Heads in the sand

Submitted by cjmalone on Sun, 07/25/2010 - 11:10pm

It is amazing to me that the Democrats, fearing a GOP fillibuster, are dropping the carbon cap part of the Climate and Energy bill set for a vote soon. This move takes the teeth out of the bill in terms of giving a price to carbon divestiture by companies that would invest with some financial assuredness on clean energy options.

Locally Republicans are likewise keeping their heads in the sand. My opponent for the NC Senate District 15, Sen. Neal Hunt, Republican incumbent, recently voted against the extension of the NC Climate Change Commission (SB 835), an important body needed to keep tabs on this critical aspect of our environment.

I don't know who's going to win these battles this year, but we all will have grandchildren to answer to about what goes today, and if we were looking out for them, or for ourselves.

Charles Malone
www.charlesmalonencsenate.com

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Well said, Charles

Submitted by James on Mon, 07/26/2010 - 8:05am.

Tom Friedman has a sobering column in the New York Times yesterday.

I could blame Republicans for the fact that not one G.O.P. senator indicated a willingness to vote for a bill that would put the slightest price on carbon. I could blame the Democratic senators who were also waffling. I could blame President Obama for his disappearing act on energy and spending more time reading the polls than changing the polls. I could blame the Chamber of Commerce and the fossil-fuel lobby for spending bags of money to subvert this bill. But the truth is, the public, confused and stressed by the last two years, never got mobilized to press for this legislation. We will regret it.

We’ve basically decided to keep pumping greenhouse gases into Mother Nature’s operating system and take our chances that the results will be benign — even though a vast majority of scientists warn that this will not be so. Fasten your seat belts. As the environmentalist Rob Watson likes to say: “Mother Nature is just chemistry, biology and physics. That’s all she is.” You cannot sweet-talk her. You cannot spin her. You cannot tell her that the oil companies say climate change is a hoax. No, Mother Nature is going to do whatever chemistry, biology and physics dictate, and “Mother Nature always bats last, and she always bats 1.000,” says Watson. Do not mess with Mother Nature. But that is just what we’re doing.

Do good. Be nice. Have fun.