This post is by Mark MacLeod, Director of Special Projects, Climate and Air Program, Environmental Defense.

Last night the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee passed the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act (CSA) of 2007, a comprehensive climate change bill that would set mandatory caps on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. This landmark vote brings us one step closer to passing national climate legislation. (See my previous post for more on the legislative process.)

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This post is by Mark MacLeod, Director of Special Projects, Climate and Air Program, Environmental Defense.

Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2007 (CSA) is the most promising climate change legislation we’ve seen yet. You may have heard that it’s "out of subcommittee" and "scheduled for mark-up on December 5^th". But what does that mean?

The legislative process is complicated, but here is a basic overview of the process this bill is following, known as "regular order".

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This post is by Sheryl Canter, an Online Writer and Editorial Manager at Environmental Defense.

Here are some links to interesting articles I ran across recently:

Six Degrees – Review from RealClimate of a new book that soberly assesses what will happen to the world at one degree increase in temperature, two degrees, etc. It’s alarming – but not alarmist.

The People We Have Been Waiting For – New York Times Op-Ed by Thomas Friedman that will make you laugh and cry. It ends on a wonderfully optimistic note (in case you’re feeling depressed about climate change).*

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*There’s one small inaccuracy in Friedman’s piece. He says climate change will lead to “colder cold spells”. Actually, as the IPCC states, there are “warmer and fewer cold days and nights over most land areas.” The idea that weather will swing to colder as well as warmer extremes is a common misunderstanding.

This post is by Sheryl Canter, and Online Writer and Editorial Manager at Environmental Defense.

In last Friday’s post on the Bali climate talks, Kyle mentioned giving countries incentives to leave their forests standing. This was also the topic of an excellent piece on NPR this morning, "Climate Experts Mull Payment to Stop Deforestation". Our own Annie Petsonk was interviewed for the story:

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