Slashdot Mirror
Congress Votes to Scrap Obama's Clean Power Plan (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes with news that the House voted 242-180 to repeal the EPA's Clean Power Plan, and 235-188 to block EPA rules governing emissions from new power plants. Science reports: "Congress has voted, largely along party lines, to block a centerpiece of President Barack Obama's climate change agenda. The votes are largely symbolic, however, because Obama plans to veto the bills. Still, Congressional Republicans, and a few Democrats, say they want to send a message to global leaders who are meeting this week to negotiate a new climate agreement that the majority of U.S. lawmakers may not agree with any deal."
If they are symbolic bills, then all we'll get here is bullshit discussion about AGW or worse, politics. Must be a slow news day (well, other than the bigger-than-average daily shooting in San Bernardino)
Kind of like the gazillion attempts to eliminate Obamacare. Convince the nutcases that elected them that they are standing strong and resolute in the face of science and the Kenyan terror baby.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
One of the ways the Federal Government encourages development of technologies is by passing regulations like this. They passed regulations on sulfur dioxide emissions to reduce acid rain and all the businesses were screaming about how much it was going to cost them yet a few years later they developed new technologies that allowed them to reduce the emissions at less cost than the original government estimate. Sometime technological development just needs a good kick in the butt like regulations to get moving.
Sometimes I think when we do something about these sorts of problems then the younger people coming up who didn't personally experience the problem tend to dismiss it as a problem. Having grown up in the 1950's and 1960's I'm well aware of how much air and water pollution was around back then and how much cleaner they are now but to someone born after 1980 it's not a real thing.
The same thing happens with the anti-vaxxers. My parents grew up in a world almost without vaccination and they weren't all that common when I was young. I had measles, rubella, chicken pox and whooping cough growing up and I knew people who were disabled by polio. The polio vaccine didn't come out until I was 6 years old and I remember how excited my parents were about it. But many of the anti-vaxxers grew up in a world where almost nobody got those diseases (because they'd been vaccinated) so they don't think it's that important.
I don't know what you can do about that because what you read in the history books doesn't seem that real since you didn't experience it yourself.