chAPTER ThiRTEEn • DomEsTic AnD Economic Policy 307
Unlike many Democrats, Obama also favored building new energy plants that would
use nuclear power. Electric utilities planned several new nuclear plants, but these plans
were shelved almost immediately. The major problem was that nuclear power could not
compete with the falling costs of natural gas. A second problem was safety. In March
2011, a giant tsunami struck northeast Japan and severely damaged four nuclear reac-
tors located on the coast. The resulting radiation leaks convinced many people that new
nuclear power plants would be dangerous.global Warming
In the 1990s, many scientists working on climate change began to conclude that average
world temperatures would rise significantly in the twenty-first century. Gases released by
human activity, principally carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), may be producing a “greenhouse effect,”
trapping the sun’s heat and slowing its release into outer space.The global Warming Debate. Most scientists who perform research on the world’s
climate believe that global warming, or climate change, will be significant, but there is
considerable disagreement as to how much warming will actually occur. It is generally
accepted that world temperatures have already increased by about 0.74 degrees Celsius
over the last century. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
predicts increases ranging from 1.0 to 4.8 degrees Celsius by 2100. This range of esti-
mates is rather wide and reflects the uncertainties involved in predicting the world’s
climate.
Global warming has become a major political football to be kicked back and forth
by conservatives and liberals. Former vice president Al Gore’s Oscar-winning and widely
viewed documentary on climate change, released in 2006, further fueled the debate.
(Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work.) Titled An Inconvenient Truth,
the film stressed that actions to mitigate global warming must be taken now if we are to
avert a planet-threatening crisis. Environmental groups and others have been pressing the
federal government to do just that.
Their efforts are complicated by the fact that a major share of the American electorate
does not believe that global warming is happening or, if it is happening, that it is caused by
human activities. Disbelief in global warming is a partisan phenomenon. According to one
poll, skepticism about global warming among Republicans rose by 11 percentage points
from 2008 to 2009, and a majority of Republicans now believe that global warming does
not exist. The opinions of Democrats have not changed—about four-fifths of them accept
that climate change is a problem. If there is no global warming, of course, there would
be no reason to limit emissions of CO 2 and other greenhouse gases. By 2013, in the wake
of super storms and droughts, skepticism about climate change among Republicans and
independents had eased noticeably—but opposition to CO 2 restrictions remained strong.legislative stalemate. The centerpiece of the Obama administration’s legislative pro-
gram on energy and the environment was a bill designed to limit greenhouse gas emis-
sions. In June 2009, the House passed a bill, but in the Senate, the bill sank without a
trace. The Republican takeover of the House in the 2010 elections meant that no action
on greenhouse gas emissions was likely in the near future.
Despite the lack of government action, by 2011 CO 2 emissions in the United States
were actually down from 2008. The most important cause was new power plants that
used natural gas instead of coal. (Gas does release some CO 2 , but less than half as much
as coal.) More fuel-efficient cars also contributed to the reduction.Copyright 2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
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