America Slams Europe’s Aviation Plan

I have heard that many people are disappointed with President Obama of America. His administration is using every device it can to stop Europe introducing an aviation emissions trading programme or at least make sure that the new scheme does not apply to American owned planes.

Let us be kind and imagine that Barak Obama really wants to introduce sensible climate change policies. To do so he has to get a law past the American parliament. Its upper house, the Senate, has two members from each state. Alaska has as many Senators as Pennsylvania – with only a fraction of the population. The system is meant to protect the small states from the power of the larger ones. Europe has a similar principle but uses a more sophisticated method to achieve it. The problem in America occurs because nearly all the states with small populations are also very large in area. They tend to be gas guzzling. They also tend to be resource rich. They believe that of all the people in the world they will have to make the biggest changes in their life style if we are to deal with climate change.

To stop a law in America one does not need a majority vote. One only needs enough Senators to talk the proposed bill off the floor. The number of Senators required is 34. These small population states such as Alaska and Montana can muster 34 Senators representing only 27 million people. That is under one in ten of the 305 million American people. Or, put it another way, just one person in every 250 of the world’s population – a very little tail wagging a very large dog.

With the mid-term elections coming up in November President Obama has few options. Upsetting the people in the sparse gas guzzling states is not one of them.

See reply on gerrymandering below for the background regarding this map