If Oregon needed any more encouragement to join California and lead a national effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the National Academy of Sciences provided it Thursday. A panel of top climate scientists reported to Congress that the Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, probably even longer.
Global warming is real. And so is the need for the stricter emission standards for new cars and light trucks formally adopted Thursday by the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission. The new standards, which take effect with the 2009 model year, are expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Oregon by 14 percent over the next decade.
Good for Oregon. And good for Gov. Ted Kulongoski, who has stood up to car manufacturers, auto dealers, global warming skeptics and some of his political foes, who argue variously that global warming is not occurring, or that it's too expensive, or too large and inevitable, to do anything about.
Yes, there are costs associated with the stricter emission standards. By some estimates, new vehicles could cost an average of $1,200 more by 2016, when all of the emission control equipment is phased in. But there will be substantial cost savings, too. The emission standards, which now will be in place up and down the West Coast, will drive auto makers to produce more fuel efficient vehicles. In an era of $3-a-gallon gasoline,
the fuel savings will add up.
Kulongoski is absolutely right to lead this state forward on global warming and on greater production and use of renewable sources of energy to reduce Oregon's, and the nation's, dependence on foreign oil.
Kulongoski has made renewable energy a key platform of his re-election campaign, while his political opponents, notably Republican Ron Saxton, have had little constructive to say about global warming or reducing Oregon's dependence on fossil fuels.
The National Academy's report is a timely and direct answer to all those who deny or ignore the overwhelming evidence of warming. The chairman of the House Science Committee, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., requested the report last year after some members of Congress attacked research from the late 1990s that concluded the Northern Hemisphere was the warmest it had been in 2,000 years.
The National Academy scientists studied tree rings, corals, glaciers and ice cores, cave deposits, ocean and lake sediments, bore holes and other sources. In all, they found the 1990s' research conclusions "very close to being right." The panel members said they have "a high level of confidence that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years."
The scientists said the evidence of temperatures before 1600 is less certain. But, they said, it is reliable enough to conclude that sharp spikes in carbon dioxide and methane, the two greenhouse gases associated with trapping heat in the atmosphere, began in the 20th century, after remaining fairly level for 12,000 years.
Those are the greenhouse gases that Oregon is acting strongly to reduce in the coming years. The National Academy report is another powerful call to action on global warming. This state, for one, has heard enough.
©2006 The Oregonian
