Green Water Infrastructure

Through sweltering heat and suffocating humidity, a diverse group of over 250 business and community leaders  from 25 states descended on Washington, D.C. this past week advocating support for a Clean Energy Bill eager to make its way through the Senate before the August recess in a mere two weeks. The bill, which never made it off the ground, was to be an amalgamation of policies and regulations that would reduce carbon emissions from the atmosphere, prevent oil spills, clean up the environment, and address a plethora of other needs to band-aid our ever deteriorating environment.

The Democratic catch phrase of the week was “Cap and Trade,” a term that sends oil companies, auto companies, coal conglomerates and farmers alike running for cover. The idea is that companies emitting pollutants would be responsible for their unhealthy emissions by paying a fee for any percentage of emissions that rose above a government regulated standard. If companies were unable to reduce their emissions by a certain percentage, they could also “buy” more emission” legroom” from companies that were able to produce less poisonous byproduct and therefore have percentages to trade or sell.

Unfortunately, on a per capita basis, the United States has established itself as the largest producer of carbon emissions. The world needs the United States to reduce her carbon emissions if there is any chance of reducing global warming. If this is the best we can do as a country to clean up our act, we may as well embrace the quagmire of biohazard that our children will inherit because if they make it to adulthood, it is hard to predict what they will recognize as an environmental inheritance..