LETTER: States need to pass their own climate laws

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Climate change poses the greatest threat that modern humanity has ever faced. Carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuel combined with the release of methane from thawing permafrost is setting up an irreversible cycle of warming. Release of carbon from the tundra currently is approximately 1.5 billion tons per year, or about the same as current annual emissions from fossil fuel burning in the United States, according to the New York Times. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now exceeds 400 parts per million (ppm) and is increasing at 2 ppm per year.

However, the Trump administration has announced that the United States is withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement. It means that the U.S. government will not lend its considerable weight to the urgent need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The world is reaching a chaotic climate state. We are witnessing a rapidly rising sea level caused by melting of mountain and Greenland glaciers and the disintegration of ice sheets in the Antarctic.

The Trump administration is now going to exacerbate the problems caused by excessive carbon dioxide by eliminating EPA regulations on oil and gas companies. The current EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, is an avowed climate change denier who has stated that carbon dioxide is not a primary contributor to global warming. His close ties with the fossil fuel industry have been criticized by climate scientists for weakening and eliminating regulations that control fossil fuel production.

However, there is still hope. Since Trump announced the abandonment of the climate treaty, there has been an outpouring of support by private companies and state agencies, such as those in California who have vowed to compensate for the loss of the US support for the climate agreement. California is passing the most ambitious laws in the world to expand clean energy and combat climate change.

— Wendell Tangborn