Majorities in 46 states believe climate change is manmade and want the government to do more to fight it, according to a new Stanford University poll.
At least 62 percent of residents are in favor of intervention, including regulating greenhouse emissions, even in those states — such as West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia — with large coal industries.
“This new report is crystal clear,” Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) said. “It shows that the vast majority of Americans — whether from red states or blue — understand that climate change is a growing danger.”
The House of Representatives passed a “Cap and Trade” plan to limit carbon pollution in 2009. It never got a vote in the Senate.
“Americans are way ahead of Congress in listening to the scientists,” Waxman said.
The opinions of the public are in no way represented by Republicans in the House, with 58 percent denying the consensus belief of 97 percent of scientists that humans are causing climate change. Coincidentally, 161 members of the 113th Congress have taken more than $54 million from the fossil fuel industry.
Earlier this year, the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity launched a campaign to combat President Obama’s promise to fight climate change using regulation.
The oil industry has enjoyed record production under President Obama and is pleased with a new reduced ethanol mandate from the EPA, a move supported by environmentalists and basically everyone who isn’t in the ethanol industry. But the president’s actions when it comes to reducing greenhouse gases are even better than his words, at least according to Time magazine’s Mike Grunwald:
…Obama has probably done more than anyone in the history of the planet to reduce carbon emissions. He doubled fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, which by 2025 should erase an entire year worth of U.S. emissions. He enacted a series of new efficiency standards for dishwashers, refrigerators and other appliances, which by 2030 should save enough electricity to power every American single-family home for two years. He approved 45 renewable electricity projects on federal land, producing 10 gigawatts of clean power; his predecessors approved a grand total of zero. And his 2009 stimulus bill launched a clean energy revolution, with $90 billion worth of unprecedented investments in wind, solar and geothermal power; advanced biofuels; electric vehicles; a smarter grid; cleaner coal; efficiency in every imaginable form; high-concept research into low-emissions technologies; green manufacturing; and much more.
