Gaia's Future Debated in the House

It's a day that Bill McKibben, Carl Pope, Stephen Schneider, James Lovelock and Gaia itself have been waiting for. HR.2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), the House's first serious attempt to address climate change, is on the House floor. Climate change is a serious challenge. We need to reduce our GHG emissions, and the consequences of not doing so are serious, perhaps threatening the continued existence of half of all species, perhaps eventually including our own.

Do any of these Congresspeople know what they are talking about? Very few have read the bill. It's over 1200 pages. How many Congresspeople understand cap and trade, at all? Or think they understand it, but really don't.

Especially the Republicans. I assume many of them understand that climate change is a problem, or at least are concerned about dependence on imported oil from the Middle East and elsewhere. But they have prioritized short-term power politics over the survival of God's creation, the Earth. The economic scare tactics, skepticism of science, callers on CSpan saying that global warming is a hoax. Mainly it seems they hate Al Gore, and this gives them a reason to announce it to people loudly. Interestingly, Al Gore is not even that liberal, but he stirs up memories of the 90's, which I guess for Repubs was a painful time, it was like Middle School and he was like the Assistant Principal, I guess. Even so, the Repugs are trying to fit what they can into their existing worldview, for example, saying that if there is a problem, it's because of those dark skinned people in the Amazon cutting those trees. If they could say global warming was caused by welfare mothers they would.

Blue Dog Democrats are scared of making any bold moves. Status quo coal and manufacturing control them.

I've been arguing that action on global warming is needed. And I've been pestering everyone around me about it for years going on decades now. But is this bill the right one? We are running out of time. Every year of delay is potentially fatal. Even so, the bill has been compromised. A well-respected analyst told me yesterday that at this point, the bill's main impact will be to pay money to corn farmers to make ethanol, with little or no emissions reductions. On the other hand, showing up to the international climate conference in Copenhagen in December with nothing from the U.S. would just prolong the Bush-era stalemate. China and India are right to say that the U.S. should go first. If those Repugnicans think our economic problems are bad, why don't they go there and tell them to reduce their emissions.

There is the head versus heart debate, or what I call the Christina Aguilera debate (my body's sayin let's go, but my heart is sayin no). For normal people, it's that we know the bill is flawed, but we hope that it will help in some way. I'm not sure which is the heart and which is the head, or in Christina's case, which is the T and which is the A (not as much in the head, sorry, uncalled for). For Repugs, it's that they want to oppose Obama's agenda and if they can personally insult Al Gore while doing so this gives them great pleasure, and if they can fit in some populist rhetoric about jobs (when they actually are the unions worst enemy the other 364 days of the year, and their free trade agenda has cost more jobs than this bill ever could) and the economy (which mainly consists of bank bailouts and ponzi schemes at this point right?), and on the other hand, the concessions in this bill might actually benefit their constituencies (industrial ag, Monsanto, the delay in switching off coal, keeping gas prices high which they say they oppose but they enjoy the campaign contributions from Exxon) but they are so blinded by Gore-hatred they refuse to recognize that, and cap and trade was originally a free market solutions that was an alternative to command and control regulation but if they aren't in front of the parade them they won't go I guess, and they often have grandchildren and like going outdoors, and there may be a small voice in the back of their mind that knows that they would feel bad if they were responsible for ending civilization. But that is a distant echo, which can be easily drowned out with Venezuelan hookers, whiskey, Fox News, and Rush Limbaugh.

350 ppm trumps politics. (many enviros think the tipping point for climate collapse will be 350 parts per million CO2 equivalent in the atmposphere, the IPCC sometimes refers to 450 ppm as a goal for 2050 or 2100, this blog has a graphic that shows our current ppm). But there's no silver bullet single solution to climate change, so we should support anything that reduces coal use. It's not clear if ACES will, but it might be a step towards it (squinting, wishing). Maybe strategic opposition can improve the bill, providing a story for the media to cover ("enviros say bill is too weak, allocations should go to consumers not utilities").

If ACES passes, which I think would be a victory for recognition of climate change as a problem, there will still be lots of work to be done, so don't hang up your hat and call it a day yet. Sorry, you can't take the rest of the day off.