This week Imperium Watch juxtaposes two news items that connect a few dots on the global warming front. Here's the first, from Agence France-Presse:
"The 'shocking' record loss of Arctic sea ice was Canada's top weather event in 2007, Canada's environment ministry said Thursday [December 27]. Each year for the past 12, Environment Canada has published a list of the top 10 climate or weather phenomena to impact Canada that year.
"For 2007, 'the dramatic disappearance of Arctic sea ice—reported in September—was so shocking that it quickly became our number one weather story,' the ministry said in a statement.
"Satellite images in September revealed that Arctic ice had shrunk to about four million square kilometers (2.4 million square miles), a 23 percent decrease from the previous record low of 5.3 million square kilometers (3.2 million square miles) in 2005, it said. The area of ice that melted roughly corresponds to the size of the Canadian province of Ontario or the country of South Africa.
"'Canadians might remember 2007 as the year that climate change began biting deep and hard on the home front,' the ministry said." The ministry expects the ice to shrink even more next summer.
Here's the second item, reported earlier by the U.S.'s Associated Press:
"The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday [Dec. 19] slapped down California's bid for first-in-the-nation greenhouse gas limits on cars, trucks and SUVs, refusing the state a waiver that would have allowed those restrictions to take effect."
This report goes on to explain that the California law would have forced carmakers to produce vehicles averaging 36.8 miles per gallon by 2016, four years earlier than the 2020 deadline for a 35 mile-per-gallon average mandated under a law just signed by President Bush. Twelve other states, including Massachusetts, were poised to put the California standards into effect, and Arizona, Colorado, Florida and Utah had planned to follow suit.
Melting ice; states eager to cut greenhouse gases; the government stalling their efforts. Thirty years ago this could have been a plot for a rousing sci-fi movie. Now it's a film we can't just throw our candy bar wrappers under the seats and walk out of. California has now sued the EPA, which means the government will pay for lawyer time to fight against a measure that would gain four years in the battle against global warming.
