New Congressional Climate Change Task Force Calls on President to Use Administrative Authority

Almost 700 people died from heat-related stress during the catastrophic 1995 heat wave in Chicago, Illinois.1 The three-day weather event saw 24-hour mean average temperatures of 87.2°F; the heat reached triple digits on two days, and there was little relief at night.2 Many people succumbed to heart attack and dehydration, while others collapsed during severe episodes of existing respiratory conditions.3 The death toll in the summer of 1995 gave Chicagoans a clear picture of how a surge in hot weather can affect human health. A decade later, Mayor Richard Daley launched an extensive program that brought together city agencies, academics, and scientists to develop a Climate Change Action Plan to help reduce the city’s contribution to climate change.4 Much of the plan focuses on sustainable mitigation actions such as planting trees and training workers to install renewable energy technologies. Within that plan, however, is a climate change adaptation strategy with a goal of preparing the city and its residents for future unusual weather events associated with climate change.5 Chicago is one of several large cities with climate action plans in place—others include New York City, San Francisco, Sydney, and Mexico City.6 Like Chicago’s, these plans promote mitigation and sustainability. Much of the adaptation portion of these initiatives is aimed at the built environment—buildings, highways, and facilities. But officials in these cities are beginning to talk about the public health cobenefits from their action plans, and public health advocates are speaking up and pushing for programs designed to prepare for or prevent climate-sensitive disease and illness.

A Conversation

Addressing climate change is one of the great challenges of our age. While the current president has signaled that this will be a top priority under his administration, previous administrations have not pursued a comprehensive regulatory or diplomatic strategy to counteract the causes and consequences of climate change. Until recently, the federal government's efforts in this area have been limited almost exclusively to climate-related research, energy research, and voluntary emission reduction programs to curb greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, states such as Wisconsin--as well as tribes and local governments--have taken the lead to explore solutions to the challenges posed by global warming. Wisconsin, in particular, boasts a nationally recognized, utility funded, statewide energy efficiency program; a renewable portfolio standard; and mandatory carbon dioxide emission reporting. Governor Jim Doyle's Global Warming Task Force has recommended dozens of additional steps to further address climate change at the state level, and Wisconsin's legislature is poised to act on that package of proposals during its current session. Other states around the country are also active in adopting proposals of their own, and several regional efforts are underway, in various stages, to design and implement regional cap-and-trade programs. With new leadership in Washington, national climate change policy appears poised to catch up with what has already been happening in states like Wisconsin. This emerging federal policy will present new challenges and opportunities for states. Because of the progress it already has made, Wisconsin is in a very good position to help inform the federal debate, and ultimately, decide for itself how best to craft state initiatives going forward in a way that complements a comprehensive and national approach to the challenge of climate change. This Article highlights some of the actions Wisconsin has taken and how we can move forward alongside a more engaged federal government in the area of climate change policy. I. INTRODUCTION II. WISCONSIN'S POLICY RESPONSE TO CLIMATE CHANGE A. Focus on Energy: Wisconsin's Statewide Energy Efficiency Program B. Promoting Renewable Energy C. Governor's Task Force on Global Warming D. Merging Clean Energy with Economic Development & Energy Security E. Wisconsin's Role in Regional, National and International Climate Change Initiatives and Cooperative Efforts III. AN EMERGING ROLE FOR STATES IN THE FACE OF FEDERAL ACTION A. The Role of States in Designing a Federal Cap-and-Trade Program B. States Should Innovate on Complementary Policies C. States Should Play a Role in Investing Cap-and-Trade Program Revenues D. States Should Share Lessons Learned IV. CONCLUSION I. INTRODUCTION The challenge of climate change remains a global problem requiring a global solution. While President Obama has signaled his desire to lead on this issue, the previous administration failed to develop a comprehensive regulatory or diplomatic strategy to counteract its causes and consequences. As a result, states have for years been adopting their own climate change measures. Wisconsin has been one of those states. We have one of the most well-established and successful energy efficiency programs in the country, a renewable portfolio standard that has been on the books since 2006, and mandatory, carbon dioxide emissions reporting that has been required for over fifteen years. My Global Warming Task Force last year recommended a package of over fifty additional policy measures that garnered broad support from a variety of sectors, and I look forward to our Legislature acting on that reasonable package this year. Though progress at the state level is important, federal action is needed--specifically, the enactment of a nationwide, multisector cap-and-trade program. …

I want to begin by discussing three uncertainties: the first uncertainty is about what science says and means, and how conclusive we can all be about it. This is, of course, especially the case in relation to climate change, and the frustrating thing, I suspect, for most people engaged directly in

US pollution policy up in the air

No Easy Answers: Emergency Physicians Engage in Gun Control Debate

Introduction to <i>Climate Change Adaptation in New York City: Building a Risk Management Response</i>

Few degrees of freedom

Most climate change actions take place in the international context in terms of multilateral negotiations and accords or in bilateral agreements between heads of the state. Parliaments or legislatures such as the United States Congress are in a crucial position when it comes to converting agreements or aims to action in domestic politics. The United States has played a volatile role in international negotiations on climate change. From categorically rejecting the Kyoto protocol during the George W. Bush administration, President Barack Obama announced that the United States would join the Paris Climate Accord prior to President Donald J. Trump's announcement of the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Accord. In domestic politics, too, efforts to address climate change have likewise varied. This article explores the complexity of climate change as a political question in the United States and considers the problematic issue that explains why the United States Congress has not have similar momentum to address climate change since the House of Representatives passed cap and trade legislation in 2009. The focus will be on theoretical discussions on congressional inaction and the United States Congress members' views on how and to what extent that institution should play a role in addressing climate change.

Pennsylvania State University, USADespite overwhelming consensus among scientists about thereality of anthropogenic climate change (Bray, 2010; Oreskes,2004), there remains significant reluctance on the part ofcitizens and politicians to take the action needed to addressit. This resistance has been repeatedly identified in socialresearch (Leiserowitz & Maibach, 2010; Leviston, Leitch,Greenhill, Leonard, & Walker, 2011; Lorenzoni & Pidgeon,2006; McCright & Dunlap, 2011; Reser, Bradley, Glendon,Ellul, & Callaghan, 2012) and is mirrored by the lack of prog-ress made by salient political summits (Rogelj et al., 2010).Perhaps as a response to this, scholarly journals and articlesthat are focused on climate change are growing. Naturalscientists tell us that we know what needs to be done to avertdangerous climate change (IPCC, 2014), and economists tellus that delaying action in the short term will lead to muchgreater costs in the long term (Stern, 2007). Understandingpublic responses to climate change and developing solutionsto catalyse action is a critical challenge for the social sciences,and we propose that the development and elaboration of asocial psychology of climate change would be a cornerstoneof such an approach.We do not make the claim that social psychology has all theanswers but rather that the theories, models and researchmethods of social psychology can provide a powerful arsenalto complement the approaches of other disciplines. Re-searchers have already begun to apply social psychologicaltheory and methods to the issue of climate change, and wehighlight in the following sections examples of the insightsthat have flowed from this. We cannot assume, though, thatour theories and findings will automatically generalise to theclimate change context. As Moser (2010) has noted, thereare unique dimensions to climate change that make it distinctfrom other environmental, risk and health issues: The causesof climate change are invisible to humans, the impacts are dis-tal and it is complex and riddled with uncertainties. Modernurban humans are to some extent insulated from their physicalenvironment, and the lags between the climate and social sys-tems make it difficult for people to understand their role ininfluencing climate.These factors suggest the importance of developing a socialpsychology of climate change, empirically testing, integratingand refining existing theories and models to develop newframeworks. The notion that psychology can play a role inunderstanding and addressing climate change is not a newone. The American Psychological Association’s Task Forceon the interface between psychology and global climatechange comprehensively detailed the ways in which psycho-logical research can help to understand people’s perceptionsof the risks of climate change, the contribution of human be-haviour to climate change, the psychosocial impacts of climatechange, the ways in which people can adapt and cope withclimate change and the psychological barriers that could limitclimate change action (Swim et al., 2009, 2011).It is also not a new idea that social psychology can play animportant role in understanding and addressing environmentalproblems and solutions (Clayton & Brook, 2005). Social psy-chology, specifically, has a long tradition oftheory andresearchthat is relevant to addressing key climate change questions.Attitudes, social cognition, persuasion and attitude change, so-cial influence, and intragroup and intergroup behaviour, forinstance, are fundamental foci for social psychology and havedirect relevance for understanding the human and social dimen-sionsofclimatechange.Thetimeisripetounderstandtherangeof research that has been developing in social psychology onattitudes, beliefs and actions, to build upon these insights, andintegrate them with knowledge from other sciences to developmodels and theories indigenous to the climate change context.In the following section, we provide a brief overview of re-cent social psychological research that addresses three broadthemes relevant to understanding and responding to climatechange. These themes are as follows: (i) social psychologicalinfluences on climate change attitudes and beliefs; (ii) facilita-tors and barriers to climate change action; and (iii) changingclimate change attitudes and behaviour. Although there issome overlap in these themes, as an organising principle theyintuitively map on to key questions that arise in relation to cli-mate change. Our aim is to highlight recent examples of socialpsychological research that provide interesting and importantinsights in relation to these themes. Swim, Markowitz, andBloodhart (2012) have noted that much of the social psycho-logical research on climate change has emerged since 2006;we focus in on the most recent of this research that has beenpublished since 2010. We also outline how the studies in thespecial issue relate to these themes. We recognise that theseare not the only areas where social psychological researchand theory can make important contributions but they never-theless relate to key questions that need to be addressed. Weconclude the introduction by proposing considerations thatsocial psychologists could take into account in their futureresearch on climate change.European Journal of Social Psychology, Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 44, 413–420 (2014)

Negotiating failure: understanding the geopolitics of climate change

In the Warming Arctic Seas

Debate over climate change is nothing new. Scientists have been arguing about whether greenhouse gases released by human activity might change the climate since the late nineteenth century, when Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius first proposed that industrial emissions might cause global warming.1 Fueled by partisan bickering, this dispute now is more bellicose than ever.

<i>Annual Reports To Council</i> Ecological Society of America August 2009

Prosecutorial Discretion Power at its Zenith: The Power to Protect Liberty