Editorial
Monitor staff



March 19, 2008 - 6:56 am



In author/artist Chris Van Allsburg's holiday classic, The Polar Express, a vintage steam engine takes a young boy on a search for the true meaning of Christmas to the North Pole. In the sequel, if one is made for a new generation of kids, the boy will have to travel by tug boat. The ice is melting that fast.

Recently, Deborah Williams, president of Alaska Conservation Solutions, stopped by the Monitor to explain what global warming is doing to her state, and to lobby for laws to curb the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The changes are drastic. Polar bears are drowning, starving and turning to cannibalism. They will be extinct in Alaska by mid-century if the state keeps warming, the U.S. Geologic Service says. Coastal and island villages will have to be abandoned. Fires are sweeping over the once-frozen tundra, which, unlike forests, did not evolve to recover after incineration.

Congress's next big chance to act responsibility to minimize climate change will come this spring when the Senate votes on a bill sponsored by independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Republican Sen. John Warner of Virginia. It is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent over their 2005 level by 2020 and by up to 70 percent by 2050.

The bill, which would institute a cap and trade system to force major polluters to reduce emissions or buy carbon credits from companies that do, isn't perfect. But it's a serious, significant step in the right direction. We urge Sens. Judd Gregg and John Sununu to support it for the good of their home state and, it may not be hyperbolic to say, the good of the planet. Gregg has generally been supportive and has worked to improve the bill. Sununu has not taken a position on the bill, but he wants any greenhouse gas act to include curbs on the emission of mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide as well as carbon.

Plenty of predictions have been made for what global warming will mean for New Hampshire. They include an end to skiing on all but the northernmost mountains, the death of the maple syrup industry, rising sea levels, more flooding, the migration of forests up mountainsides, a loss of native species, the appearance of new pests and diseases and crazier weather. But in Alaska, the average temperature has already increased by a whopping 4 degrees in the past half-century, four times more than the global average.

Opponents of the Lieberman-Warner bill claim that it would raise energy prices and hurt an already ailing economy. But coping with the impact of global warming would be far costlier, especially if large coastal cities like New Orleans must be protected from higher, stormier seas or moved inland.

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency, which under the Bush administration has not been known for its activism, released its long-awaited analysis of the Lieberman-Warner bill's impact on the economy. The cost of fuel and electricity would rise slowly, but the overall economic impact would be insignificant. The bill would reduce the nation's gross domestic product by 1 percent over what it would be 20 years from now without the bill.

Significant steps to limit global warming and its often devastating effects shouldn't wait for a new administration to take power. The Lieberman-Warner bill would show the rest of the world that the United States is finally making a serious commitment to combating climate change. It deserves the support of New Hampshire's congressional delegation.