Climate Change Commission must be preserved

From an editorial in the Winston-Salem Journal:

Retired Winston-Salem attorney John Garrou, commission co-chairman, told the Associated Press that the permanent status is needed because legislators will need guidance on many of the long-term recommendations his panel will propose. There are also new federal-emissions regulations on the horizon, and the legislature will need the commission's guidance there, too.

A cacophony of politically charged pseudo-science has been raised over the climate-change question. The opposition has raised what are, at their truest level, a number of false concerns. Climate change is a scientific issue for which there is no longer any reasonable doubt. The world's community of climate scientists is overwhelmingly convinced that the planet is warming and that man's behavior is contributing to this.

One of the leading (State) voices in that cacophony is Republican Senator Andrew Brock, whose ham-handed attempts to use "government waste" as a reason to stifle scientific analysis of an issue that will have a profound and detrimental impact on our state, provides one more glaring reason why the upcoming General Assembly elections are so very important:

A Davie County Republican is urging fellow state lawmakers to stop wasting time and money on the state’s climate change commission and support energy policy he says will have a tangible impact on the state. Sen. Andrew Brock says the legislature should move to tap the massive natural gas reserve experts believe is sitting off the North Carolina coast.

The four-term conservative is a longtime critic of the N.C. Legislative Commission on Global Climate Change, created in 2005. He’s also a longtime supporter of offshore drilling. Last month, as North Carolinians endured a record-breaking deep freeze, Brock sent legislators an email calling for “the immediate dismissal” of the global warming commission.

If you don't think this idiot's ramblings pose a threat to our state, think again. If Republicans are able to shorten the gap by securing more seats in the Legislature, even if they don't achieve a majority, all it would take is a few swing votes by corporate Democrats to disband this commission. Leaving us to blindly stumble forward, relying on private sector for-profit business interests to hold our hands.

Before we allow that to happen, we need to take a few minutes to listen to the Commission itself. Here are some findings published in a report (pdf) by Commission member and UNC Asheville Professor Dee Eggers:

1. Within the scientific community, there exists a level of consensus on climate change
indicating that it presents a threat to the future economic health of North Carolina, the
physical well-being of its residents, and its natural resources.

Specific findings as bases for policy recommendations

1. According to reports generated for the Utilities Commission, North Carolina can
achieve a 14% reduction in electricity consumption at no cost and meet a 10%
renewable energy portfolio standard by 2017 at no increased cost in utility rates.

2. North Carolina’s annual CO2 emissions are increasing faster than those of any other
state except Arizona.

3. North Carolina already ranks 24th in the world for GHG emissions if one regards each
state in the U.S. as if it were a country, and then compares all states and countries.

4. North Carolina ranks 46th in the nation on energy efficiency spending per capita.

5. With 300 miles of coastline and a low coastal plain, North Carolina is highly
vulnerable to rising sea levels. Over the next 100 years, sea-level rise will affect
North Carolina more than any other state except Louisiana.

As you can see, the issue is not only how climate change will impact North Carolina in the future, it's also how North Carolina is contributing to the (global) problem in an inordinately high fashion. It's not a distinction we can be proud of, to say the least.

Here's more:

6. North Carolina imports virtually all of its energy, exporting from the state economy
over $12 billion per year for petroleum, natural gas, coal, and nuclear material.

7. Annual vehicle miles traveled, and related greenhouse gas emissions, are increasing
at a rate faster than the population due to low-density, uncoordinated land use.

8. North Carolina has significant undeveloped alternative energy potential from solar
thermal, solar photovoltaic, natural gas from anaerobic decomposition of organic
material, and wind.

9. North Carolina power utilities have invested little to no money in renewable energy,
efficiency, or conservation due to their guiding language.

10. NC Green Power is not financially competitive with other renewable energy credit
programs nationally for either large or small users.

This page has links to additional reports by Dee and other Commission members, demonstrating clearly that we cannot allow lowest-common-denominator politics and 16th Century-type scientific skepticism to determine North Carolina's approach to 21st Century issues.