Ken Salazar Gets Ready For Global Warming With Climate Change Response Council

WASHINGTON — Interior Secretary Ken Salazar moved Monday to prepare the nation's parks, refuges and endangered species for the onslaught of global warming.

Salazar signed an order setting up a Climate Change Response Council and eight regional response centers to study and respond to such issues as rising sea levels threatening to swamp historic structures and warmer temperatures shifting where wildlife live.

The order also commits the Interior Department to develop a plan to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions, including setting a firm target.

"The realities of climate change require us to change how we manage...the resources we oversee," the order reads.

Earlier this year, Salazar directed the Interior Department, which manages one-fifth of the nation's landmass, to jumpstart renewable energy development. Monday's action builds on that effort by launching a project to develop ways to store carbon dioxide, the most prevalent greenhouse gas, on park, refuge, and tribal lands.

Carbon dioxide could be stored by pumping it underground, or by conserving or growing more trees and grasses to absorb it.

Environmentalists lauded the action Monday, saying that it sent a signal that climate change was a a top priority.

"Secretary Salazar deserves praise for recognizing that climate change waits for no one, and that the impacts of global warming on our public land and water resources could be very widespread and very serious," said Bill Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society.

Comments

[pmagellan]

good to see some sanity, at long last...

[lizardbrain]

Nice to see some momentum on the energy front amidst all the health care ruckus. Alternative energy keeps rolling along http://www.dasolar.com/alternative-energy

[Javani]

"Salazar signed an order setting up a Climate Change Response Council and eight regional response centers"

Some juicy building contracts there from the "stimulus" money.

I know the money will not be spent unwisely and on cronies.

[mikefina]

Until he takes off the hat and loses the bolo-tie, I cannot take him seriously.

What's next? Dwayne 'Dog' Chapman as Homeland Security Czar?

[little old lady]

It took me a little while to get used to the outfits out here, after I returned West from living in the East. But Salazar is considered a good man and looks aren't everything. It's not even his looks, it's just the local style.

[oregonrain]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/15/obama-healthcare-climate-change-copenhagen Just an interesting article , I thought it relevant.

[leduck]

i'm not worried about climate change
i am worried about PEAK OIL

[little old lady]

I hadn't really prioritized my worry list, but you might be right to worry about Peak Oil first. Climate Change may ease it's way in, but Peak Oil could roll over our world economies like a locomotive at top speed and we wouldn't know what hit us...and soon too.

It's amazing and difficult to keep up with all that's going on--and it's all such major stuff.

[ranchero42]

Miami 2020: "Florida Gives Finger To Big Dike".