6 things to keep in mind when looking at the Clean Power Plan and prospects of real leadership from the White House at COP21
1) There is, there has always been, and there will always be a huge gap between what the science requires and what the state can deliver when it comes to climate change. The climate isn’t going to wait for the US progressive movement to get its shit together. Yet so many greens in this country act like this is the case. As has been said before, Nature doesn’t do bailouts. 2) The 2007 IPCC report representing scientific consensus on climate change prescribed that emissions must peak in 2015 (this year) and decline dramatically thereafter in order to avoid catastrophic climate change (above around 2.4 degrees C, which is still a death sentence for many island nations). These estimates were conservative and more recent research has shown things are moving much more quickly than the IPCC had previously predicted. Nor have emissions peaked. They've increased. This is in spite of the 15% reduction in emissions from US power plants that has already happened, amounting to just under hal