Supreme Court: Government Can Regulate Carbon/Greenhouse Gases

Some good news came yesterday from the Supreme Court in deciding Massachusetts v. EPA-

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court today issued a “stunning rebuke” to the Bush administration and "ruled that the federal government does indeed have authority to regulate greenhouse gases linked to global warming."

Frank O’Donnell of Clean Air Watch writes, "The Supreme Court has confirmed that carbon dioxide can be controlled under the Clean Air Act. That means California and other states have the clear right to limit greenhouse gas emissions if the Bush administration won’t."...

(You can pretty easily guess where the four dissenting votes came from)

The link above has some background info on the case.

Of course, this important ruling will be meaningless unless the people in power-- Congress, state governments, etc-- actually take this ball and run with it. There have been encouraging signs in that regard (ie. in California), but no larger action yet. Considering we've been having a circular debate on this issue for over 15 years now, maybe we should take what we can get.

[Related reading: GLOBAL WARMING-- 51 Things We Can Do (Time)]