The Supreme Court grows a pair

For the past six years or so, the United States government has been the bane of high school government teachers across the nation. \nYou see, there are certain principles that are at the heart of every introductory government or political science class – things that usually end up on one of the first few tests. One of those is the idea of “checks and balances.” With a right-winged White House, Congress and Supreme Court for the majority of the 21st century, though, the intended purpose of the three branches of government has lain dormant for the most part.\nThe trend of synergy between the executive, judicial and legislative branches is what makes a Supreme Court decision earlier this week so intriguing.\nIn a 5-4 decision, the court ruled in favor of a group of 12 states and several environmental groups against the Environmental Protection Agency. The decision states that the EPA is obligated under the Clean Air Act to regulate cars’ emissions of greenhouse gases, and that the previous refusal by the EPA to make such regulations was based on “impermissible considerations.”\nSuch regulations would be a positive step forward in stopping possibly catastrophic climate change.\nThe decision basically acts as a victory for the environmental lobby against a Bush administration that has consistently said global warming either doesn’t exist or isn’t caused by human activity. The administration had been opposed to limits on greenhouse gases based on the idea that it would harm the economy – though in my opinion, the flooding of New York, Los Angeles and Florida would probably put a bit more of a dent in the Dow Jones.\nI’m stunned by this decision, mainly because I remember the days when global warming was a subject that could be debated without looking like an idiot. Back in the day, when the president decided that we really didn’t need to abide by the Kyoto treaty, there was actually a question about whether the planet’s climate was changing.\nOne several-hundred-page scientific report and one Al Gore Oscar later and it seems to be generally accepted that global warming exists. To be fair, President Bush did mention global warming in his January State of the Union speech, but this Supreme Court decision is among the first real government actions toward accepting global warming. \nThis could show the beginning of a legitimate shift in how the government looks at global warming. With the issue becoming more one-sided as time passes, it’s becoming hard to justify inaction, even in economic terms – as I said earlier, it will be hard to work on Wall Street if it’s a part of the Atlantic Ocean. \nThis momentum cannot be allowed to falter, though. Some believe it may already be too late to fix all the damage that’s been done – which means that swift action must be taken to prevent the planet’s climate from spiraling further toward destruction. Our lives quite literally depend on it.