ONCORD - The Sierra Club put into high gear its campaign to elevate global warming as an issue in New Hampshire last week, hoping to get presidential candidates, the White House and Governor Jeanne Shaheen to embrace it. Shaheen can expect 20,000 postcards from residents on her doorstep soon, urging her to take action.
''We're trying to get in touch with the people of New Hampshire to help give them an opportunity to get involved in this issue, which is the biggest environmental issue we face,'' said Daniel Becker, director of the Sierra Club's global warming and energy program, based in Washington. He toured the state last week, promoting the campaign.
The group believes that global warming contributed to the region's wild weather over the last two years, from the January 1998 ice storm that killed 44 people in New England and caused $1.4 billion in damages, to this year's record-setting drought that left lakes and rivers bone-dry. It says steps can and should be taken to stem the problem.
The postcards call on Shaheen to push for higher federal standards for fuel economy in motor vehicles and energy efficiency in appliances, and lower power plant emissions. The group is also circulating postcards addressed to President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, calling for higher fuel-economy standards.
Shaheen's press secretary, Pamela Walsh, said the governor has already written letters of support for higher fuel-efficiency standards and for lower plant emissions, and is working on a letter in support of higher efficiency standards for appliances. Walsh added that the governor supports tougher national standards for all power plants, and noted that the state Department of Environmental Services has a full-time staffer for global warming.
''It's an issue we're working on,'' Walsh said.
The Sierra Club campaign is part of a national effort to alert states and regions to the local threats of global warming, or the predicted rise in global temperature of up to 6 degrees Fahrenheit, which could disrupt the climate. But the issue is not resonating with presidential candidates or local officials, much like the environment generally. Even Gore, for whom global warming is a signature issue, has said little about it.
As for local concern, New Hampshire was one of only three states whose local officials refused last month to join 567 other such officials in 47 states urging Congress and the White House to help them end global warming. Officials from Claremont, Concord, Dover, Hampton, Hollis, Hudson, Manchester, Merrimack, Nashua and Portsmouth were all solicited over the summer for their support, but none signed on.
Meanwhile, the world's blueprint for addressing the problem - the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which would require developed nations to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases warming the planet - remains in the White House. It has not submitted the treaty for ratification, knowing that the US Senate - which wants the treaty to also require developing nations like China to cut emissions - would assuredly reject it.
The treaty currently exempts developing nations. The more than 150 developed nations that signed it must also ratify it for it to take effect. But America's ratification is considered crucial, because it emits more than any other country. Only 17 nations have so far ratified it, many of which are island nations fearing they will be engulfed by rising sea levels brought on by global warming.
Despite those hurdles, the Sierra Club says 51 percent of Americans polled in April would be more likely to vote for a candidate ''who has proposed concrete steps to reduce the threat of global warming.'' It also says New Hampshire has good reason to be concerned about that threat, not only because of the variable weather, but also because hotter summers would result in more smog, which is already a problem, especially in the Southern Tier.
''New Hampshire citizens can't afford the costs to our economy, or to the health of our children,'' said Kim McGlinchey, a Sierra Club New Hampshire organizer. As for the eight or so major party candidates running for the White House, she said they should ''tell us how they plan to slow global warming before further damage occurs here.''
Scientists say the 10 warmest years ever recorded have occurred since 1980, with last year the warmest. The Sierra Club adds that heat waves in Chicago in 1995 and Dallas in 1998 killed more than 600 people, while droughts, hurricanes and other natural disasters caused 50,000 deaths and $90 billion in damages last year alone. It also says record-high sea temperatures last year caused an unprecedented die-off of tropical coral.
Between November 1997 and July of 1998, regions all across the country had unusual weather. Dry spring weather in Florida left 80 percent of the state in desert-like conditions, while wet spring weather in Colorado and New Mexico caused the rodent population to explode. The temperature hit 90 degrees Fahrenheit in Oregon on April 30. A month and a half later on June 16, it snowed in Idaho.
Environmentalists have long called for increases in the fuel efficiency of cars and other vehicles. The Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards have not been adjusted for more than a decade, they say. They have also long called for cuts in power plant emissions, and retrofitting those plants so they burn fuels more efficiently.
A recent report by the Environmental Trust, for instance, says America could meet nearly half of its required emissions reductions under the protocol by improving the fuel efficiency of cars to 21 miles per gallon from their current 19, by improving the generating efficiency of power plants by 10 percent, and by providing 5 percent of America's cars with engines that run on electricity or multiple fuels.
Becker said it is important that the United States take action at home to cut emissions and not rely solely on buying emissions ''credits'' in other countries to meet its requirements under the treaty. Such credits might involve buying and protecting overseas forests, which absorb carbon dioxide, as a way of offsetting emissions at home.
Citing opposition to the US position that erupted at a meeting of representatives from 173 nations two weeks ago in Bonn, Becker said ''the rest of the world is looking at us and asking whether we're going to take action at home, or just buy up all these emissions credits. If the US sends a signal that it is serious about cutting emissions at home, then the rest of the world will follow.''
The Clinton administration ''has done almost nothing to stop global warming,'' Becker continued. ''And that's why we're in New Hampshire. We want to encourage people here to ask the presidential candidates what they will do about global warming if they occupy the White House. The next president will have an opportunity to do something about it, or turn a blind eye to it. We want to know, before they're elected, what they're going to do.''
