In U.S. Senate, Climate Change Bill Dies With a Whimper

Cap and tax has shown to be more of a crippling economic hindrance than it has a boon to the environment anywhere similar bills have been passed and given the current American government's penchant for loading already-enormous bills with massive amounts of unrelated tagalong regulations, I wouldn't begin to trust the government with the passage of something so enormous and transformative.

Also, I have to ask why Popular Science is reprinting (or whatever you call the online equivalent) stories from NYT.

Huzzah!
A few more months for us to still get to have both food AND heat/ cooling. Yes! The green/oil billionaires are wringing their hands thinking of all the lost cap and trade profits for these months. Poor billionaires they must be very frustrated, all the politicians that money can buy and still no go. I do feel for them.

@ Mycellium:

I can't tell if that's sarcasm or not, but this IS another economic loss for The Crazed Sex Poodle.

@ Sphaerus

Oh, you can be pretty sure it IS sarcasm, and rightly so. Cap and tax would be yet another nail in the coffin of economic woes that is being buried in America. Its postponement means only that life support is hanging in there a little while longer.

I wonder about the linking stories too. I already read this in the Times...

Thank god (figure of speech) that this bill did not pass. A utility I used to work for did a study about what this would have done to electricity prices for their customers. They were talking about an 80% increase IMMEDIATELY if the bill were to pass. People don't understand what it would have done for areas where electricity is made predominately from "America's oil".

I was serious about being happy it didn't pass, fear that it is just a postponement there is too much money there for them to let it go so easily, serious in the belief that all the people who scream at others "you must own oil stock" if you don't support cap and trade are idiots, oil and green are tied together in a perfect match and serious that politicians are often on the take especially when this much money is on the table.

I was sarcastic in that I feel for the poor oil/green billionaires, I don't.

@ Mycellium:

There's some hope in the fact that the con of anthropogenic global warming being "proven science" is slowly but surely losing traction with the majority of people. As of late, the only people I've seen how wet themselves over us causing global warming/climate change are ultra-left liberal dolts and the scientific bourgeoisie who are themselves complicit in the suppression of dissenting opinions and, more egregiously, dissenting facts.

With a larger group of the American political constituency starting to actually give a damn about how the country run, it stands to reason that this kind of sweeping, hamfisted and moronic "climate change legislation" won't be a threat for some time to come. To boot, it's not the death of conservation at large. I do worry about the backlash of anthropogenic global warming's failure leading to people not caring about the environment, but one only has to remember that people like Teddy Roosevelt and Ladybird Johnson were conservationists and environmentalists without the looming specter of anthropogenic climate change.

We don't need to Cap n' anything to solve America's and the worlds energy issues.

The cost to replace all fossil fuels - mostly imported - in the US with clean and green nuclear power would be covered by fossil fuel savings . Energy Sec Chu is slowly pounding this into Obama's thick head.

Federal Agency Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is an excellent example of this, using government money to finish two nuclear reactors previously uncompleted.

A worldwide investment in 10000 mass produced nuclear reactors paid for by ending expensive fossil fuel use, would eliminate most air pollution saving millions of lives annually, end the global warming/ peak oil problem within a ten year time frame, provide a huge job producing boost to the economy, and require only a small part of our industrial capacity.

The simple, easy, cheap solution to the entire energy/peak oil/ climate warming problem starts with a conversion from coal and NG electricity and heating applications to mass produced nuclear electricity. The freed up gas would be available to make CNG, methanol, DME (propane), and synfuel transportation fuels.

T Boone Pickens knows full well that wind mills use more gas than the natural gas generators they replace because they need the low efficiency fast spooling type plant for load balancing.

The US would need 2500 gigawatts of mass produced nukes at $2500B financed by the $800B paid every year into the coffers of Big Oil/Coal for their deadly products.

Currently Asian nukes are under $1.4B/Gw and 1.5 cents a kwh.Out current nuke operating cost is under 2 cents a kwh way less than coal or NG. AECL and Westinghouse are predicting less than half that for their new mass produced Gen 3+ units.

Like TVA and Bonneville Obama needs to start a giant public power nuke corporation charged with replacing all of America's coal plants on site with a single national license.

The only thing in the way is America's corrupt political system with virtually all legislators bought and paid for by Big Oil.

The words bipartisan and climate change don't belong in the same headline. (oh wait, this is popular science, where they believe climate change is science. I bet most of the writers here are surprised when the weather-man is wrong too).

Say what you want about Republicans, they're the only ones holding back those raving democrats from passing every piece of garbage they can dream up.

It's been almost 250 years now, and we still haven't learned our lesson when it comes to legislature: "99.999% of the time, no law is better than the best law congress can write."

There is no "green" industry that needs "government help" right now. Seriously. Doesn't anyone remember what happened when horses were replaced with motor carriages? No one wrote laws to help the horses or the cars! Things sorted themselves out just fine. Late adopters paid too much for horses, and early adopters paid too much for cars.

The same will be true as we migrate to electric cars (or coal and nuclear powered cars... folks, never forget where that energy will have to come from and be thankful we have nuclear power). Early adopters of electric cars will pay too much for them, and late adopters of electric cars will pay too much to operate old gasoline vehicles.

THE FREE MARKET WILL SORT THIS OUT JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER PRODUCT MIGRATION IN THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION!

In the province of Ontario we have a new initiative to reduce green house gas. The government is paying a significant premium on power generated from solar panels that are installed on roofs. up to 8 times the cost of normally purchasing electricity. This gives incentive for home owners and businesses to install the panels.

The highest consumptions of electricity happen during hot days when air conditioners kick in. The solar panels all produce the most electricity at these peak usage times preventing us from having to purchase at excessively high prices from our friendly neighbors to the south.

So far this seems to be working as the government is so bombarded with applications, that the average wait time to hear back from an application is over 6 months.

These are exciting times for green energy in Canada.

Last year, the climate change law got stalled in the Senate after congress passed its own legislation. They wanted a cap and trade system where polluters can trade credits for emissions that have crossed a set threshold. Apparently, the republicans did not like it but supporters say its the best way to start reducing America's dependence on oil. www.solar-energy-advantages-blog.com

man-bear-pig is going to be very disappointed...

There is sure a lot to keep track of as the Environmental subject heats up no pun intended.

No matter what side you are on, the need for more awareness about our actions and the effects it has on the environment is not a bad thing.

I read as much as I can and visit www.Carbonizm.com quite often for update info on the subject. Popular Science is cutting edge too. You cannot get enough information on the subjet that is so new.

Spread the word for anyone and everyone to get educated by reading data from authority sites with no ax to grind.

@webster70 "get educated by reading data from authority sites with no ax to grind"

To all of our detriment I don't think there are any. not any more.

I looked at your site you posted. That was a very biased site. Its sad that some are so far gone from scientific detachment, that they might see it as not.