Forum tackles greenhouse gases

Forum tackles greenhouse gases

Solar power, setting emission reduction goals are suggested to cut global warming

By WADE RAWLINS, Staff Writer

As concern grows about global warming, North Carolina leaders are considering what part Tar Heel businesses and residents can play in reducing greenhouse gases.

Residents offered a variety of suggestions Thursday, including using energy-efficient light bulbs, promoting solar power and setting emission reduction goals.

The public meeting held by the state Division of Air Quality in Raleigh came as state air regulators are preparing recommendations for legislators on reducing carbon dioxide, a primary greenhouse gas.

Carbon dioxide occurs naturally in the atmosphere. But cars, trucks, houses, factories and power plants also produce it by burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal.

North Carolina ranks 14th among states in total carbon dioxide emissions, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere and reflect heat back toward Earth. Concentrations of carbon dioxide have increased by about 30 percent since the Industrial Revolution. Scientists think rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are contributing to increases in temperatures.

"The evidence of global climate change is pretty clear and unambiguous," Robert Rodriguez of Raleigh, a salesman for a German-based company, told state officials.

Rodriguez said the state needs to set very aggressive goals for reduction of greenhouse gases.

The Earth's temperature has risen about 1 degree in the past 100 years, with the 10 warmest years all within the last 15 years of the 20th century, according to the National Academy of Sciences, which advises the federal government on scientific issues.

If temperatures continue to rise, North Carolina -- like other coastal states -- faces the potential of coastal areas flooding from rising sea levels and more severe storms and hurricanes, scientists predict.

The recommendations being developed by state air regulators range widely from encouraging clean fuels and more home energy-efficient appliances and transportation to reducing energy use by state agencies to converting animal waste to energy. But once state lawmakers receive the report in September, they will have to decide whether to embrace them or await direction from the federal government.

P.J. Puryear of Raleigh endorsed the idea of the state setting an example for communities by making the state's buildings and fleet of vehicles energy-efficient.

Marjorie Mulhall, climate campaign coordinator for Environmental Defense and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said the state could take some actions on its own that would help, such as setting a measurable goal for reducing emissions.

Leaders of NC WARN, a grassroots nuclear watchdog group, urged state air regulators to evaluate and reject the option of building new nuclear plants as an appropriate solution to global warming.

"We need an open, thorough and well-informed public debate on whether the energy future of North Carolina lies with aggressive conservation and renewable energy or with more nuclear plants -- which would largely foreclose those much more responsible options," said Pete MacDowell, representing NC WARN.

Tom Mather, a spokesman for the Division of Air Quality, said in an interview that the agency viewed the evaluation of nuclear power as the duty of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a federal agency, and outside the scope of the state study.