Under normal circumstances, last week’s announcement by the European Space Agency that the Northwest Passage has lost some 500,000 square miles of Arctic ice in the past two years would hold little significance for New Jersey.
Maybe for Alaska. Certainly for Canada and Greenland. And definitely for commercial shipping interests, whose vessels could trim thousands of miles off their voyages between Europe and Asia by sailing directly through the formerly ice-bound lanes of the Northwest Passage, bypassing the Panama Canal.
But what could melting Arctic ice several thousand miles to our north possibly have to do with New Jersey?
For starters, it strikes yet another blow against the head-in-the-sand mentality that refuses to recognize the existence let alone the dire consequences of global warming. Before last week’s announcement, a United Nations panel on climate change had predicted that rising global temperatures could make the polar regions virtually free of ice by the summer of 2070. Now, scientists say, that timetable appears to have been hopelessly optimistic.
This, in turn, validates New Jersey’s Global Warming Response Act, a measure pushed by Gov. Jon Corzine and approved by the Legislature in July, which mandates a reduction of emissions by 20 percent by 2020, and 80 percent by 2050. And it lends support to the U.S. Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement, a nationwide movement reaffirmed at a recent meeting in Trenton of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, committing cities and towns to limit greenhouse gas emissions and help lessen the effects of global warming.
Moreover, on the very same day the European Space Bureau’s satellites were beaming back their startling discovery of ice-free lanes in the Northwest Passage, a federal judge in Vermont was upholding the right of New Jersey and 12 other states to force automakers to comply with tougher emissions standards aimed at reducing air pollution.
Judge William Sessions III ruled that the states are authorized under the federal Clean Air Act to adopt the so-called “California car” standards, requiring a 30 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from new cars and light trucks by 2016. Acknowledging that the standards may be difficult and expensive to meet, Judge Sessions nevertheless noted, “History suggests that the ingenuity of the industry, once put in gear, responds admirably to most technological challenges.”
The industry may respond less admirably to the judge’s ruling; the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers is considering an appeal. And the states would still need a waiver from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to impose tougher standards than those set by the federal government.
But the coincidence of these two events the first offering graphic new scientific evidence of global warming, the second offering states the legal authority to do something about it couldn’t have come at a more propitious time. New Jersey has been fighting, on and off, to adopt the “California car” standards for nearly two decades, against powerful and organized opponents who argued the action was neither necessary nor legal. Last week, in a pair of settings far removed from the Garden State, their arguments got pounded with a swift one-two punch. Now, it’s up to 13 states, including New Jersey, to get the EPA to deliver the knockout blow.
