Prompted by Repower America (and undeterred by their petition-accompanying graphic attempting to characterize it as a toxic choking cloud, rather than the colorless, odorless, silent, & invisible threat that it is), I sneaked in under today’s deadline this comment on the EPA’s proposal to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act:
Dear Administrator Johnson & staff of the United States Environmental Protection Agency:
Thank you for the opportunity to submit my public comment on the proposed changes to regulate carbon dioxide & other green house gases as pollutants which “endanger the public health and welfare” under the Clean Air Act. As there exists a clear scientific consensus summarized in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that (1) we are in a period of global warming, (2) carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution is a primary cause of such warming, & (3) both current & continued warming will have significant deleterious effects on human welfare based on (potentially radical) changes in our climate, and as their exists a clear legal consensus from the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision clarifying the EPA’s authority to regulate this area, I urge the EPA to take immediate action to strictly regulate greenhouse gas pollution. I urge you to handle this pollutant as you did acid-rain inducing sulfer dioxide (SO2) pollution, with a country-wide cap on emissions & a trading market to allocate the pollution credits in the most efficient manner possible, to ensure minimal disruption to our already fragile economy, while aggressively reducing our emissions to keep atmospheric concentrations of CO2 below 350 parts per million.