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around the world are studying it. The U.S. military is preparing contingency plans. The insurance industry is investing heavily in understanding the risk. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued proposed new regulations to reduce emissions from power plants. California is taking bold steps to reduce emissions. On Sept. 21, the United Nations kicked off Climate Summit 2014 with more than 300,000 people marching in New York City. The Summit seeks to achieve an international accord designed to reduce emissions substantially, the hope never fulfilled in the Kyoto Protocol that in 1997 the U.S. Senate killed with a non-binding resolution on a 95-0 vote. It seems obvious that substantial reduction and then elimination of greenhouse gas emissions should be an immediate policy goal of the United States and all other countries. Is this technologically and economically feasible? The answer is unequivocally yes, according to most economists including many well-known conservatives, such as Charles Schultz, Hank Paulson and Gregory Mankiw. Former George W. Bush Treasury Secretary Paulson had an excellent article on this subject in The New York Times on June 21, 2014. Economists generally agree that a carbon pricing policy, i.e., a carbon tax or cap and trade system, would limit emissions substantially while creating a free market revolution in new technologies, with substantial economic benefits. As Americans, we could take the lead politically, technologically and economically. The rest of the world would be forced to follow in order to compete. What other choice do we have? Isn't this the whole point of the American experiment – that a free people can lead themselves through a government designed to secure our future. There is no reason why we should reject our principles now and quietly give in to the loss of the natural world that we all depend upon for life. Instead we should use the authority that derives from the consent of the governed to make new laws that force a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions. Or face devastating consequences. As a practical matter, meaningful carbon pricing cannot happen without the approval of the world's most powerful legislative body, the U.S. Congress. Congress has done nothing on climate change since 1987, when it passed the Global Climate Protection Act, which directed the EPA to propose to Congress a "coordinated national policy on global climate change." Congress then emphasized that "ongoing pollution and deforestation may be contributing now to an irreversible process" and that "[n]ecessary actions must be identified and implemented in time to protect the climate." Since 1987, Congress has enacted no laws on climate change, and has not mandated a coordinated national policy. More recently, many legislators have declared their disbelief in climate change, presumably a reflection of the views of the voters in their districts or their campaign donors, and surely not a proper assessment of the scientific evidence. Congress must act on climate change. This is too important to get it wrong for even a few more years. This cannot be decided as a partisan issue. It must be decided on the scientific 22 the philadelphia lawyer Winter 2015