Second of two parts.



The pending federal effort to lessen carbon emissions, especially from coal-fired power plants – called the “cap-and-trade program” – has one single goal: To improve air quality and slow down global warming – if, that is, global warming actually exists.

As environmentalists favor cap-and-trade as an incentive to decrease harmful emissions, while the bill moves from the House of Representatives to the U.S. Senate, opponents say it will cause nothing but an economic disaster, especially for Pennsylvania’s coal industries.

And there are two extreme views on global warming.

From the National Geographic: “Glaciers are melting.

“Sea levels are rising. Cloud forests are dying and wildlife is scrambling to keep pace. It’s becoming clear that humans have caused most of the past century’s warming by releasing heat-trapping gases as we power our modern lives.

“Called greenhouse gases, their levels are higher now than in the last 650,000 years.”

From the Global Warming Petition Project: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”

A more local view, from Pennsylvania’s conservative activist Peg Luksik, who is challenging for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate next year: “It’s called weather.”

In an interview at The Tribune-Democrat, Luksik explained why the cap-and-trade bill has become a personal issue with her.

“Global warming is not real.

“The premise is that carbon dioxide is a pollutant that causes global warming. It is not,” she said.

So why the cap-and-trade legislation, that rewards power sources for meeting government-imposed caps on emissions?

“The political agenda is to cut down on fossil fuels. The cap-and-trade bill passed in the House defines carbon dioxide as a pollutant, while our air now is cleaner than it was in 1950,” she said.

Luksik, who has made the cap-and-trade energy bill, plus global warming, two of her key issues, surmises the strategy is political.

“If you make carbon dioxide a tradable commodity, you enable the transfer of wealth from one set of nations to another.

“It’s a huge power chip, which can be used to reward or punish an industry or facility.”

Luksik points to the cap-and-trade bill’s requirement that an increasing percentage of energy be produced from wind and solar power.

“Wind is not practical or consistent. You can’t make the wind blow. Solar has potential, but there are problems with it, too,” she said.

“If I were serious about energy, I’d open up coal. We’ve shut it down, essentially, through regulations. I’d also turn to nuclear power and geothermal.”

With the eruption at this month’s international climate conference in Copenhagen, and with doubts being raised by scientists about the reality of global warming, Luksik does not think the cap-and-trade bill would have been approved by the House if the vote were taken now.

“That’s why there are now nine bills in the Senate dealing with the subject, and not just the one passed by the House,” she said.

Rep. John Murtha, D-Johnstown, also doubts that cap-and-trade legislation, as the House approved, will pass, at least this year.

At a news conference last week, Murtha, who voted for the bill, said he views cap and trade as one of the top issues facing the country at this point, along with war and health-care reform.

“I don’t see that passing this year, and I’m kind of disappointed,” Murtha said of cap- and-trade legislation.

He also said “there’s been so much distortion” on the issue, making debate more difficult.

During this month’s international conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, these are the key issues that emerged:

• Developed nations vs. developing nations: There is agreement that greenhouse gas emissions are contributing, at least somewhat, to climate change. But no one wants to slash emissions without ensuring that other countries will do the same.

• Targets for cutting emissions: The scientific community wants to see emissions cuts of 25 to 40 percent by 2020.

• Helping poor countries that will be hit hard by climate change: The World Bank estimates that poor countries will need up to $100 billion a year to respond to climate change.

• Carbon trading: Most agree that a price on carbon is the best way to lower emissions. That means a cap-and-trade type of program where emissions allowances can be sold or traded.

• Cleaner energy: Ideally, cleaner forms of energy would be used in power plants, but a power company could find it cheaper to pay a forest owner to plant carbon-trapping trees, for example.

Although it won’t help America’s political controversy over cap-and-trade, the ground is being set for international standards.

In fact, by the end of the conference, a deal was reached between President Barack Obama and China and India that calls for international verification of emissions levels.

This was pushed so that it would not place American manufacturers at a disadvantage.

The plan also calls for another year of talks for a treaty to address global warming by capping emissions and expanding the $120 billion carbon market.

Obama called the Copenhagen agreement “a first step.”