Frank Gorke, (center), spoke at a news conference with Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley (left) and James R. Milkey (right).

As legislative hearings got underway on Beacon Hill and in Washington, D.C., Environment Massachusetts’ staff called on lawmakers in Congress and the State House to adopt comprehensive limits on global warming pollution.

“There are solutions at our fingertips that will cut global warming pollution significantly,” said Environment Massachusetts Director Frank Gorke. “If we hope to avoid the worst impacts of global warming, we have to put those solutions to work, starting today.”

There is a wide range of proposals under review as this newsletter goes to print. At the federal level, the weakest among them—a bill filed by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (N.M.)—would allow emissions to rise more than 20 percent by 2030. On the other end of the spectrum, the most aggressive—filed by Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.) and Sens. Barbara Boxer (Calif.) and Bernie Sanders (Vt.)—would put the nation on a trajectory to cut global warming emissions 80 percent by the middle of this century.

Environment Massachusetts is working on the state front at the same time. Our state has the technological potential to make reductions in global warming pollution, and recent events have swung momentum toward a state solution to global warming pollution. Gov. Patrick demonstrated his commitment to global warming solutions by re-joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

Unfortunately, state lawmakers are reviewing proposals to water down Massachusett’s commitment to RGGI. But they are also considering a bill, filed by state Sen. Marc Pacheco (Taunton), that would establish a state-wide cap on global warming pollution, along the lines of California’s recently-adopted carbon cap and similar to the strongest of the federal proposals.

Increasing evidence shows the impacts of global warming, and many scientists are now studying the possibility that pollution concentrations may soon trigger a “tipping point” that would result in sudden, drastic changes to the earth’s climate systems. Environment Massachusetts is working to draw a bright line to distinguish between window-dressing and real solutions that reduce global warming pollution.

“There’s a drumbeat of evidence about global warming,” said Gorke. “The scientific evidence is clear that there is a limited window of opportunity to reduce worldwide emissions of the pollutants that cause global warming and still avoid dangerous climate change. We might only have one chance to get this right.”

The first signs of global warming are evident across Massachusetts and throughout the world. Global temperatures and sea levels are on the rise; ice and snow-cover are declining. Other changes, such as the recent increase in the severity of hurricanes, are consistent with the changes scientists expect to occur on a warming planet.

Environment Massachusetts-backed plans feature science-based targets that will enable us to cut pollution enough to avoid the worst impacts of global warming. Avoiding drastic consequences will require stabilizing world-wide global warming emissions within a decade and reducing them by more than half by mid-century.

While the magnitude of the emission reductions is important, so is the speed with which we achieve them. Since carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants build up in the atmosphere, the longer we wait, the harder it will be to hit our targets, and the less likely we will be to succeed.

Environment Massachusetts’ staff will continue working across the state, on Beacon Hill and in Washington, D.C., this summer to build support for swift action to adopt strong limits on global warming pollution.

Solar power, hybrid technology, and wind generation are simple and available solutions that we could be using to solve global warming.