President Obama’s finalized Clean Power Plan was released to the public at a White House press conference on Aug. 3. The plan aims to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions by 32 percent from levels in 2005 over the course of the next 15 years.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will give each state an individual carbon emissions reduction goal based upon the different mix of electricity-producing sources each state uses. With the final set of rules, states retain flexibility for their reduction programs.

Power plants are the main source of carbon dioxide emissions, and coal-fired ones emit the most amount of harmful gas into the atmosphere. Obama’s plan also seeks to rely more on renewable energy than natural gas-supplied power plants.

California also took its own action in helping with climate change by beginning a market-based cap-and-trade program as well as helping deduce the amount of carbon pollution from power sectors by 8 percent. The EPA’s goal for California is to make electricity sales from renewable energy reach 33 percent by 2020 and to reduce energy consumption by 10 percent within 10 years.

There are mixed feelings on this plan. “Not only will these massive regulations fail to meaningfully effect the global climate, they could actually end up harming the environment by outsourcing energy production in countries with poor environmental records…so I’m not going to sit by while the White House takes aims at the light blood of our state’s economy, I’m going to keep doing everything I can to fight them,” said senior senator of Kentucky, Mitch McConnell, in a video regarding Obama’s Clean Power Plan. Currently, 15 states have filed for the stay on the Clean Power plan.

What is Climate Change and how does it affect us?

Climate change affects people of all ages, ethnicities and countries. It harms not only the earth itself but also our bodies and health. Earth’s temperature rose 1.4º F over the past 135 years.

According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 2014 was the hottest year on record, and the 10 most scalding years world-wide have all occurred within the past 17 years.

As sea levels rise and oceans become warmer, glaciers are melting faster and drought seasons are becoming longer.

According to a new National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) study, California had only 20 inches of precipitation between 2012 and 2015, equivalent to the average amount of rain expected to fall in a state in a single year. There have been a total of about 3,600 fires in California this year, which is about three times as much as usual. Lightning storms have fueled these fires, as well as the lack of rain and harsh weather patterns. Thousands of people from different parts of California have been evacuated from their homes, and residents in the Bay Area have also been smelling and seeing smoke coming from the mountains, which fire officials say are caused from the fires burning in Northern California.
Changes have also occurred around us in support of fighting against global warming such as stores no longer supplying free plastic bags, as well as electric cars and carpool lanes being used to encourage people to lessen the amount of gas fumes emitted into the atmosphere by cars.