New ‘putrid’ Great Barrier Reef legislation from the ‘radical green extremists’

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9FebCairns-Daintree

"Images captured by CSIRO show large plumes of terrestrial material following unconventional patterns and travelling quite fast as far as 65 to 130km, to the outer reef and, in some instances, travelling along the outer reef and re-entering the reef" (Febuary 2007 - click through the image for the CSIRO summary)

Protection of the Great Barrier Reef is usually a pretty contentious issue in Queensland. Just last night a law was passed in through parliment aiming to half the amount of pesticides entering the Great Barrier Reef lagoon from the catchments in under four years time. In order to achieve this, there needs to be significant change in farming practices, and those who fail to comply will face fines of upto $30,000. According to  Liberal National Party Member of Parliament Rob Messenger, it’s all a secret deal with the green lobbyists:

“If there was ever proof of an unprecedented level of corruption, it is this putrid piece of legislation”

According to the North Queensland Member of Parliament Shane Knuth:

“This issue of nutrients of farmers that are killing the Great Barrier Reef – the evidence of the scientists proves that it’s just a fable, it’s a myth”

“The Bligh Government’s approach in demonising farmers to seek to reward the radical green extremists.”

Fables and myths from radical green extremists? Really? Consider this: levels of herbicides on the Great Barrier Reef are toxic enough to induce bleaching in corals,  alter seagrass function by inhibiting photosynthesis (with knock-on effect to dugong feeding areas), impact on the early life stages of corals (along with reducing their reproductive output), and cause severe dieback in mangroves (which act as nursery areas for juvenile reef fish). Oh, and levels of herbicides are now commonplace in sediments and seagrasses, across river mouths and inshore reefs on the GBR.

So what “evidence of the scientists proves that it’s just a fable, just a myth”? Certainly not a paper written earlier this year (“Agricultural lands are hot-spots for annual runoff polluting the southern Great Barrier Reef lagoon“) concluded that “…grazing lands contribute the majority of the long-term average annual load of most common pollutants”, and suggested that “improved land management targets, rather than water quality targets should be implemented to reduce GBR pollution”.

Arctic sea ice extent remains low; 2009 sees third-lowest mark

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Figure 1. Arctic sea ice extent for September 2009 was 5.36 million square kilometers (2.07 million square miles), the third-lowest in the satellite record. The magenta line shows the median ice extent for September from 1979 to 2000.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) released a press release yesterday about recent trends in Arctic sea ice.  Highlights include:

“At the end of the Arctic summer, more ice cover remained this year than during the previous record-setting low years of 2007 and 2008.” – relatively good news, sure to be seized upon by CC skeptics as evidence that AGW has “taken a break”, that the earth is cooling, etc.

But wait; “September sea ice extent was the third lowest since the start of satellite records in 1979, and the past five years have seen the five lowest ice extents in the satellite record.” OK, put the champagne away…

And to make the dire state of the Arctic clear; “We still expect to see ice-free summers sometime in the next few decades”  “ice extent was still 1.68 million square kilometers (649,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 September average”  “Arctic sea ice is now declining at a rate of 11.2 percent per decade, relative to the 1979 to 2000 average”  “ice extent was still 1.68 million square kilometers (649,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 September average (Figure 2). Arctic sea ice is now declining at a rate of 11.2 percent per decade, relative to the 1979 to 2000 average (Figure 3).”  – Bummer.

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Figure 3. September ice extent from 1979 to 2009 shows a continued decline. The September rate of sea ice decline since 1979 has now increased to 11.2 percent per decade.

6 October 2009

Arctic sea ice extent remains low; 2009 sees third-lowest mark

At the end of the Arctic summer, more ice cover remained this year than during the previous record-setting low years of 2007 and 2008. However, sea ice has not recovered to previous levels. September sea ice extent was the third lowest since the start of satellite records in 1979, and the past five years have seen the five lowest ice extents in the satellite record.

NSIDC Director and Senior Scientist Mark Serreze said, “It’s nice to see a little recovery over the past couple years, but there’s no reason to think that we’re headed back to conditions seen back in the 1970s. We still expect to see ice-free summers sometime in the next few decades.”

The average ice extent over the month of September, a reference comparison for climate studies, was 5.36 million square kilometers (2.07 million square miles) (Figure 1). This was 1.06 million square kilometers (409,000 square miles) greater than the record low for the month in 2007, and 690,000 square kilometers (266,000 square miles) greater than the second-lowest extent in 2008. However, ice extent was still 1.68 million square kilometers (649,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 September average (Figure 2). Arctic sea ice is now declining at a rate of 11.2 percent per decade, relative to the 1979 to 2000 average (Figure 3).

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Figure 2. The updated time series plot puts this summer’s sea ice extent in context with other years. The solid light blue line indicates 2009; the dashed green line shows 2007; the dark blue line shows 2008, the light-green line shows 2005; the solid gray line indicates average extent from 1979 to 2000, and the gray area indicates the two standard deviation range of the data.

Sea surface temperatures in the Arctic this season remained higher than normal, but slightly lower than the past two years, according to data from Mike Steele at the University of Washington in Seattle. The cooler conditions, which resulted largely from cloudy skies during late summer, slowed ice loss compared to the past two years (Figure 4). In addition, atmospheric patterns in August and September helped to spread out the ice pack, keeping extent higher.

The ice cover remained thin, leaving the ice cover vulnerable to melt in coming summers. Scientists use satellites to measure ice age, a proxy for ice thickness. This year, younger (less than one year old), thinner ice, which is more vulnerable to melt, accounted for 49 percent of the ice cover at the end of summer. Second-year ice made up 32 percent, compared to 21 percent in 2007 and 9 percent in 2008 (Figure 5). Only 19 percent of the ice cover was over 2 years old, the least in the satellite record and far below the 1981-2000 average of 52 percent. Earlier this summer, NASA researcher Ron Kwok and colleagues from the University of Washington in Seattle published satellite data showing that ice thickness declined by 0.68 meters (2.2 feet) between 2004 and 2008.

NSIDC Scientist Walt Meier said, “We’ve preserved a fair amount of first-year ice and second-year ice after this summer compared to the past couple of years. If this ice remains in the Arctic through the winter, it will thicken, which gives some hope of stabilizing the ice cover over the next few years. However, the ice is still much younger and thinner than it was in the 1980s, leaving it vulnerable to melt during the summer.”

Arctic sea ice follows an annual cycle of melting and refreezing, melting through the warm summer months and refreezing in the winter. Sea ice reflects sunlight, keeping the Arctic region cool and moderating global climate. While Arctic sea ice extent varies from year to year because of changeable atmospheric conditions, ice extent has shown a dramatic overall decline over the past thirty years. During this time, ice extent has declined at a rate of 11.2 percent per decade during September (relative to the 1979 to 2000 average) (Figure 6), and about 3 percent per decade in the winter months.

NSIDC Lead Scientist Ted Scambos said, “A lot of people are going to look at that graph of ice extent and think that we’ve turned the corner on climate change. But the underlying conditions are still very worrisome.”

Reference

Kwok, R., and D. A. Rothrock. 2009. Decline in Arctic sea ice thickness from submarine and ICESat records: 1958–2008, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L15501, doi:10.1029/2009GL039035.

A key message, and one that Steve Sinclair explained in his awesome video that you can watch here, is that the thickness of arctic sea ice remains very thin, as this graphic depicts:

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Figure 5. These images compare ice age, a proxy for ice thickness, in 2007, 2008, 2009, and the 1981 to 2000 average. This year saw an increase in second-year ice (in blue) over 2008. At the end of summer 2009, 32 percent of the ice cover was second-year ice. Three-year and older ice were 19 percent of the total ice cover, the lowest in the satellite record.

Update: just noticed that Andrew Revkin has a slightly more optimistic impression of the NSIDC press release and findings than I did.

Climate denial crock of the week video: arctic melting

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Another great video by Peter Sinclair, this time addressing confusion (to put it charitably) over changes in arctic sea ice, an issue we have covered repeatedly here on CS, e.g., here, here and here.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nruCRcbnY0&w=425&h=344]

See the NYT series on Arctic melting here and go to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) here and check out their Sea Ice Index site here.   This is a great and easy to use resource that includes daily sea ice images, ice trend graphics, etc. You can choose the  month you want to look at and make your own plot!  Fun!

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Meet Billy Causey; video interview with a coral reef conservation pioneer

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Billy Causey is the Southeast Regional Director for the National Marine Sanctuary Program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Billy managed National Marine Sanctuaries in the Florida Keys since 1983, when he became the Manager of the Looe Key National Marine Sanctuary. As the manager of this marine protected area he developed the education, science and enforcement programs and sustained an interagency partnership between the state and federal governments. He served as the Superintendent of the 2900 square nautical mile Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary from August 1991 to September 2, 2006, when he assumed his current position. Billy has been the lead National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) official in the development of the management plan for the Keys Sanctuary, including development of this nation’s first comprehensive marine zoning plan. He led efforts to establish the largest network of fully protected areas in the continental US.

In the interview below from the Yale Forum on Climate Change, Billy discusses the impacts of climate change on reefs in the Fl Keys and elsewhere.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifX2nCU625E&w=560&h=340]

Also see the article in the Yale Forum on the new US Federal research program (or at least plans for one) on ocean acidification, by Mark Schrope, a freelance science writer who frequently covers coral reefs, global change and related environmental issues.  Mark also wrote another recent article for the Yale Forum on reefs here.

“Chilling message from wear-nothing activists to do-nothing politicians”

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Slightly old news, but I just came across this piece from Greenpeace featured on BBC News. US Artist Spencer Tunick encouraged 600 people to on the Aletsch Glacier in the Swiss Alps  in the name of climate change. Here is Greenpeace’s take on the event:

An emergency provokes extreme responses: human beings in danger will abandon social niceties, etiquette, and the norms of acceptable behaviour to raise an alarm any way they can when lives are in danger. Today, six hundred people shed their clothes on a glacier in the Swiss Alps to bodily cry out for help against a planetary emergency: global warming.
Without clothes, the human body is vulnerable, exposed, its life or death at the whim of the elements. Global warming is stripping away our glaciers and leaving our entire planet vulnerable to extreme weather, floods, sea-level rise, global decreases in carrying capacity and agricultural production, fresh water shortages, disease and mass human dislocations.

If global warming continues at its current rate, most glaciers in Switzerland will completely disappear by 2080, leaving nothing but valleys and slopes strewn with rock debris. Over the last 150 years, alpine glaciers have reduced in size by approximately one third of their surface and half of their mass, and this melting is accelerating. The Aletsch Glacier retreated 115 meters (377 feet) in a single year from 2005 to 2006.

Read more here (or check out a whole bunch more pictures here), and be sure to take a look at the French Greenpeace take on nudist vineyards (“Saving the wines of France from climate change“)

Microdocumentaries, Steve Palumbi and ocean acidification

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Professor Steve Palumbi of Stanford University is pioneering the use of small ‘to the point’ videos (‘microdocs’) to illustrate important issues that face the ocean.  In this one, he outlines (with superb clarity) the issue of ocean acidification and illustrates why it is such a serious threat to marine ecosystems like coral reefs.  While Steve is using stronger acid than ultimately will be seen in the world’s oceans as they acidify (essentially speeding up the process), he illustrates the key nature of the threat in a way that anyone could understand. Well done – check out Steve’s page for more microdocs on a whole range of environmental topics, including coral bleaching, crown of thorns, marine parks and why it really sucks to be a tuna.

The coral reef crisis: The critical importance of

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Temperature-induced mass coral bleaching causing mortality on a wide geographic scale started when atmospheric CO2 levels exceeded 320 ppm. When CO2 levels reached 340 ppm, sporadic but highly destructive mass bleaching occurred in most reefs world-wide, often associated with El Niño events. Recovery was dependent on the vulnerability of individual reef areas and on the reef’s previous history and resilience. At today’s level of 387 ppm, allowing a lag-time of 10 years for sea temperatures to respond, most reefs world-wide are committed to an irreversible decline. Mass bleaching will in future become annual, departing from the 4 to 7 years return-time of El Niño events. Bleaching will be exacerbated by the effects of degraded water-quality and increased severe weather events. In addition, the progressive onset of ocean acidification will cause reduction of coral growth and retardation of the growth of high magnesium calcite-secreting coralline algae. If CO2 levels are allowed to reach 450 ppm (due to occur by 2030–2040 at the current rates), reefs will be in rapid and terminal decline world-wide from multiple synergies arising from mass bleaching, ocean acidification, and other environmental impacts. Damage to shallow reef communities will become extensive with consequent reduction of biodiversity followed by extinctions. Reefs will cease to be large-scale nursery grounds for fish and will cease to have most of their current value to humanity. There will be knock-on effects to ecosystems associated with reefs, and to other pelagic and benthic ecosystems. Should CO2 levels reach 600 ppm reefs will be eroding geological structures with populations of surviving biota restricted to refuges. Domino effects will follow, affecting many other marine ecosystems. This is likely to have been the path of great mass extinctions of the past, adding to the case that anthropogenic CO2 emissions could trigger the Earth’s sixth mass extinction.

J.E.N. Veron, O. Hoegh-Guldberg, T.M. Lenton, J.M. Lough, D.O. Obura, P. Pearce-Kelly, C.R.C. Sheppard, M. Spalding, M.G. Stafford-Smith, A.D. Rogers (2009) The coral reef crisis: The critical importance of <350 ppm CO2. Marine Pollution Bulletin 58:1428-1436

Alaskan King salmon fishery collapses

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Must be global warming… (just kidding, but it could be).   From todays NYT:

By STEFAN MILKOWSKI

MARSHALL, Alaska — Just a few years ago, king salmon played an outsize role in villages along the Yukon River. Fishing provided meaningful income, fed families throughout the year, and kept alive long-held traditions of Yup’ik Eskimos and Athabascan Indians.

But this year, a total ban on commercial fishing for king salmon on the river in Alaska has strained poor communities and stripped the prized Yukon fish off menus in the lower 48 states. Unprecedented restrictions on subsistence fishing have left freezers and smokehouses half-full and hastened a shift away from a tradition of spending summers at fish camps along the river.

“This year, fishing is not really worth it,” said Aloysius Coffee, a commercial fisherman in Marshall who used to support his family and pay for new boats and snow machines with fishing income.

At a kitchen table cluttered with cigarettes and store-bought food, Mr. Coffee said he fished for the less valuable chum salmon this summer but spent all his earnings on permits and gasoline. “You got to sit there and count your checkbook, how much you’re going to spend each day,” he said.

The cause of the weak runs, which began several years ago, remains unclear. But managers of the small king salmon fishery suspect changes in ocean conditions are mostly to blame, and they warn that it may be years before the salmon return to the Yukon Riverin large numbers.

Salmon are among the most determined of nature’s creatures. Born in fresh water, the fish spend much of their lives in the ocean before fighting their way upriver to spawn and die in the streams of their birth.

While most salmon populations in the lower 48 states have been in trouble for decades, thanks to dam-building and other habitat disruptions, populations in Alaska have generally remained healthy. The state supplies about 40 percent of the world’s wild salmon, and the Marine Stewardship Council has certified Alaska’s salmon fisheries as sustainable. (In the global market, sales of farmed salmon surpassed those of wild salmon in the late 1990s.)

For decades, runs of king, or chinook, salmon — the largest and most valuable of Alaska’s five salmon species — were generally strong and dependable on the Yukon River. But the run crashed in the late 1990s, and the annual migrations upriver have varied widely since then. “You can’t depend on it any more,” said Steve Hayes, who manages the fishery for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Officials with that department and the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, which jointly manage the fishery, say variations in ocean conditions related to climate change or natural cycles are probably the main cause of the weak salmon runs. Certain runs of chinook salmon in California and Oregon have been weak as well in recent years, with ocean conditions also suspected.

In Alaska, fishermen also blame the Bering Sea pollock fishing fleet, which scoops up tens of thousands of king salmon each year as accidental by-catch. The first hard cap on salmon by-catch is supposed to take effect in 2011, but the cap is not tough enough to satisfy Yukon River fishermen.

The Yukon River fishery accounts for a small fraction of the state’s commercial salmon harvest. But the fish themselves are considered among the best in the world, prized for the extraordinary amount of fat they put on before migrating from the Bering Sea to spawning grounds in Alaska and Canada, a voyage of 2,000 miles in some cases.

Most commercial fishing is done on the Yukon River delta, where mountains disappear and the river branches into fingers on its way to the sea. Eskimos fish with aluminum skiffs and nets from villages inaccessible by road. Beaches serve as depots and gathering places.

Kwik’Pak Fisheries, in Emmonak, population 794, is one of the few industrial facilities in the region. Forklifts cross muddy streets separating storage buildings, processing facilities and a bunkhouse for employees from surrounding villages.

For decades, almost all commercially caught king salmon were sold to buyers in Japan. But in 2004, Kwik’Pak began marketing the fish domestically, and for a few years fish-lovers in the lower 48 could find Yukon River kings at upscale restaurants and stores.

Profiles in courage: Joe Barton of the US house

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I have been meaning for some time to do a few profiles on the impressive gentlemen representing our great nation in the US House of Representatives.

So lets meet house member Joe Barton (R-Texas): Joe Barton was born on September 15, 1949 in Waco, Texas. An avid baseball player growing up, he earned a four-year Gifford-Hill Opportunity Award scholarship to Texas A&M University, where he was the outstanding industrial engineering student for the Class of 1972. After earning a Master’s of Science degree in Industrial Administration from Purdue University, he joined Ennis Business Forms, where he rose to the position of Assistant to the Vice President. In 1981, he was selected for the prestigious White House Fellows Program, and served as an aide to then-Energy Secretary James B. Edwards. He returned to Texas in 1982 as a natural gas decontrol consultant for Atlantic Richfield Oil and Gas Company before being elected to Congress.

“Wind is God’s way of balancing heat. Wind is the way you shift heat from areas where it’s hotter to areas where it’s cooler. That’s what wind is. Wouldn’t it be ironic if in the interest of global warming we mandated massive switches to energy, which is a finite resource, which slows the winds down, which causes the temperature to go up? Now, I’m not saying that’s going to happen, Mr. Chairman, but that is definitely something on the massive scale. I mean, it does make some sense. You stop something, you can’t transfer that heat, and the heat goes up. It’s just something to think about.” – Joe Barton, from a March 10 House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing (thanks to Matthew Delong at the Washington Independent)

“It’s just something to think about.”  – it is indeed

Rep. Joe Barton: Global Warming? No Problem — We’ll Adapt!

By AARON WIENER 3/26/09 1:42 PM

Remember Joe Barton (R-Texas)? The ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee who admitted recently that he’s “probably below average in [his] ability to understand” the nuts and bolts of climate change legislation? Well, he just had some more invaluable insights into global warming. His basic message: No biggie — humans can adapt.

He opened his statement at a congressional hearing yesterday as follows: “Today’s hearing is about adaptation. Adapting is a common natural way for people to adapt to their environment.”

Can’t argue with that. More questionable is his assessment of global warming in the same hearing:

“I think that it’s inevitable that humanity will adapt to global warming. I also believe the longer we postpone finding ways to do it successfully, the more expensive and unpalatable the adjustment will become. Adaptation to shifts in temperature is not that difficult. What will be difficult is the adaptation to rampant unemployment — enormous, spontaneous and avoidable changes to our economy — if we adopt such a reckless policy as cap-and-tax or cap-and-trade.”

If that seems dubious to you, here’s his solid evidence that adaptation has worked in the past: “During the Little Ice Age, both the Vikings and the British adapted to the cold by changing. I suppose that one possible adaptation response of Viking retrenchment and British expansion is that we’re conducting the hearing today in English instead of Norwegian.”

Irrefutable logic. Remember, this guy used to be chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. The future of our planet was basically in his hands.

But I can’t do him justice. Watch the full clip below:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2bM5_Pe-rw&w=425&h=344]

And below is Representative Barton’s recent op-ed on climate change and cap and trade in “The Hill”:

Op-Ed: Capping jobs, trading in misery — wrong answers to global warming

What’s wrong with Congress’s approach to global warming? Nearly everything

For starters, to achieve the Waxman-Markey legislation’s 83 percent baseline reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2050, we will have to reduce the CO2 output in the United States to the level that we had back in 1910. On a per capita basis, assuming the population is going to average about 1 percent growth a year, the legislation gets us to 1875.

Oddly, George Will said nearly the same thing in his silly WaPost op-ed Thursday: “The U.S. goal is an 80 percent reduction by 2050. But Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute says that would require reducing greenhouse gas emissions to the 1910 level. On a per capita basis, it would mean emissions approximately equal to those in 1875.”

To make good on that back-to-the-future design, the Energy and Commerce Committee worked hard earlier this year. It took 37 hours over four days of methodically rejecting 56 separate Republican efforts to learn the full cost of the bill, to prevent scams in its trading system and even get the federal regulators out of hot tubs.

What the?!

In the end, the 946-page Waxman-Markey global warming bill that we produced was passed on a vote of 33-25. It now stands as the vehicle of choice for making good on the Speaker’s promise to tackle global warming.

I think Republicans have legitimate and serious concerns about this redirection of our energy policy in America, and we shouldn’t be alone. Energy is the bedrock of a free-market economy that has become the most productive and the largest in the world. A third of the world’s GDP is based on the United States economy, and that economy for more than 150 years has been based on a free-market allocation of resources in the energy sector.

The focus of our efforts is on carbon dioxide, however. It’s just .038 percent of the Earth’s atmosphere, and the man-made component is just .01 percent. Nor is CO2 a pollutant in any rational sense of the word. It is a naturally occurring, indispensable part of life, and it correlates directly to growth in jobs and economic opportunity for Americans. We’ve seen a nearly CO2-free society before, but Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge hardly seems like a model for world prosperity and individual happiness.

Now THAT is a low blow!

Secondly, the system of allowances on which the pending legislation relies is flawed right from its basic math to the way in which the allowances were given away to gain political support among the recipients.

For example, the transportation sector today is responsible for 35 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, yet transportation gets a grand total of 2.25 percent of the allowances. Come 2050, when CO2 emissions are supposed to be cut by 83 percent, it seems like the transportation sector will need to be cut drastically. Assuming we don’t develop some sort of emission-free power for airplanes, general aviation is going to have to use fossil fuel or planes won’t fly. It seems to me that it is simply a physical impossibility to get to that 83 percent reduction. On top of that, instead of auctioning the emissions permits, as President Barack Obama promised, we’ve given away 85 percent in order to generate industry support for the legislation.

Next, no matter how you cut it, costs are going up. The CEO of the utility that provides most of the electricity for Iowa says that in Iowa alone, costs are going to go up nearly $400 a year per residential customer.

Yes, approximately $1 a day.  Less than a Latte.

Also, the Energy Information Administration predicts price rises of between 35 cents and $1.28 per gallon for gasoline. If you take a conservative projection of, say, 50 cents a gallon, a family with two working parents could pay about $800 a year more for fuel.

Well, only assuming the family doesn’t change their behavior and use less fuel.

Then there’s the green jobs revolution. They’ve been trying that in Spain, and what their experience tells us is that for every green job created, two conventional jobs are lost. Moreover, the cost of green job creation in Spain is about $1.2 million per job in government subsidies.

Ahhhh, the Spanish paradigm.  Being one of the true technological powerhouses of the planet, if the Spanish can’t do it, nobody can.

Finally, evidence is mounting that the EPA’s pivotal endangerment finding was based on a process that suppressed countervailing opinion from career staff. In an e-mail from a supervisor, one longtime EPA staffer was told bluntly that “the administrator and the administration has decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision …” In fact, his doubts were hazardous to his office, the boss warned.

Nice try, but this “career staffer” whose name is Alan Carlin is an economist with the EPA and as John Broder at the NYT describes:  “Dr. Carlin’s highly skeptical views on global warming, which have been known for more than a decade within the small unit where he works, have been repeatedly challenged by scientists inside and outside the E.P.A.; that he holds a doctorate in economics, not in atmospheric science or climatology; that he has never been assigned to work on climate change; and that his comments on the endangerment finding were a product of rushed and at times shoddy scholarship, as he acknowledged Thursday in an interview.  Dr. Carlin admitted that his report had been poorly sourced and written. He blamed the tight deadline.”

Some say the clock is ticking, and we must act boldly and right now. At the same time, nobody’s quite sure what happens next with the Waxman-Markey bill because the longer it lies exposed to examination, the more it disappoints.

Whatever happens next, I hope Democrats and Republicans can find some way to apply common sense to what we’re doing. We don’t want the cost of energy to bankrupt working people; we want them to drive what they want to drive and go where they need to go, and we want them to keep their jobs. That doesn’t seem too much for the people who inhabit this world to expect of us.