Energy bills
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Posted on June 12, 2007
Filed Under Global warming/Climate change, Greenhouse gas emissions, Fossil fuel dependency, Earth spirituality
Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:
After my tirade about liquid-to-coal (CTL) fuel, I thought I would pass on more information on what is coming before Congress regarding a new energy policy. How convenient that the New York Times had a pretty good summary article today laying out the various issues. So I’ll just put the link here for you. You’ll get a good flavor of the variety of proposals involved — and the stakes.
I worry a lot about what will come out of this when it is compromise time. CTL is just one of those pressure points. Auto companies are fighting gas mileage standards. Ethanol producers want their subsidies protected or expanded. Whether we come out of this debate with legislation that helps slow the rise in greenhouse gas emissions and does not do more damage to the Earth — what should be the priority — is anybody’s guess. Lobbyists with a whole lot of money are weighing in.
Priorities — while weaning ourselves from oil is important, so is weaning ourselves from all fossil fuels that emit carbon. Will this cause upset in our economy and way of life? You betcha — but nothing like the upheaval that will come if we continue warming the atmosphere. It is time to ease ourselves into a new economy of energy efficiency and to start ratcheting down our consumption.
Other priorities — that we stop destroying the planet in the process of getting energy, whether mountaintopping or strip mining for coal, or raping the earth for oil sands and oil shale, or putting millions of acres of land under agricultural production for ethanol — we have to stop this madness that is built on a popular religiosity or ideology that the Earth is here for us to use and abuse for our convenience — or for economic growth.
I don’t expect such courageous life-changing policy from our Congress, but I do expect it from more and more of us. We must re-create the political culture to create the new way of living on the planet.
Technorati Tags: energy legislation, coal-to-liquid, mountaintopping, mileage standard
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