I would like to share five items about climate change.
Item 1
“The website you are trying to access is not available at this
time due to a lapse in appropriation,” states several websites
about climate and climate change managed by the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration.
I hit that dead-end trying to find out how the year 2018 stacked
up for global warming. It would also be nice to report data on
national, regional and state trends collected by NOAA and NASA,
which usually announce their findings about this time of year. It
appears that this year we’ll need to wait. As an alternative, I
turned to the Climate Change Service of the European Union.
Here are some of the findings announced yesterday by CCS in a
press release:
The last four years have been the warmest four on record, with
2018 being the fourth warmest, not far short of the temperature of
the third warmest year 2015.
2018 was more than 0.4°C (0.72°F) warmer than the 1981-2010
average.
The average temperature of the last 5 years was 1.1°C (1.98°F)
higher than the pre-industrial average (as defined by the
IPCC).
Europe saw annual temperatures less than 0.1°C (0.18°F) below
those of the two warmest years on record, 2014 and 2015.
In October, I was grabbed by a headline on a column by Margaret
Sullivan, who writes about media issues for the Washington Post:
“The planet is on a fast path to destruction. The media must cover
this like it’s the only story that matters.” See
Water Ways, Oct. 23.
Margaret Sullivan
Photo: Michael Benabib
As I wrote in my blog post, “Climate change is not a subject
that generates happy news. It is not a subject that most
politicians wish to address in any form, but it is one subject that
separates those who care about the future of the planet from those
who care only about short-term economic benefits or political
gains.”
Nearly every time I write about climate change, someone reaches
out to me to ask that I keep telling the climate story in my blog.
I do a lot of reading about water-related issues, of course, and I
am constantly learning about climate change — from detailed studies
by scientists to government plans to address a future with greater
floods, larger forest fires and extensive loss of marine life.
I have decided this year to share some of the more fascinating,
ground-breaking or inspiring reports that I come across during my
reading. I may provide just a link to an article or scientific
report with a brief commentary, as opposed to a full-blown
discussion. I’m going to label these brief references “Climate
Sense” — as in the headline on this blog post. I hope we can all
become better informed about this issue so vital to the future of
humanity. (As always, one can subscribe to this blog in the column
to the right.)
Ed Hawkins, a professor of climate science who brought us
climate
spirals (see
Water Ways, May 28, 2016) has inspired a line of products with
his “warming
stripes” that connect global temperature to a straight-line
visual pattern.
Neckties, pendants, coffee mugs and more are based on Hawkins’
striped design that helps people visualize how the Earth has warmed
since the late 1800s. Each stripe represents a range of
temperatures, from shades of blue in cooler years to shades of red
in warmer years.
The tie on the model (shown here on Zazzle) presents the average
temperatures for the entire globe, while the second image is
Hawkins’ graphic for the contiguous United States. Hawkins, a
professor at the University of Reading in England, is always
looking for new ways to convey climate change to average
people.
On the first day of summer in June, many television
meteorologists across the country wore neckties bearing the warming
stripes, according to a story by Jason Samenow in the Washington
Post’s blog
Capital Weather Gang.
News reports about climate change often focus on how the average
global temperature is rising, but perhaps more attention should be
paid to some alarming trends in extreme temperatures — the
conditions that are more likely to kill people and push species
toward extinction.
From 1986 to 2015,
hottest-day-of-the-year readings climbed by 0.25 degrees Celsius
per decade, the UCI study found. Some megacities saw a rise of 0.60
degrees Celsius per decade.
Map: Simon Michael Papalexiou, UCI
A new study published last week revealed that temperatures
across the Earth’s surface went up an average of 0.19 degrees C
(.34° F) each decade over the past 30 years, whereas the highest
temperature recorded each year has gone up even more — an average
of 0.25 degrees C (0.45° F) per decade.
The study, led by Simon Papalexiou of the University of
California at Irvine, calls out even greater changes in the extreme
temperatures in specific locations. Average change per decade of
0.33 degrees C (0.59° F) were measured in some parts of Europe,
Asia, Australia and Africa.
Download PowerPoint map (PPT 1.4 mb) from the report in the
journal Earth’s
Future.
Meanwhile, hottest temperatures recorded throughout the world
grew even faster in some of the largest cities, according to the
study. Of the cities for which reliable data are available, the
increased temperature in the “megacities” rose an average of 0.33
degrees C (.59° F) per decade, and numerous cities exceeded 0.6
degrees C (1.08° F).
Over a 50-year time period, Paris had the fastest change, with
the hottest temperature of the year growing by 0.96 degrees C
(1.73° F) per decade. Over the past 30 years, Houston’s hottest
temperatures grew even faster, rising 0.99 degrees C (1.8° F) per
decade.
The urban heat island effect, which is caused by solar heat
absorption in concrete, steel and glass structures, is “likely to
have contributed to the observed alarming changes,” the report
says, adding that a better understanding of the causes could help
reduce the risks for people living in cities.
“More than just temperature readings on a map, these events have
taken a severe human toll,” states a
UCI news release on the paper. “A heat wave in Europe in 2003
caused roughly 70,000 deaths, and another in Russia in 2010 killed
nearly 55,000 people. In the United States, an average of 658
deaths due to excessive heat were reported per year between 1999
and 2009.”
Amir AghaKouchak, a co-author of the study, said government
officials will need to pay more attention in the megacities, where
the risks are greatest.
“In France after that massive heatwave (in 2003), now all
nursing homes or places where there are a lot of vulnerable people
have to have at least a common room with air conditioning,” said
AghaKouchak, quoted in a
Reuters story by reporter Laurie Goering.
“That can be done and it’s already happening in some places,” he
said. “But some countries don’t have the resources to do that.”
Architectural styles and green areas with trees and plants may
help reduce the everyday risks to those who don’t have the
resources to protect themselves.
The greatest problems surrounding climate change won’t be seen
in the averages but in the new extremes — the temperatures, sea
levels and rainy downpours never before experienced at a given
location.
The website WX shift
(pronounced “weather shift”) was designed to tell people about
changing climate trends, including “The
10 hottest years.” For example, of the 10 hottest years on
record, only two occurred before 1998 (1934 and 1990). The five
hottest years on record have all occurred in the past 11 years.
WX shift also contains predictions for the number of days a
given location will reach a high temperature. See “Future
days above 95° F. This interactive graphic is said to be based
on historical records and climate change models, as explained at
the bottom of the page.
Another graphic on
Climate Central’s website helps explain how a small change in
average temperature can lead to an increasing number of
record-breaking temperatures and more extreme conditions.
A new report from the American Meteorological Society makes a
rather stunning statement about climate change. For the first time,
researchers have concluded that specific weather-related events
could not have happened without the influence of climate change
caused by human activity.
Three events studied in 2016 were so extreme that they did not
fit into the context of natural climate conditions, according to
researchers working on separate projects. One involved the global
heat record for 2016; another was focused on warmth across Asia;
and the third was the “blob” of warm ocean water familiar to folks
who follow weather in the Pacific Northwest.
A “blob” of warm water off the
Northwest coast from 2013 to the end of 2016 could not have
occurred without human-induced climate change, experts say.
Map: NOAA’s Earth System Research
Laboratory
“This report marks a fundamental change,” said Jeff Rosenfeld,
editor-in-chief of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological
Society, in a
news release. “For years scientists have known humans are
changing the risk of some extremes. But finding multiple extreme
events that weren’t even possible without human influence makes
clear that we’re experiencing new weather, because we’ve made a new
climate.”
Personally, I did not expect to see this sort of demonstrable
statement about man-made climate change anytime soon. In classes
and seminars on the subject of climate change, I’ve often seen
lecturers present frequency curves that show the number of times
that certain weather-related phenomena — such as temperatures or
rainfall — are observed over a given time.
We’re told by climatologists that many of these curves are
steadily shifting, so that fairly extreme conditions occur more
often and truly extreme conditions emerge for the very first time
in certain locations.
Researchers are loathe to say that a given storm, drought or
hurricane is the result of climate change. They would rather say
climate change affects the likelihood of extreme weather events,
plotted at the end of the frequency curve. In the realm of
statistics, there is a tendency to hold onto the idea that almost
any kind of weather could occur almost anytime, provided that a
perfect storm of conditions line up together.
“First, it is important to note that climate scientists have
been predicting that … the influence of human-caused climate change
would at some point become sufficiently strong and emergent to push
an extreme event beyond the bounds of natural variability alone,”
state the six editors in an introduction to the report.
“It was also anticipated that we would likely first see this
result for heat events where the human-caused influences are most
strongly observed,” they continue. “It is striking how quickly we
are now starting to see such results, though their dependence on
model-based estimates of natural variability … will require ongoing
validation …”
In other words, the conclusion comes from computer models that
can analyze the probability of an extreme event taking place when
greenhouse gases are found at different concentrations. Results
using today’s observed conditions are compared with results using
conditions before the industrial release of greenhouse gases.
In the three highlighted papers, the researchers calculated the
“fraction of attributable risk,” or FAR, for the extreme event they
were studying. FAR is a statistical approach used in epidemiology
to measure the likelihood of an event under various conditions. For
explanations, see
Boston University School of Public Health and the
2007 IPCC report.
“All three papers concluded that the FAR was 1, meaning that the
event was not possible in the ‘control’ planet and only possible in
a world with human-emitted greenhouse gases,” the editors say.
Although this is the first time that researchers have concluded
that extreme events could not have happened without human-induced
climate change, the editors are quick to point out that the same
phenomenon may have occurred unnoticed in the past on a smaller
geographic scale.
These findings do not mean that the climate has reached any kind
of tipping point. It simply adds to the evidence that mounting
weather extremes are not the result of natural processes.
Reporters Brad Plumer and Nadja Popovich of the
New York Times do a nice job of delving into the concept of
attribution science while mentioning five of the extreme events
covered in the new report. They quoted Heidi Cullen, chief
scientist at Climate Central, which produces news stories about
climate issues.
“In 2011, people were still of the mind-set that you couldn’t
attribute any individual event to climate change,” Cullen said.
“But with each subsequent issue (of the BAMS report), people are
able to say that climate change really is increasing the risk” that
extremes will occur.
If the U.S. government fails to take action on climate change, a
majority of Americans would like their states to pick up the ball
and run with it.
Some 66 percent of those participating in a national survey
agreed with the statement: “If the federal government fails to
address the issue of global warming, it is my state’s
responsibility to address the problem.”
Question: “Please
identify your level of agreement with the following statement … If
the federal government fails to address the issue of global
warming, it is my state’s responsibility to address the problem.”
(Click to enlarge)
Graphic: University of Michigan/Muhlenberg
College
Residents of Washington state appear to feel even stronger about
the need for state action, according to a survey by The Nature
Conservancy, which is preparing for a statewide initiative to be
placed on the 2018 general election ballot.
The
national survey, by two University of Michigan researchers,
demonstrates growing support among Americans for action on climate
change, despite very little action by Congress. The last time the
question was asked, in 2013, 48 percent of respondents wanted their
states to take action. The latest results show an 18-percent
increase in the number of people who support state action.
This and several other polls reveal growing concerns among
Americans about the negative effects of climate change on human
civilization as well as the environment.
Interestingly, the national survey was taken between April 17
and May 16 — before President Trump announced that he would
withdraw U.S. support for the Paris climate agreement, which
includes clear targets for greenhouse gas reductions. Respondents
may have been aware of Trump’s executive order in March to
dismantle former President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which aims to
reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
Americans are still somewhat divided along party lines, with
Democrats more supportive of state action than Republicans. But the
latest national survey reveals that more Republicans may support
state action than not, at least within the survey’s margin of
error. The survey shows that 51 percent of Republicans believe that
states should step up to climate change, compared to 34 percent
four years ago.
Support among Democrats for state action went from 57 percent in
2013 to 77 percent this year.
Another survey taken after Trump was elected showed that nearly
two-thirds (62 percent) of the people who voted for him support
taxing or regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and nearly half (47
percent) agreed that the U.S. should support the Paris climate
agreement. See
“Trump Voters and Global Warming.”
I will return to the national perspective in a moment, but first
some almost-breaking news from Washington state, where The Nature
Conservancy on Monday filed three petitions for possible ballot
measures with the Secretary of State’s Office.
All three petitions deal with possible state actions on climate
change, but none of them are intended to be used for signature
gathering, according to Mo McBroom, government relations director
for TNC. The idea, Mo told me, is to see how the Attorney General’s
Office writes the ballot titles for the three measures, which is
what a voter would read on the ballot.
Polling of Washington state voters after the defeat of a
carbon-tax measure in last fall’s election showed that most voters
knew little about the content of Initiative 732 when they cast
their ballots. Also contributing to the confusion was the ballot
title itself, which mentioned taxes but failed to explain that
increased taxes on fossil fuels would be offset by reduced sales
and business taxes plus a tax rebate for low-income residents.
I should point out that a fair number of environmental groups
voiced opposition to the measure, in part because it failed to
provide money for clean-energy initiatives. And some worried that
the measure would add to state budget problems. More than anything,
the mixed messages probably killed the measure.
Now, all the environmental groups as well as business and
government supporters are hoping to come together around a single
initiative with a high likelihood of success, Mo told me. The
specifics of the real initiative are still under review, she said,
and one should glean nothing from the
three different proposals submitted this week. Once the details
are worked out, a final petition will be submitted next
January.
“The most important thing is that we are looking to build the
broadest base of support for solutions to climate change.,” Mo told
me. “Whether it is a carbon tax or fee or a regulatory structure,
it is about how we, as a society, make the investments that the
public wants.” For further discussion, read Mo’s blog entry posted
yesterday in Washington Nature
Field Notes.
Personally, I will be watching for the transportation aspects of
the coming initiative, since more than half of the greenhouse gas
emissions in Washington state involve the transportation sector —
and Mo acknowledged that incentives to encourage cleaner fuels will
be essential.
“We want to create an approach that is technology neutral,” she
said. “we’re not picking winners and losers. We are creating
innovate solutions.”
The Legislature has been struggling for months with Gov. Jay
Inslee’s
carbon tax proposal (PDF 801 kb). If something good comes out
of that process, Mo said, the initiative may not be needed.
Reporter Phuong Le reported on this issue for the
Associated Press.
According to
polling last fall (PDF 596 kb), 81 percent of Washington voters
believe climate change is happening; 62 percent believe it is
caused by human activities; and 69 percent support state action to
reduce carbon pollution. Support may be even higher today. The
survey was conducted by FM3 Research and Moore Information for The
Nature Conservancy and Vulcan.
The national survey by University of Michigan researchers this
spring showed that 70 percent of Americans across the country
believe that global warming is happening. Barry Rabe, one of the
researchers, told me that public opinion has ebbed and flowed
somewhat on this issue since these surveys were started in 2008.
See the graphic below, or check out the details on the
Brookings blog.
Question: From what
you’ve read and heard, is there solid evidence that the average
temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past four
decades?
Graphic: University of Michigan/Muhlenberg
College
During the early years of former President Obama’s
administration beginning around 2009, “there was a very aggressive
effort by opposition groups that argued that climate change is a
hoax,” Rabe said. “That probably had an impact (on people’s
opinions).”
Now people seem to be returning to a stronger belief in climate
change and tending to support the understanding that humans are
responsible. Democrats and Republicans alike seem to feeling more
urgency to take action.
“This may be a case where political figures are at variance with
their base,” Rabe said, noting that most Republicans in Congress
are showing no inclination to address the issue. But even in some
conservative states, such as Texas and Kansas, state lawmakers are
doing more than ever to address climate change, in part because of
parallel economic interests involving renewable energy.
“Energy politics breaks down very differently depending on the
state you are in,” Rabe said.
From a national perspective, all eyes will be on Washington
state over the next year or two, as people throughout the country
watch to see how people here address climate change, Rabe said. A
lot of folks wondered about the rejection of the climate-change
initiative in what many view as a pro-environment state, he added.
People nationwide did not grasp the nuances of last fall’s vote,
but they are interested in what comes next.
Gov. Jay Inslee joined with the governors of California and New
York in signing onto a new U.S. Climate Alliance to help meet the
goals of the Paris agreement in light of Trump’s efforts to
withdraw from the pact. See Timothy Cama’s piece in
The Hill.
California and New York have already passed
climate-change-emissions legislation, Rave said, so people across
the country are wondering how Washington plans to meet its
commitment.
Mo McBroom of The Nature Conservancy said officials involved in
the climate-change issue in Washington state embrace the leadership
role that this state can play.
Climate change is a serious issue for the government of Ontario,
Canada, yet provincial officials have decided that there is some
room for humor. Today, I’m sharing four videos designed to help
average Canadians understand the profound effects of a warming
world.
“We have so little time,” said Glen Murray, Ontario’s minister
on the Environment and Climate Change, speaking with Anthony
Leiserowitz of
Yale Climate Connections. “You’ve really got to throw
everything at it — your wit, your humor and your sober, serious,
heavy-duty conversations about the reality of what we’re
facing.”
“Climate change affects everything,” comes the overall message
for these four videos. “Climate change affects you and the world
around you. This fight is personal.”
As chunks of the Wahlenbergbreen glacier break off and crash
into the sea next to him, Italian pianist and composer Ludovico
Einaudi plays on, performing a piece he wrote for this moment.
As seen in this video, Einaudi’s piano is situated on a floating
platform surrounded by small pieces of floating ice. He came to
Norway this past June on the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise to make
a statement about the need to protect the Arctic Ocean. The
composition, “Elegy for the Arctic,” fits the time and place.
“The ice is constantly moving and creating,” he told Sara Peach,
a writer for
Yale Climate Connections. “Every hour there is a different
landscape. Walls of ice fall down into the water and they create
big waves.”
Because of global warming, the Arctic is losing its ice,
changing this remote ecosystem. Environmentalists are concerned
about the increasing exploitation of minerals and fish in this
fragile region. Greenpeace is among the groups pushing for
international protections.
Supporting the cause, Einaudi performed with his grand piano on
an artificial iceberg, 33 feet by 8.5 feet, made of 300 triangles
of wood attached together.
“Being here has been a great experience,” he said in a
Greenpeace news release issued at the time. “I could see the
purity and fragility of this area with my own eyes and interpret a
song I wrote to be played upon the best stage in the world. It is
important that we understand the importance of the Arctic, stop the
process of destruction and protect it.”
“If you haven’t heard the music of Ludovico Einaudi, then it’s
probably because you don’t know it’s by Ludovico Einaudi,” writes
Tim Jonze, music editor for
The Guardian. “For years, his muted piano music has been
stealthily soundtracking TV shows and adverts, seeping into our
collective consciousness while the mild-mannered Italian behind it
stayed out of the limelight.”
He has written songs for numerous soundtracks, including the
trailer for “The Black Swan.” He has collaborated with other
artists in theater, video and dance. Besides a long list of albums,
his credits include multiple television commercials in Europe and
the U.S.
In March, Einaudi released a music video, “Fly,” for Earth Hour
(second video on this page). In my annual story about Earth Hour, I
noted that the event may be losing its appeal in the U.S. but is
still going strong in other countries. See
Water Ways, March 16.
In the third video on this page, Einaudi discusses his latest
project, an album titled “Elements.”
After warmer-than-average temperatures for much of the past
year, May suddenly turned cooler across the nation — except for the
Northwest, which remained warmer than normal.
Although it seemed cool recently, at least compared to April,
Western Washington had the greatest deviation with temperatures
between 3 and 5 degrees higher than the 30-year average. See first
map.
It seems ironic to write about cooler temperatures after last
month’s teaser headline at the top of the Kitsap Sun’s front page:
“Earth getting HOT, HOT, HOTTER!”
The big story earlier this month was that worldwide temperatures
had broken all-time heat records for 12 months in a row, and
April’s record-high temperature was a full half-degree higher than
the previous record.
The average temperature hasn’t been below the 20th century
average since December 1984, and the last time the Earth broke a
monthly cold record was nearly a century ago, in December 1916,
according to NOAA records.
“These kinds of records may not be that interesting, but so many
in a row that break the previous records by so much indicates that
we’re entering uncharted climatic territory (for modern human
society),” Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew
Dessler wrote in an email to Seth Borenstein of the
Associated Press.
El Niño, which is now fading, was blamed in part for the
unprecedented heat worldwide. But climatologists say the onward
march of global warming lies in the background. Last year turned
out to be the hottest year on record, easily beating 2014, which
was also a record year.
The first four months of this year were so much hotter than 2015
that 2016 is still likely to set another record. NOOA’s
Climate Prediction Center says La Niña conditions are on the
way, with a 50 percent chance of La Niña by summer and a 75 percent
chance by fall.
Summer temperatures are expected to be above average except in
the Central U.S., while both coasts are expected to be the most
likely to exceed normal temperatures. Check out the second map on
this page.
Speaking of the onward march of climate change, computer
graphics developers keep coming up with new ways to show how global
temperatures are increasing in concert with rising greenhouse gases
in the atmosphere.
Climate Central has combined data sets from NOAA to produce the
orange graph,which shows the advance of a trailing 30-year
temperature average from 1980 through 2015. To put it simply, we
continue to adjust to a new normal.
Others have used animation to depict temperature change. One
graphic (below) received a lot of attention this month. Temperature
change is represented as the distance from a “zero” circle starting
in 1850. Each month, a line moves one-twelfth of the way around the
circle, completing 360 degrees each year. The line gets farther and
farther from the center and really jumps outward in 2015.
Ed Hawkins, professor of meteorology at the University of
Reading near London, created the animation. He credited an
associate, Jan Fuglestvedt, with the idea of a spiral.
Jason Samenow, chief meteorologist for the Washington Post’s
Capital Weather Gang, called it “the most compelling global
warming visualization ever made.” His blog post also includes some
other visual depictions of climate change.
Another animated graph, by Tom Randall and Blacki Migliozzi of
Bloomberg,
show similar data depicted as a moving line graph.
NOAA
Visualizations plotted temperature differences at various
locations on a world map. Over time, it is easy to see how the
Earth has gotten generally warmer, accelerating in recent
years.
One of the most intriguing graphics, in my opinion, is one that
purports to show the various factors that affect global temperature
— from volcanic activity to man-made aerosols to greenhouse gases.
The designers, Eric Roston and Blacki Migliozzi of Bloomberg,
ask viewers to judge which factor they believe leads to global
warming.
Since this is a blog about water issues, I would probably be
remiss if I didn’t point out that the consequences of rising
greenhouse gases is not just an increase in the Earth’s
temperature. We can’t forget that a major portion of the carbon
dioxide is being absorbed into the ocean, causing effects on marine
life that are far from fully understood.
I find it fascinating that children are making a strong legal
argument that governments must take swift action to reduce climate
change.
A series of lawsuits across the country are founded on the idea
that many adults will be gone in 40 or 50 years when climate
extremes become the new norm. It is the young people of today who
will suffer the consequences of ongoing government inaction.
In a case filed by a group of children in King County Superior
Court, Judge Hollis Hill took the Washington Department of Ecology
and Gov. Jay Inslee to task for delaying action on new clean air
regulations to help curb greenhouse gas emissions:
“Petitioners assert, the department does not dispute, and this court finds that current scientific evidence establishes that rapidly increasing global warming causes an unprecedented risk to the Earth, including land, sea, the atmosphere and all living plants and animals…
“In fact, as petitioners assert and this court finds, their very survival depends upon the will of their elders to act now, decisively and unequivocally, to stem the tide of global warming by accelerating the reduction of emission of GHGs (greenhouse gases) before doing so becomes too costly and then too late.
“The scientific evidence is clear that the current rates of reduction mandated by Washington law cannot achieve the GHG reductions necessary to protect our environment and to ensure the survival of an environment in which petitioners can grow to adulthood safely.”
One can download
Hill’s full opinion (PDF 2.6 mb) from Our Children’s Trust
website. Also, reporter Jeannie Yandel of
radio station KUOW interviewed the attorney and some of the
children involved in the case.
Attorney Andrea Rogers (far
right) poses with young plaintiffs outside a King County courtroom.
Their legal victory requires state government to address climate
change by the end of 2016. // Photo: Our Children’s
Trust
It is ironic that Gov. Inslee finds himself under attack for
failure to act against greenhouse gas emissions, given that he is
one of the nation’s leading advocates for action on climate change.
Inslee literally wrote the book on this issue while serving in
Congress: “Apollo’s Fire:
Igniting America’s Clean Energy Economy.”
Unable to get the Legislature to act on his specific program,
the governor is now on a course to impose new regulations to force
a reduction in greenhouse gases. Initially, the new standards would
apply to large industrial sources. The governor says his authority
stems from a 2008
law passed by the Legislature requiring a reduction to 1990
emission levels by 2020. We can expect the rule to be challenged by
business interests.
Originally, the rule was to be completed this summer, but the
proposal was withdrawn in February in light of an overwhelming
number of comments and new ideas that needed to be addressed. The
rule is scheduled to be re-released later this month and adopted by
the end of the year.
Judge Hill’s latest ruling from the bench on April 29
requires Ecology to adopt the rule by the end of the year.
That fits within Ecology’s current schedule, said Camille St. Onge,
spokeswoman for Ecology. Whether the agency might appeal the ruling
to preserve its options won’t be decided until after the judge’s
written findings are issued, she said.
“We agree with Judge Hill,” St. Onge told me in an email.
“Climate change is a global issue, and science is telling us that
what was projected years ago is happening today, and we need to act
now to protect our environment and economy for future generations.
We’re working vigorously on Washington’s first-ever rule to cap and
reduce carbon pollution and help slow climate change.”
Gov. Inslee said in a
news release that he has no dispute with Judge Hill’s findings,
which actually support his approach to combatting climate
change:
“This case is a call to act on climate, and that call is one that has been a priority for me since taking office. Our state is helping lead the way on climate action in our country…
“In a way it is gratifying that the court has also affirmed our authority to act, contrary to the assertion of those who continue to reject action on climate change and ocean acidification. Hundreds of people have participated in the creation of our state's Clean Air Rule and the draft will be out in just a few weeks.”
Meanwhile, Washington state is not the only state where youth
have filed lawsuits to assert their rights to a healthy future.
Cases also are pending in Oregon, Massachusetts, Colorado and North
Carolina, according to Our Children’s Trust, which provides
details
about the state lawsuits on its website.
At the same time, another case is underway in U.S. District
Court in Oregon, where Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin ruled that
the young plaintiffs have standing and legitimate claims to be
adjudicated. He allowed the case to move forward with additional
evidence to be submitted. Read his
April 8 ruling (PDF 3.2 mb) on the website of Our Children’s
Trust.
The video below features reporter Bill Moyers discussing the
legal issues in these cases, which include claims related to the
Public Trust Doctrine, an ancient principle that asserts the
public’s right to use and enjoy certain natural resources that
cannot be ceded to private property owners.
