Monday, June 29, 2009

Treason Against the Planet

Paul Krugman notes a little denying go on regarding the health of our planet. Haley Barbour told of the republican idea of energy yesterday, nothing that we didn't already know: Drill baby drill and clean coal. Use up our own resources, he said.
It truly will be remarkable if this bill passes the Senate. Apparently, there are a few things still to work out before it's finalized.
Obama will talk more about energy today at 1:15 p.m. eastern.
So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement.

But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases.

And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.

To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research.

The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected: ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate. And according to a number of recent studies, catastrophe — a rise in temperature so large as to be almost unthinkable — can no longer be considered a mere possibility. It is, instead, the most likely outcome if we continue along our present course. Read the rest at NYT