From Green Right Now Reports
Robert Redford, actor, director, and conservationist, is calling on President Obama to follow through on climate change.
Redford’s video appeal, launched this week by the Natural Resources Defense Council, reminds the president that he called for climate action during both his inaugural and state of the union speeches.
“Four months ago, President Obama spoke of our obligation to combat climate change, saying failure to do so would betray our children and future generations,” said Redford, an NRDC trustee. “I just hope he has the courage of his convictions.”
The president can make a big impact, Redford says, by endorsing regulation changes that would greatly reduce pollution from coal-fired power plants, the single biggest contributor to the greenhouse gases that are warming the planet.
But will that get through the House of Representatives, you say?
It doesn’t have to. The EPA can take regulatory action to tighten the requirements on coal plants using the Clean Air Act to “make real progress on one of our world’s and our future’s biggest challenges,” said NRDC President Frances Beinecke.
A plan proposed by the NRDC would cut carbon dioxide emissions by 26 percent by 2020 by putting curbing coal power plant emissions. Under the plan, states and power plants would work together and consumers would even save money on their electricity bills, according to the Washington-based environmental group.
It would affordable and strategic, keeping 500 million tons of carbon pollution out of the atmosphere every year, NRDC maintained, a big step toward reducing the storms, drought and heatwaves of climate change that have been costing Americans billions every year.
“Millions of Americans expect the Obama administration to live up to its rhetoric on climate change, starting with cleaning up power plants, the biggest source of carbon pollution,” Beinecke said.
