Green News & Events

#ActOnClimate Clean Power Plan: 2 Little 2 Late?

BREAKING: On Monday, President Obama will release the final version of America’s Clean Power Plan—the biggest, most important step we’ve ever taken to combat climate change. If you agree that we can’t condemn our kids and grandkids to a planet that’s beyond fixing, share this video with your friends and family. It’s time to #ActOnClimate.

Posted by The White House on Saturday, August 1, 2015

President Obama dropped this Facebook video in anticipation of his Clean Power Plan, “the biggest, most important step we’ve ever taken to combat climate change.” But is it, really?

Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency released a draft of the Clean Power Plan plan, which called for a 30% cut in power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions by 2030; the updated plan reflects a 32% cut.

The official Clean Power Plan plan pushes for more renewable energy rather than focusing on the transition from coal to natural gas (read: fracking) power plants, currently responsible for 39% of greenhouse gas emissions in America–the single biggest source.

But as Rolling Stone recently pointed out, this year we may have reached the “point of no return” in terms of climate change:

“Record-setting heat waves in Pakistan and India each killed more than 1,000 people. In Washington state’s Olympic National Park, the rainforest caught fire for the first time in living memory. London reached 98 degrees Fahrenheit during the hottest July day ever recorded in the U.K…In California, suffering from its worst drought in a millennium, a 50-acre brush fire swelled seventyfold in a matter of hours, jumping across the I-15 freeway during rush-hour traffic…Puerto Rico is under its strictest water rationing in history as a monster El Niño forms in the tropical Pacific Ocean, shifting weather patterns worldwide.”

What do you think: Is a 15-year emissions phase out too little too late?