Re:2016 was third consecutive year of record global warmth
by ckinnan on Thursday August 10, 2017 @03:31PM
(#14983252)
Lots of weird half baked recollections today. The U.S. political system moved effectively on acid rain, Congress (not regulators) passed NO2 legislation by a 401-21 vote that was signed by a Republican president. It created a market for pollution that largely solved the issue and is a legislative model for dealing with other pollutants.
Re:2016 was third consecutive year of record global warmth
by unholythree on Thursday August 10, 2017 @04:58PM
(#14984194)
I remember an article not long ago about anti-trust regulation being a victim of it's own success. I think the same is true of many environmental regulations, people vaugely recall an outcry over some environmental concerned and imagine it must have just been overblown since acid rain isn't falling all the time or no canals in their town are currently burning.
I remember too how it was poo-poo'd by the political establishment of the time and lots of claims that its just the way it is and we're not going to be able to fix it, it would hurt jobs, it would hurt the economy.
But regulations were passed, and hard work was done, and we don't really hear much about acid rain (as much!) anymore.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/acid-rains-dirty-legacy...
Science and its-already-gone-too-far not-withstanding, I hope the US in particular will return to sanity and realize that we can make a difference in what is going on, and that doing so raises the quality of life not just for the US but for the entire world.
(I've also wondered: with the dismantling of environmental regulations and associated funding of the current administration, we're seeing individual states pick up the gauntlet and fund their own initiatives. Is this some sort of subtle "see, you don't need the feds to intervene when states have the power and ability" ploy? Then they can gut federal regulations and claim their smaller federal government mandate works? The fallacy being that climate doesn't follow state boundaries.)