Obama’s New Clean Power Plan Might Be Just Enough

[LiberalAndProud]

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/08/02/3686977/moral-urgency-epa-clean-power-plan/

How Obama’s New Clean Power Plan Might Be Just Enough To Stave Off A Climate Catastrophe

by Joe Romm Aug 3, 2015 8:00am

The next few years are unprecedented in human history. We know with unusually high scientific certainty that the near-term choices we as a nation and a species make about carbon pollution will determine whether or not we will destroy our livable climate in the coming decades — thereby ruining the lives of billions of people irreversibly for centuries to come.

...

The stakes behind the CPP are simply too high, as the leading opponents of action have made all too clear. For instance, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has not merely urged states to ignore the law’s requirement for them to put forward a state implementation plan to meet the EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan standards. In one of the most shocking statements ever issued by any U.S. political leader, McConnell actually admitted publicly that his goal is to stop a global deal to avert catastrophic climate change.

...

The 2025 target that Obama has pledged — and which the CPP enables — was sufficient to get China to make its three game=changing commitments last year: 1) to peak CO2 emissions in 2030, 2) to peak in coal use in 2020, and 3) to double its carbon-free power capacity between 2015 to 2030, essentially building an entire new U.S. electrical, but one with no carbon emissions.

That U.S.-China deal broke the long-standing logjam in international climate negotiations between developed and developing nations — and it resulted in a flood of commitments from other countries, which has created the genuine possibility of a breakthrough climate deal in Paris..

Much more at link

[JDPriestly]

1. K&R for Obama.

And for McConnell . . . . I can't write what I wish on the internet. It's too ugly.

What a creature from the Black Lagoon he is. I think of the words lachrymose, pathetic and pitiful when I think of him.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lachrymose

How do the people of Kentucky manage to re-elect such a person?

He and Dianne Feinstein????? What is with the voters?

They symbolize for me why we need campaign finance reform and the end of Citizens United. Two individuals, one Democratic, one Republican, who really are not qualified to be in the Senate if you think about their understanding of the world and of life but who manage to get themselves so entrenched in their respective party's hierarchy that no one can successfully challenge them.

We need to limit not just corporate spending but the overall amount that can be spent by a candidate on a campaign. I don't know how we protect First Amendment rights and do that. Maybe we don't need legal restrictions but rather outrage on the part of voters.

Just changing the name of the president is not enough. There are some senators and representatives who need to be sent home from Congress and told not to come back. And it's us, the voters, who need to do the sending.

[RiverLover]

2. DU Rec this post^^^JD!

You'll appreciate this article I came ax this am via Moyers & Co website~

Is a New Political System Emerging in This Country?

Entire article is well worth reading....here's one snip~

Let me make my case, however minimally, based on five areas in which at least the faint outlines of that new system seem to be emerging: political campaigns and elections; the privatization of Washington through the marriage of the corporation and the state; the de-legitimization of our traditional system of governance; the empowerment of the national security state as an untouchable fourth branch of government; and the demobilization of “we the people.”

Whatever this may add up to, it seems to be based, at least in part, on the increasing concentration of wealth and power in a new plutocratic class and in that ever-expanding national security state. Certainly, something out of the ordinary is underway and yet its birth pangs, while widely reported, are generally categorized as aspects of an exceedingly familiar American system somewhat in disarray.

I'd never heard the purchase of our reps called "privatization of Washington" before, yet that's exactly what it is. And its killing our planet.

I join you in congratulating the president & thanking him for doing ostensibly the best that he can along with the EPA & their legal battles to help our planet.

[lonestarnot]

3. In the meantime, who is passing out the fire suits?