Conservative political leaders and their polluting funders have declared their intention to do everything possible to seize control of state governments in 2016 and block climate action. The Koch brothers have pledged to raise an unprecedented $889 million just for this election cycle.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has not merely urged states to ignore the law’s requirement for them to put forward a state implementation plan to meet the EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan standards. In one of the most shocking statements ever issued by any U.S. political leader, McConnell actually admitted publicly that his goal is to stop a global deal to avert catastrophic climate change.
McConnell announced to the world last week that “our international partners should proceed with caution before entering into a binding, unattainable deal” in large part because “13 states have already pledged to fight” the EPA’s standards. How shocking a statement is this?
The Paris climate talks this December are the world’s best chance to get as far as possible from the unimaginably catastrophic 6°C (11°F) path we’re currently on. They are the first — and maybe the last — chance to give the next generation a plausible shot at staying well below the 4°C (7°F) path that would render large parts of the Earth unsuitable for farming and virtually uninhabitable, probably for centuries.
If McConnell were to succeed at a state (and international) level, here is what a 2015 NASA study — along with many other recent studies — project as the likely future of North America:
If we stay near our current path of CO2 emissions, we will turn the normal climate of much of the country and world into “severe drought.”
Read more at Boycotting States: The Future for Climate Activism? - by Joe Romm
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