Miller calls for legislative action on climate change

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

From an article by Craig Sauer in the Portage Daily Register:

MADISON -- State Sen. Mark Miller continued his call for the state Legislature to act locally on global climate change Tuesday, a day in which the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources held an informational hearing on the issue.

The committee, on which Miller sits, heard a presentation by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Jonathan Foley, who said the need to alter global climate change was immediate. Foley, the Gaylord Nelson Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies at the Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies, compared efforts to curtail climate change to turning an ocean liner -- meaning action must be taken well in advance to avoid catastrophe.

"Our efforts to reduce the human impact on our climate will take time, but failure to act appropriately and soon -- to turn the ocean liner around — could be disastrous," said Miller, D-Monona. His district includes southern Columbia County. "As a new grandparent, I do not want to have to tell my grandchildren years from now that we failed to act. When they ask, 'Grandpa, weren't you in the state Senate and in the position to make changes to protect our environment?' "

Last month Miller introduced Senate Bill 81, the Wisconsin Safe Climate Act, that would require Wisconsin to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels. Reducing greenhouse gases, Miller said, is a critical step in the fight against global climate change.