The environment thread

[YASNY]

Both Aquafina and Dasani, owned respectively by Pepsi and Coke, are filtered tap water. There are some that are actually pumped out of the ground or from mountain springs or something like that...but that alone means very little to me (seriously, anyone who wants to take a drive up to Owens Valley, look for the Crystal Geyser water bottling plant right along the shores of Owens Dry Lake. It's located in one of the worst environmental areas on the planet).

 

And the major food companies have been lobbying basically as far as I can tell since the word "Organic" was invented for looser standards on what qualifies as organic so that they could label their products as such without having to change their production processes much. For reference, I'll just include the first example that pops up on the Google.

 

Thank you. I'm not much on remembering exactly where I read things as I'm more of a ingest the knowledge type of guy. I'll get on roll when I read something that interests me, and search for more 'knowledge'. Of course, I don't believe everything I read and I do try and use the consider the source approach.

[NorthSideSox72]

You are a very trusting soul. I for one don't believe that most organic ingestibles are as organic as you are lead to believe. Also, from what I have read is most bottled water is ... you ready? ... tap water. Then you get the plastic bottles that are being sold by the billions because they can sell tap water for $1.29 a bottle filling our landfills. When will those biodegrade? Oh yeah, the bottles also happen to be a petroleum based product. So, what is being pumped into the air as those plastic bottles are being produced?

That's why I don't drink bottled water - the bottle itself. And I knew some of them were just tap water.

 

But the organic farms, I have it on good source in some cases, not to mention I watch them work. I have no doubt that some "organic" stuff isn't as organic as we are led to believe. But there are people who have a mind as yours or mine for these things, and are farmers, so there are some people who do produce real organic. And the more push there is for it, the more market there is, the more of that there will be.

 

[YASNY]

That's why I don't drink bottled water - the bottle itself. And I knew some of them were just tap water.

 

But the organic farms, I have it on good source in some cases, not to mention I watch them work. I have no doubt that some "organic" stuff isn't as organic as we are led to believe. But there are people who have a mind as yours or mine for these things, and are farmers, so there are some people who do produce real organic. And the more push there is for it, the more market there is, the more of that there will be.

 

I can agree with that.

[Texsox]

That's why I don't drink bottled water - the bottle itself.

I do, often, when I am picking up something to drink at a C-store. I figure there isn't much of an environmental difference in a coke bottle versus a water bottle. There is a difference in my internal system.

[Texsox]

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/14713468/detail.html

 

Stuff like this, rarely reported nationally, does so much to protect our environment.

[FlaSoxxJim]

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/14713468/detail.html

 

Stuff like this, rarely reported nationally, does so much to protect our environment.

 

 

Yes it does. Major land acquisitions for preservation purposes are big-money things but are vital to the success of conservation ecology.

[NorthSideSox72]

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/14713468/detail.html

 

Stuff like this, rarely reported nationally, does so much to protect our environment.

Awesome. I've said numerous times before, this is why I live the Nature Conservancy - these private grants and purchases, and the combination of easements and sensical, small-scale development, are the future of large-scale land conservation. This just happens to be someone else doing it. Great stuff.

 

By the way, the Sangre De Cristo's are one of the most picturesque ranges on the continent, and environmentally, are an important link piece. Being generally considered the southernmost range geologically of the Rockies, their jagged peaks make an ecological highway of sorts between the heart of the Rockies in Colorado and the ranges of the Colorado Plateau (Jemez, Taylor), the eastern ridges along the Rio Grande Rift (Sandias, Manzanos, Sacrametos, San Andreas, etc.) that extend through New Mexico south to West Texas. That connection is critical for protecting and enhancing habitat for a wide variety of animal and plant species, not to mention forming a critical avian pathway.

 

[NorthSideSox72]

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/14713468/detail.html

 

Stuff like this, rarely reported nationally, does so much to protect our environment.

Then on the other hand, also under the radar, the administration continues their assault on the environment via proxies. Fortunately, thanks to pressure from outside organizations on the government, this particular hosebeast was fired, and some of her damage reversed.

 

Check out the last graf. Priceless.

 

[Balta1701]

Not sure yet if I'll be able to go, but Dr. James Hansen, the guy who claimed a couple years ago that while at NASA the government was censoring his reports on climate change, is giving a talk today a couple buildings down from me on Climate Change and mitigation.

[NorthSideSox72]

Congress is on the verge of passing a bill to raise CAFE standards to 35 mpg fleet-wide by 2020. There are two loopholes - large "work" trucks like F150's and the like are exempt, and also, auto companies will get some sort of credit against the fleet-wide average if they have flex fuel vehicles.

 

The flex fuel thing isn't really helpful, since corn ethanol is not really a long term solution. But otherwise, sounds like a nice piece of progress. Hopefully Bush signs it.

 

[EvilMonkey]

Is there a conspiracy over the naming of tropical storms? Naming too many could lead to increased 'evidence' of the effects of global warming.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5337583.html

Story in a nutshell, group claims they are naming way too many storm, hurricane center says they are using same criteria, just with new technology, they can catch more. So the data shows an 'increase', but is it really an increase, or just that they are catching more with new technology? I guess it just depends on which 'side' you are on.

[NorthSideSox72]

So, the US House finally got around to packaging a serious, wide-ranging energy bill that would raise CAFE standards to 35 mpg down the line, include more vehicles in there, and shift all kinds of money formerly going to big oil to alternative energy funding. It passed the House.

 

But the Senate, of course, stopped it. The bill technically had the votes to pass (57), but they used Cloture restriction to stop it from continuing. They claim its because the bill contains $21B in new taxes. But here is the kicker - those "taxes" are actually, predominantly, the removal of $13B in what had been subsidies to big oil. The dropping of them is what the GOP senators stopping the bill (led by Domenici), object to. But hey, the GOP isn't in big oil's pocket or anything.

 

The good news, maybe, is that even the Republicans who thwarted the effort are saying they feel they can make some changes that will allow it to pass. If those changes mean giving back those subsidies, I will be pissed.

 

Article.

 

[Rex Kickass]

That's exactly what it means.

[Balta1701]

SPEECH BY AL GORE ON THE ACCEPTANCE

OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

DECEMBER 10, 2007

OSLO, NORWAY

 

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Honorable members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen.

 

I have a purpose here today. It is a purpose I have tried to serve for many years. I have prayed that God would show me a way to accomplish it.

 

Sometimes, without warning, the future knocks on our door with a precious and painful vision of what might be. One hundred and nineteen years ago, a wealthy inventor read his own obituary, mistakenly published years before his death. Wrongly believing the inventor had just died, a newspaper printed a harsh judgment of his life’s work, unfairly labeling him “The Merchant of Death” because of his invention – dynamite. Shaken by this condemnation, the inventor made a fateful choice to serve the cause of peace.

 

Seven years later, Alfred Nobel created this prize and the others that bear his name.

 

Seven years ago tomorrow, I read my own political obituary in a judgment that seemed to me harsh and mistaken – if not premature. But that unwelcome verdict also brought a precious if painful gift: an opportunity to search for fresh new ways to serve my purpose.

 

Unexpectedly, that quest has brought me here. Even though I fear my words cannot match this moment, I pray what I am feeling in my heart will be communicated clearly enough that those who hear me will say, “We must act.”

 

The distinguished scientists with whom it is the greatest honor of my life to share this award have laid before us a choice between two different futures – a choice that to my ears echoes the words of an ancient prophet: “Life or death, blessings or curses. Therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.”

 

We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency – a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here. But there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst – though not all – of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly.

 

However, despite a growing number of honorable exceptions, too many of the world’s leaders are still best described in the words Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler’s threat: “They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent.”

 

So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun.

 

As a result, the earth has a fever. And the fever is rising. The experts have told us it is not a passing affliction that will heal by itself. We asked for a second opinion. And a third. And a fourth. And the consistent conclusion, restated with increasing alarm, is that something basic is wrong.

 

We are what is wrong, and we must make it right.

 

Last September 21, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is “falling off a cliff.” One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years.

 

Seven years from now.

 

In the last few months, it has been harder and harder to misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter. Major cities in North and South America, Asia and Australia are nearly out of water due to massive droughts and melting glaciers. Desperate farmers are losing their livelihoods. Peoples in the frozen Arctic and on low-lying Pacific islands are planning evacuations of places they have long called home. Unprecedented wildfires have forced a half million people from their homes in one country and caused a national emergency that almost brought down the government in another. Climate refugees have migrated into areas already inhabited by people with different cultures, religions, and traditions, increasing the potential for conflict. Stronger storms in the Pacific and Atlantic have threatened whole cities. Millions have been displaced by massive flooding in South Asia, Mexico, and 18 countries in Africa. As temperature extremes have increased, tens of thousands have lost their lives. We are recklessly burning and clearing our forests and driving more and more species into extinction. The very web of life on which we depend is being ripped and frayed.

 

We never intended to cause all this destruction, just as Alfred Nobel never intended that dynamite be used for waging war. He had hoped his invention would promote human progress. We shared that same worthy goal when we began burning massive quantities of coal, then oil and methane.

 

Even in Nobel’s time, there were a few warnings of the likely consequences. One of the very first winners of the Prize in chemistry worried that, “We are evaporating our coal mines into the air.” After performing 10,000 equations by hand, Svante Arrhenius calculated that the earth’s average temperature would increase by many degrees if we doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

 

Seventy years later, my teacher, Roger Revelle, and his colleague, Dave Keeling, began to precisely document the increasing CO2 levels day by day.

 

But unlike most other forms of pollution, CO2 is invisible, tasteless, and odorless -- which has helped keep the truth about what it is doing to our climate out of sight and out of mind. Moreover, the catastrophe now threatening us is unprecedented – and we often confuse the unprecedented with the improbable.

 

We also find it hard to imagine making the massive changes that are now necessary to solve the crisis. And when large truths are genuinely inconvenient, whole societies can, at least for a time, ignore them. Yet as George Orwell reminds us: “Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.”

 

In the years since this prize was first awarded, the entire relationship between humankind and the earth has been radically transformed. And still, we have remained largely oblivious to the impact of our cumulative actions.

 

Indeed, without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on the earth itself. Now, we and the earth’s climate are locked in a relationship familiar to war planners: “Mutually assured destruction.”

 

More than two decades ago, scientists calculated that nuclear war could throw so much debris and smoke into the air that it would block life-giving sunlight from our atmosphere, causing a “nuclear winter.” Their eloquent warnings here in Oslo helped galvanize the world’s resolve to halt the nuclear arms race.

 

Now science is warning us that if we do not quickly reduce the global warming pollution that is trapping so much of the heat our planet normally radiates back out of the atmosphere, we are in danger of creating a permanent “carbon summer.”

 

As the American poet Robert Frost wrote, “Some say the world will end in fire; some say in ice.” Either, he notes, “would suffice.”

 

But neither need be our fate. It is time to make peace with the planet.

 

We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war. These prior struggles for survival were won when leaders found words at the 11th hour that released a mighty surge of courage, hope and readiness to sacrifice for a protracted and mortal challenge.

 

These were not comforting and misleading assurances that the threat was not real or imminent; that it would affect others but not ourselves; that ordinary life might be lived even in the presence of extraordinary threat; that Providence could be trusted to do for us what we would not do for ourselves.

 

No, these were calls to come to the defense of the common future. They were calls upon the courage, generosity and strength of entire peoples, citizens of every class and condition who were ready to stand against the threat once asked to do so. Our enemies in those times calculated that free people would not rise to the challenge; they were, of course, catastrophically wrong.

 

Now comes the threat of climate crisis – a threat that is real, rising, imminent, and universal. Once again, it is the 11th hour. The penalties for ignoring this challenge are immense and growing, and at some near point would be unsustainable and unrecoverable. For now we still have the power to choose our fate, and the remaining question is only this: Have we the will to act vigorously and in time, or will we remain imprisoned by a dangerous illusion?

 

Mahatma Gandhi awakened the largest democracy on earth and forged a shared resolve with what he called “Satyagraha” – or “truth force.”

 

In every land, the truth – once known – has the power to set us free.

 

Truth also has the power to unite us and bridge the distance between “me” and “we,” creating the basis for common effort and shared responsibility.

 

There is an African proverb that says, “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” We need to go far, quickly.

 

We must abandon the conceit that individual, isolated, private actions are the answer. They can and do help. But they will not take us far enough without collective action. At the same time, we must ensure that in mobilizing globally, we do not invite the establishment of ideological conformity and a new lock-step “ism.”

 

That means adopting principles, values, laws, and treaties that release creativity and initiative at every level of society in multifold responses originating concurrently and spontaneously.

 

This new consciousness requires expanding the possibilities inherent in all humanity. The innovators who will devise a new way to harness the sun’s energy for pennies or invent an engine that’s carbon negative may live in Lagos or Mumbai or Montevideo. We must ensure that entrepreneurs and inventors everywhere on the globe have the chance to change the world.

 

When we unite for a moral purpose that is manifestly good and true, the spiritual energy unleashed can transform us. The generation that defeated fascism throughout the world in the 1940s found, in rising to meet their awesome challenge, that they had gained the moral authority and long-term vision to launch the Marshall Plan, the United Nations, and a new level of global cooperation and foresight that unified Europe and facilitated the emergence of democracy and prosperity in Germany, Japan, Italy and much of the world. One of their visionary leaders said, “It is time we steered by the stars and not by the lights of every passing ship.”

 

In the last year of that war, you gave the Peace Prize to a man from my hometown of 2000 people, Carthage, Tennessee. Cordell Hull was described by Franklin Roosevelt as the “Father of the United Nations.” He was an inspiration and hero to my own father, who followed Hull in the Congress and the U.S. Senate and in his commitment to world peace and global cooperation.

 

My parents spoke often of Hull, always in tones of reverence and admiration. Eight weeks ago, when you announced this prize, the deepest emotion I felt was when I saw the headline in my hometown paper that simply noted I had won the same prize that Cordell Hull had won. In that moment, I knew what my father and mother would have felt were they alive.

 

Just as Hull’s generation found moral authority in rising to solve the world crisis caused by fascism, so too can we find our greatest opportunity in rising to solve the climate crisis. In the Kanji characters used in both Chinese and Japanese, “crisis” is written with two symbols, the first meaning “danger,” the second “opportunity.” By facing and removing the danger of the climate crisis, we have the opportunity to gain the moral authority and vision to vastly increase our own capacity to solve other crises that have been too long ignored.

 

We must understand the connections between the climate crisis and the afflictions of poverty, hunger, HIV-Aids and other pandemics. As these problems are linked, so too must be their solutions. We must begin by making the common rescue of the global environment the central organizing principle of the world community.

 

Fifteen years ago, I made that case at the “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro. Ten years ago, I presented it in Kyoto. This week, I will urge the delegates in Bali to adopt a bold mandate for a treaty that establishes a universal global cap on emissions and uses the market in emissions trading to efficiently allocate resources to the most effective opportunities for speedy reductions.

 

This treaty should be ratified and brought into effect everywhere in the world by the beginning of 2010 – two years sooner than presently contemplated. The pace of our response must be accelerated to match the accelerating pace of the crisis itself.

 

Heads of state should meet early next year to review what was accomplished in Bali and take personal responsibility for addressing this crisis. It is not unreasonable to ask, given the gravity of our circumstances, that these heads of state meet every three months until the treaty is completed.

 

We also need a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store carbon dioxide.

 

And most important of all, we need to put a price on carbon -- with a CO2 tax that is then rebated back to the people, progressively, according to the laws of each nation, in ways that shift the burden of taxation from employment to pollution. This is by far the most effective and simplest way to accelerate solutions to this crisis.

 

The world needs an alliance – especially of those nations that weigh heaviest in the scales where earth is in the balance. I salute Europe and Japan for the steps they’ve taken in recent years to meet the challenge, and the new government in Australia, which has made solving the climate crisis its first priority.

 

But the outcome will be decisively influenced by two nations that are now failing to do enough: the United States and China. While India is also growing fast in importance, it should be absolutely clear that it is the two largest CO2 emitters — most of all, my own country –– that will need to make the boldest moves, or stand accountable before history for their failure to act.

 

Both countries should stop using the other’s behavior as an excuse for stalemate and instead develop an agenda for mutual survival in a shared global environment.

 

These are the last few years of decision, but they can be the first years of a bright and hopeful future if we do what we must. No one should believe a solution will be found without effort, without cost, without change. Let us acknowledge that if we wish to redeem squandered time and speak again with moral authority, then these are the hard truths:

 

The way ahead is difficult. The outer boundary of what we currently believe is feasible is still far short of what we actually must do. Moreover, between here and there, across the unknown, falls the shadow.

 

That is just another way of saying that we have to expand the boundaries of what is possible. In the words of the Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, “Pathwalker, there is no path. You must make the path as you walk.”

 

We are standing at the most fateful fork in that path. So I want to end as I began, with a vision of two futures – each a palpable possibility – and with a prayer that we will see with vivid clarity the necessity of choosing between those two futures, and the urgency of making the right choice now.

 

The great Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, wrote, “One of these days, the younger generation will come knocking at my door.”

 

The future is knocking at our door right now. Make no mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask: “What were you thinking; why didn’t you act?”

 

Or they will ask instead: “How did you find the moral courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was impossible to solve?”

 

We have everything we need to get started, save perhaps political will, but political will is a renewable resource.

 

So let us renew it, and say together: “We have a purpose. We are many. For this purpose we will rise, and we will act.”

[EvilMonkey]

Now you too can get carbon offsets so you can enjoy your over-indulgent lifestyle like The Goracle and be guilt-free!

 

http://freecarbonoffsets.com/home.do;jsess...B75C6B2FEB4E611

[BigSqwert]

I'm sure people will still bash him...

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22248699/

[Balta1701]

A fascinating document on the relationship between environmental technology innovation and government action.

 

 

Link to the paper.

[Balta1701]

An interesting analysis of the Arctic Sea Ice question from AGU.

The summer of 2007 was apocalyptic for Arctic sea ice. The coverage and thickness of sea ice in the Arctic has been declining steadily over the past few decades, but this year the ice lost an area about the size of Texas, reaching its minimum on about the 16th of September. Arctic sea ice seems to me the best and more imminent example of a tipping point in the climate system. A series of talks aimed to explain the reason for the meltdown.

 

Sea surface temperatures were warmer this past summer also; I forget how many standard deviations the temperature was off the trend, but it was definitely anomalous. The region of the meltback is just inside the Bering Strait, where warm water flows in from the Pacific, but in the analysis of Steele et al. this inflow of comparatively warm water was not particularly anomalous in 2007 relative to other years. It could be that the exposure of the sea surface to the atmosphere by the melting ice could have an impact, although the meltback is so late in the solar heating season (September) that this effect seems of limited explanatory value also. Bit of a chicken and egg problem here.

 

Melting ice can be seen from space, I believe as puddles sensed by the QuickSCAT satellite. The puddles are most abundant in mid-summer when the sunlight is strongest, and by mid-September when the ice meltback was the strongest, the melting season was largely over. Apparently the reason for the disappearance was an anomalous weather system which generated a strong jet of surface winds blowing straight over the pole southward toward the Atlantic ocean, a “Polar Express”. A research ship frozen into the ice in 2006 crossed the Arctic in about a year, about three times faster than the transit time of the Fram in the 1890’s. To summarize, the ice cubes in the freezer tray didn’t melt because the freezer is broken exactly, but because the ice cube tray fell out of the freezer onto the warm floor.

 

The disappearance of the ice was set up by warming surface waters and loss of the thicker multi-year ice in favor of thinner single-year ice. But the collapse of ice coverage this year was also something of a random event. This change was much more abrupt than the averaged results of the multiple IPCC AR4 models, but if you look at individual model runs, you can find sudden decreases in ice cover such as this. In the particular model run which looks most like 2007, the ice subsequently recovered somewhat, although never regaining the coverage before the meltback event.

 

So what is the implication of the meltback, the prognosis for the future? Has the tipping point tipped yet? When ice melts, it allows the surface ocean to begin absorbing sunlight, potentially locking in the ice-free condition. Instead of making his own prognosis, Overland allowed the audience to vote on it. The options were

 

* A The meltback is permanent

* B Ice coverage will partially recover but continue to decrease

* C The ice would recover to 1980’s levels but then continue to decline over the coming century

 

Options A and B had significant audience support, while only one brave soul voted for the most conservative option C. No one remarked that the “skeptic” possibility, that Arctic sea ice is not melting back at all, was not even offered or asked for. Climate scientists have moved beyond that.

[Balta1701]

The Republicans today successfully filibustered, by a single vote, a version of an energy bill matching the House version. A much smaller version was passed, restoring the $17 billion in subsidies and tax breaks given to the largest oil companies, but still increasing the CAFE standards and mandating more ethanol production, did pass.

 

So, there you have it. Add in $17 billion for oil companies and you can easiliy break any filibuster. Dems, there's your strategy.

[mr_genius]

I'm sure people will still bash him...

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22248699/

 

well, now only using 15 times as much fossil fuels as the average American. you go Goracle! woot woot

 

 

[mr_genius]

The Republicans today successfully filibustered, by a single vote, a version of an energy bill matching the House version. A much smaller version was passed, restoring the $17 billion in subsidies and tax breaks given to the largest oil companies, but still increasing the CAFE standards and mandating more ethanol production, did pass.

 

So, there you have it. Add in $17 billion for oil companies and you can easiliy break any filibuster. Dems, there's your strategy.

 

 

are these actual filibusters you keep talking about or "threats" of a filibuster? if they are just threats call out the GOP and make them filibuster. why aren't the dems doing that? why isn't Nancy Pelosi bypassing Senate Rule 22 and making them do a traditional filibuster?

Edited December 14, 2007 by mr_genius

[Balta1701]

are these actual filibusters you keep talking about or "threats" of a filibuster? if they are just threats call out the GOP and make them filibuster. why aren't the dems doing that? why isn't Nancy Pelosi bypassing Senate Rule 22 and making them do a traditional filibuster?

Well, first of all because Nancy Pelosi isn't in the Senate...

 

And the Dems would make them Filibuster...except last time, the Dems tried it, and the Press was all over the Dems for wasting senate time on nothing but a spectacle. They quite often called it a "Democratic filibuster" despite the fact it was the Republicans who were actually blocking the vote. If the Dems thought they'd actually gain anything by forcing the Republicans into a Filibuster, then they would do so. But when the media isn't on their side, all that the talking to death does is hurt the Dems.

[Balta1701]

Oh, and the Republicans also got the Dems to drop the requirement that 15% of all of our electricity would have to be generated by renewable sources within a decade or so.

[mr_genius]

Well, first of all because Nancy Pelosi isn't in the Senate...

 

And the Dems would make them Filibuster...except last time, the Dems tried it, and the Press was all over the Dems for wasting senate time on nothing but a spectacle. They quite often called it a "Democratic filibuster" despite the fact it was the Republicans who were actually blocking the vote. If the Dems thought they'd actually gain anything by forcing the Republicans into a Filibuster, then they would do so. But when the media isn't on their side, all that the talking to death does is hurt the Dems.

 

Fine HARRY REID call them out. The media excuse is bs, the MSM is definately behind the Dems on almost every issue, especially anything to do with global warming.

 

So blame your democrats for this stuff not passing. They aren't doing jack to get anything done.

[mr_genius]

Oh, and the Republicans also got the Dems to drop the requirement that 15% of all of our electricity would have to be generated by renewable sources within a decade or so.

 

Again, blame your Dems if you don't like it. They agreed to it.