Louisiana Has the Most to Lose from Emissions, but Won’t Kick the Habit
Illustration by Kenneth Harrison (Nola.com)
So, you just stopped at a red light to find one of those ubiquitous panhandlers begging for a donation. But this one has a very different sign:
Fighting lung cancer. Need money for cigarettes.
Well, that’s the message Louisiana is sending the rest of the nation as it seeks help funding the $92 billion plan to prevent its bottom third from sinking into the rising Gulf of Mexico.
How else to explain these facts?
Louisiana admits the success of its coastal plan rests with the world dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the next few decades because those emissions are causing thermal expansion of the oceans and glaciers and ice fields to melt leading to further sea level rise.
But Louisiana ranks seventh in emissions by volume, fifth per capita – and was second-to-last among the states in reducing emissions over the past 10 years.
Yet its voters continue to send GOP congressmen back to Washington who fight all regulations that would help the United States – the planet’s second-largest sources of emissions – join the rest of the planet in preventing the disaster.
Unlike President Donald Trump, I can back up my statements with proof. The World Resources Institute did calculations using data from the State Inventory Tool of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Emissions Inventory Improvement Program (EIIP). In other words, this isn’t rhetoric for the campaign season, but actual information based on facts. (You might remember facts; they were widely accepted prior to 2016).
And all those facts prove that Louisiana, the state with the most to lose due to the acceleration of sea level rise, is among the leading contributors to the major cause of the problem it is seeking to avoid: The rapid acceleration of sea level rise due to greenhouse gas emissions.
Read the rest of the article at The Times-Picayune.
