can take aim at line of defense number 3:
…but with obstruction, skepticism, and outright denial. This week, the Senate held a hearing on the EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan rule, which would set the first-ever limits on how much carbon pollution power plants can put in our air and vastly improve public health as a result, averting up to 150,000 asthma attacks in children per year. Republicans criticized the proposal from every angle–including by claiming it doesn’t do enough. Since we in the United States cannot solve the complex, global challenge of climate change solely through actions taken within our own borders, their argument goes, we should do nothing. This is a fallacy. Failing to take steps today to curb carbon pollution and other greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. would endanger our economy, our national security, and our children’s future…