Mr Romm, you are right. "Global warming" is not going to be addressed by the sort of incremental, namby-pamby half-measures proposed in this bill. If the supposed warming trend (so frighteningly depicted in Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," albeit by splicing in Hollywood special effects footage) is actually caused by human activity, then of course human activity must be stopped. I suggest something along the lines of an A-H1N1 type virus to slow 'em down; then maybe mandatory vaccines as the coup de grace?

Meantime, please help me with some pieces of the puzzle: can you quantify the Sun's role in climate change? What percentage of atmospheric CO2 is produced by the reaction of escaping subsurface methane with oxygen? Does the rate of this process vary? If so, how much? What's the ratio of atmospheric CO2 generated by human activity compared with that produced by Earth processes? How much warming is caused by volcanism? Is volcanism increasing? If so, is there a link between increased polar volcanism and rising circumpolar sea temperatures? Is global spraying of metallic salts into the atmosphere affecting the Earth's albedo? Is the planet's current climate variance within known parameters?

Lastly, Mr Romm, what do you drive?

is the opperative word.

This fantasy, including the fantasy that the human race is the guiding force in global warming, will go the way of the dodo.

And quoting lloyd doggett as he flip flops is hilarious. I've spoken with him and listened to his tortured reasoning when he comes to speak to our chamber and he is hardly a voice of reason.

"listening to the flat earth society and the climate deniers, and some of the most inane arguments I have heard against refusing to act on this VITAL NATIONAL SECURITY CHALLENGE."

Will someone please explain where a climate bill impacts our national security? I may have missed that argument.

It's not the 'when we use foreign oil we jeopardize our security' argument, is it?

We have endured all the Middle East turmoil over the last 40 years and come out relatively unscathed.

If the argument is, in fact, the fear of $5 a gallon gasoline because of Middle East political risk, then shouldn't we fear $5 a gallon gasoline from the higher costs that this bill self-imposes on US citizens?

Shouldn't we fear all the other hidden taxes that will eventually cost each family of four an extra $20,000 a year in hidden costs? Isn't this the 'political risk' that we Americans are self-inflicting from voting for liberal progressives who favor bills such as Cap and Trade?

Is it the 'in saving the Earth we save ourselves' argument?

I mean, if China and India are polluting in the same magnitude as the United States but REFUSE to reduce their carbon usage (just the opposite in fact, China is rapidly and unabashedly buying up all the fossil fuel resources it can find to aid it's development) what does that do for 'saving the Earth?' Absolutely nothing!

Doesn't that inperil our 'national security?' When your very existence is in peril, sane people or groups of people mobilize into action, right? Are we willing to go to war, economic or otherwise, with these two? How would our 'Green Industrial Complex' ever be able to influence their 'Military Industrial Complex?'

Would we have any leverage at all since their tax base will be getting comparatively better at the expense of ours due to the business that will surely leave the US in favor of the relatively cheaper terms of trade China and India will be offering?

These are of course rhetorical questions but when dealing with liberal progressives, the only reality is wrecking reality.

This bill, like every other progressive policy idea (Medicare, Social Security, Welfare, etc.), is designed to create a set of dire circumstances to play on the fears of the American public and then lie about the future costs and consequences of the solution so as to get something written permanently into law now.

The ultimate goal? Control. It really has nothing to do with national security but has everything to do with destroying the American capitalist system and replacing it with another, more authoritarian system that merges environmental corporations with government in order to contol every aspect of American lives.

ENVIRONMENTALIST GREEN IS THE NEW FASCIST RED. Don't say you haven't been warned!

"This bill requires a 20 percent CO2 cut by 2020 compared to 2005 levels, a 42 percent cut by 2030 and a whopping 83 percent cut by 2050."

Too little, too late. This would have been a great bill in 1990 but now it's pathetic and short sighted. This is little more than rearanging the deck chairs of the Titanic.

If you find such Salon articles so distressing, why are you here?

Farragut, JC's and Mr.Jones vehement comments seem to be a poor way to start a day. Shouldn't you be watching FOX or listening to Rush or something that will validate your views of the world?

Many of us believe that the bill in question and this article offer a more positive future for all of us. Good of you I guess to give of your time and peace of mind to save us from ourselves.

You needn't really.

Farragut: “This fantasy, including the fantasy that the human race is the guiding force in global warming, will go the way of the dodo”

One word for you farragut: read? From your tortured prose I’m not sure if you are capable of this but if you have this wondrous and very useful ability, please do so you don’t sound like such a pathetic, sad and uninformed wanker.

jcjcjcjc: “This bill, like every other progressive policy idea (Medicare, Social Security, Welfare, etc.), is designed to create a set of dire circumstances to play on the fears of the American public …”

Hey jcjcjcjc, you should be grateful for Medicare, Social Security and Welfare because it’s pretty apparent that your profound apparent lack of intelligence will no doubt make you a ward of at least one of these programs in the near future.