Lance Moore
GHG Monitor
7/17/2015
“Climate change is the central environmental challenge of our time. It’s also a humanitarian challenge, an economic challenge, a public health challenge, and a challenge to everyone who cares about social justice,” said Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) President Rhea Suh this week. She made this statement as the NRDC released a new 12-chapter resource manual as a means of generating increased support for the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed carbon emissions regulation for existing coal-fired power plants, dubbed the Clean Power Plan.
The report is a compilation of footnotes and relevant information asserting that the CPP is a critical piece of legislation needed in curbing carbon pollution, as climate change caused by carbon pollution is a threat to the nation’s community, economy, health, and security, according to Suh.
“We believe the Clean Power Plan can achieve greater pollution reductions?—?a 40 percent cut by 2030?—?by fully recognizing the vast potential for scaling up energy efficiency and renewable energy throughout the United States,” the report reads. The report’s 12 chapters offer varying arguments, with the overall theme of the CPP being the future of carbon reduction within the United States.
The report makes the case for climate change affecting overall public health, extreme weather (therefore increasing the risk of natural disasters), the framework of national security, endangered species, efficient energy cost/benefits and investment. The report asserts an imperative need to reduce carbon emissions, as stipulated by the CPP. An example of this has been in the field of Global Health. In a recent excerpt from the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s draft Climate and Health Assessment released in April of this year, Global Health is referenced as a quintessential factor in the need to combat climate change, which compliments the manual released by the NRDC. “As the climate continues to change, the risks to human health continue to grow. Every American is vulnerable to the health impacts associated with climate change.”
