This post is by Sheryl Canter, an online writer and editorial manager at Environmental Defense Fund.
The Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act is scheduled for Senate debate and vote the first week in June. We’re closer than we’ve ever been to passing legislation but we still have a long way to go (see our previous post, How a Bill Moves Through Congress).
The next month will be crucial, as we talk to senators who are still on the fence. Many are leaders whose management skills will be put to the test.
Who are they? Read our 10 Senators to Watch page to find out.
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Committee members always have their own interests and “points” to make, and “rules” to follow. Thereby rule or guidance by committee is often fraut with contention and the results poor. WHAT IF CERTAIN ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS IN EACH OF THEIR STATES GOT A MULTI GENERATIONAL/CULTURAL GROUP TOGETHER NOT FOR ASSESSING THE “BOTTOM LINE” BUT INSTEAD TO DISCUSS GLOBAL WARMING AND ITS RELEVANCE TO OVERALL ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS/CORPORATE GLOBALIZATION/ AND FUTURE GENERATIONS. !!!!FILM!!!!AT LEAST A 10 MINUTE SECTION OF THIS AND SEND IT TO BOTH THE SENATORS AND TO YOUTUBE. SUCH AN EFFORT MIGHT PROVIDE NEEDED INSIGHT AND SPARK GREATER OVERALL POPULAS ENGAGEMENT.
These ten Senators are just vying for votes. They don’t deal in facts. All this Global Warming legislation will only bring the American and Global economy to it’s knees. These 10 Senators are Idiot’s with one thing on they’re mind! Keeping they’re job. As far as I’m concerned they’re all fired. Hey, if you want to stop Global Warming stop having children.
Global warming is an important problem, especially if it happens rapidly. However an answer to a question we have not been asking is; “We should not be using our carbon fuels for so trivial a purpose as to merely generate heat and therefore electricity or non aviation transportation in a world where every week the sun beams down enough energy on the state of Arizona alone to supply the whole world with non transportation energy during that time”. Those fuels should be devoted to chemical stock and aviation. Burning carbon is akin to burning furniture to keep warm. Oil will probably run out in another hundred years or so and practical coal probably in another two or three hundred or so. What do we have planned for the remaining million years this nation is scheduled to survive? Our constant drum beat about not being dependent on foreign oil is 180 degrees off. If we were really greedy we would use foreign oil as much as possible. If a major war should loom after our oil runs out we will be left high and dry, and maybe defeated.
But if our oil policy seems foolish, our atomic fuel policy must seem like insanity by comparison. At least the carbon will still be on the surface of the earth, extremely expensive to turn into chemicals, but not impossible. Uranium once burned will be gone forever. Our progeny will curse us if they come across a very valuable use for uranium and it is gone. If that purpose were to be the only practical way to get rid of a meteor scheduled to destroy the earth, for instance, they will be cursing us with their dying breath. They will look back on our problems with those jerks in Afghanistan with fond nostalgia.
It is often said that we can not tap the sun’s energy without further expensive research. This is not so. We already know how to make linear parabolic mirrors and numerous effective ways to make heat generated vapor engines. The only thing stopping us is oil and coal selling for, probably, a third of what it would cost to manufacture it out of carbon dioxide or limestone.
This is pitiful. Arlen Spector, the man who came up with the single bullet theory in the assassination of John F. Kenney, Sununu (total idiot from NH), Graham are senators on the watchlist. Absolutely pitiful. You wonder why nothing gets done in Congress.
Windmills and solar energy have been used for the last 30 years. Why is it that fossil fuels still run cars/trucks? It is because the oil companies have stopped alternative fuels from being used. I remember in the early 90s when electric cars were introduced. I also remember the last car in the late 90s that came off the assembly line.
The push for alternative fuel has been existence for many years. The problem is the oil company lobbies. btw, I remind you that Arlen Spector came up with the Oswald lone gun theory in the Kennedy assassination. Open you eyes people, do you not see that the US is being destroyed from within our government.