jstevens,

Now I don't know if you are following the thread!

There is an excellent series of articles on carbon sequestering state of the art and costs in the March and May issues of Power Engineering, a trade journal, if you are interested.

There are several different technologies being investigated: These include the amine process, the ammonia process and the oxy-combustion process.

The amine process is the most mature. It is used commercially to scrub carbon dioxide out of natural gas. Evidently it would be very energy intensive to use to clean an exhaust stack. It requires that SO2 be scrubbed to lower limits than required by the EPA. It would take about 30% of the steam generated by burning the coal to regenerate the amine. It would cost about $500/kilowatt for the equipment.

The ammonia process does not require the extra scrubbing and does not require as much energy to work. The article wasn't real clear but I don't think it can scrub as well as the amine. It also has ammonia emissions potential. No costs were given.

Both the amine and the ammonia process can be added to an existing plant.

It is not as clear that the oxy-combustion process can be retrofitted to a plant. If it can, it is a bigger deal. In the oxy-combustion process oxygen is stripped from the incoming air. The oxygen is diluted with recirculated CO2 and used for combustion. The exhaust is then nothing but CO2 and water (and the usual dreck from coal combustion-SO2, mercury etc). The CO2 and water are easily separated and highly concentrated CO2 comes out in the exhaust. No costs are given for this system. The real loss in efficiency is the separation of oxygen and nitrogen.

Post if you read this.

Bill

Billy_y4: If you are still on this thread, perhaps you know the answer. I don't:--How much extra energy is used during the process of sequestration of CO-2, including transportation, liquefaction, and insertion? It seems like a lot of energy would be used (wasted) trying to force something into the Earth's crust.

bbr,

A good friend of mine has a favorite saying: "When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is: stop digging".

Using this principle, goal number one is to stop building new coal fired power plants. There is 19Gigawatts of new coal under construction in the US with another 21GW in planning.

Under the discussions for the failed Lieberman-Warner bill, the figure I saw was that about $50/ton of CO2 made coal non-competitive with alternatives (primarily nuclear). This is equivalent to about a $160/ton tax on coal. (Coal prices currently range from $15 to $100/ton at the mine. Average delivered price to utilities in 2006 was $34/ton.)

This would not need to be an immediate tax to effect planning for new coal plants. This could be a price 10 or 15 years out and it would change utility policies.

The second goal is to encourage the utilities to prematurely retire (or put to reserve) the existing coal fleet. My guess is that this would take a little bit higher tax, say $200/ton of coal. This could be a 20 year number.

We have already seen a drop in fossil fuel use in the transportation industry. The airlines are dropping flights and parking planes. Gasoline consumption has actually started dropping in the US. The only reason hybrids have not taken off more than they have is constraints in the supply of batteries. We can look for further drops in a couple of years as grid connected cars become generally available.

The effect of a uniform carbon tax would be comparitively minor on transportation. A tax of $100/ton of carbon is equivalent to about $12/barrel of oil or $0.28/gallon. I think the recent runup of oil prices will provide enough of a market shifting force that no further tax beyond the basic carbon tax would be necessary on fluid fuels.

Reviewing the above, I would suggest that the tax start out slow at say $5/ton of carbon immediately and increasing at $5/ton for the first 6 years. After 6 years it goes up at $10/ton for the next 20 years.

There does need to be a rebate or other incentive for utilities that sequester carbon dioxide. I don't think we can install nuclear fast enough for baseload and will continue to need coal fired generation. It just can't emit CO2.

I would advocate this sort of tax scheme only if all or most of the revenue generated were returned to the populace (preferably on a per capita basis).

Bill

billy: I'm trying to digest the tax idea. Trying to figure at what point fossil fuel use actually declines.

This bill would have been a series of steps in the wrong direction.
1) It left the door wide open for funding of nuclear energy, which would cost too much. Nuclear energy would take too many dollars away from the real solutions and would provide very little energy for the dollar. It also has waste, fuel cycle input and many other problems.
2) It would have given the President too much power to disregard other environmental and other laws.
3) It promoted cap and trade, or cappy, a cheap gimmick that will harness a whole new segment of government to enforce. Cappy is an outright invitation to fraud and corruption. Carbon tax is the way to go (see www.carbontax.org), with much less government oversight and much less chance of fraud and corruption.
There were many other problems with the bill, but those three would have been steps in the wrong direction.

wolf123. CO-2 levels have risen since the Industrial Revolution because we are burning in a few centuries, that which was formed over millions of years. So millions of years worth of stored carbon is being released into the atmosphere in a short period of time, causing CO_2 levels to rise to an unnatural state. If we stopped burning, CO-2 levels could return to their natural level, and they would stop there. There really is NO danger of them going too low as a result of the environmental movement. Burning caused the levels to go too high. Not burning could allow them to return to normal. But there is no way that "not burning" could allow them to drop "dangerously low". If CO-2 levels ever became too low in our lifetime, it would be the result of something far more powerful than man.

birdflu,

I think the methane production from cows is much the same whether they are range fed or grain fed. There are differences in the meat and more antibiotics are used with grain fed cattle but the methane is the same.

Bill

Karma's a bitch. You republican motherfuckers will get yours...

by the way we need to pass legislation forcing cattle raisers like ADM Cargill etc to feed their cattle only grass...a third of green house gases come from cows , chickens and other factory meat...this will make meat more expensive but so what we should only eat meat once a weak anyway for our health.

I believe the 554 billion $ corporate welfare check to the nuclear industry was put in to draw Republican support for the overall bill since it did not pass anyway the democrats should withdraw that welfare check and instead give tax breaks to users and producers of wind and solar power. Wind and Solar are already proving to be cheaper than oil as prices rise for oil and decline for wind and solar, in every senate and house race in the future only vote Democrat otherwise legislation will always be compromised to give welfare checks to loser corporations. Republicans have only one mission corporate welfare!

Culico and bbr,

I think you may have misread Henson's proposal. Simply stated, it taxes carbon. The taxes collected are distributed to the citizens equally.

It does not reward consumption. The money distributed is not based on consumption; it is per capita.

The proposal will raise the cost of fossil based energy. The revenues distributed will help the low and middle class citizens to cope with the higher costs.

You would get much the same effect if you impose a carbon tax and lower the income taxes to compensate for the increased revenue. This approach is not as friendly to the working poor and the unemployed, however.

Bill

I posted a link to an important article to read on "theory" (?) about global warming (I prefer 'climate change(s)') and humans purportedly being the main, some people saying sole, cause of this; and while the article is important to read, it's also going to be rejected by many people among the NON-experts and without even carefully considering what's said. So I suggest caution about rejecting without first and carefully reading and considering what other or true scientists say.

Those other people (those saying we're the main cause) propose a theory that I'm not sure scientifically qualifies as even 'theory', but as hypothesis, evidently accepted that is. Hhowever, I'll allow the claim of 'theory' for the sake of not making these humans-are-the-main-cause "theorists" only more rejective of what this important article provides. And the author of it, Andrew G. Marshall, says that he was a believer of the claim that we're the primary or sole cause, until having done some real research and given real consideration to what MANY scientists, ..., worldwide actually have said.

As his article states, the UN report from the whatever ... group or committee or whatever the group is or was (he states what it is) is NOT a panel of experts, or not only experts, or scientist experts with adequately relevant knowledge, so ability; saying that the so-called ... group of scientific experts and many they were purported to be are or is a sort of NGO and evidently related to [business] with one, sole intention, very focused; and not honest.

Anyway, and while I can't personally say whether what he says or reports is true, for not only can I easily realise that I'm not qualified to make such a scientific assessment, I nonetheless can and will say that his article is important to carefully read and keep in mind. He provides many links to supporting resources from mostly or all words of real scientists, including with respect to historically known scientific knowledge of truly scientific kind and dating over many centuries, including with specific relevance to the 20th and present centuries.

That cannot be scientifically neglected theory for any honest and critically reasonable people! If you want God's Knowledge on all of this, then do NOT ask me; ask Him! I only arrive at the best understandings that [I] personally can; I'm not a damn marketer, charlatan, and so on, only doing the best that I personally can with with what ... little I have. Well, Andrew Marshall doesn't provide little; it's ... plenty.

The rest, for 100% exactitude; heh, refer to God, not me, and so on. Can't refer to God? Well, don't count on politicians, ..., for they're about as apart from God as attainable; along with the masses of dumb-ass humans who are DEAF, BLIND, DUMB, and make mentally retarded people seem actually intelligent. I have a cousin who's long been mentally retarded, but learned long ago that it's not that he's dumb, but some other physiological sort of matter; he clearly told me of being persecuted, denigrated against, that sort of crap treatment by people at the school he attended, yet a loving, peaceful, ... guy and the others were all ignoramuses, maybe sometimes worse. He asked me to go take a walk with him and, along the way, he told me this, but while I had not doubt about his words, I was too young to have a real clue how to help.

Well, I still don't know how I could help such a person. Police? They never did me or my family any good whatso damn ever. Govt? Neither. Violence is crap. So what's left? Well, I guess trying to be [brother], understanding, ..., only too limited.

I try to LISTEN to everyone expressing a voice; EVERYONE. It's time fanatical Al Gore afficionados and likes stated LISTENING to others too, instead of only to their own "gospels"! This Christian has NO fear of people of other religious faiths, I LISTEN to and learn from all I come across, and the same applies to physical sciences. If I refuse to do that, then I can't say that I wish to be a real Christian, for the real MUST KEEP THEIR or our minds OPEN; can't go around blindly rejecting anyone else's views or statements, but reasonably examine [all]. Without that, there is NO real maturing in faith, etcetera. Brilliant atheists are better than most so-called Christians are, for the former people are [careful], while the latter? Shit, they'll kill all of humanity over some ludicrous notions or beliefs that even Biblical Scripture provides no real basis at all for believing. Much INSANITY!

I recommend looking at what I can't guarantee to be, but which sure strike me as examples of paths of social healings, and we need to know about the scientific theory that Andrew Marshall's article is about.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/06/9442/#comment-294434

If he is right in that article, then we better wake up to this and FAST; otherwise, we'll be following more charlatans trying sell another product and, this time, like Al Gore and so on; more than apparently have been trying to do and gaining fan-ship, idolation with. He is NO scientist at all and lied when he took credit for supposedly starting or pioneering, whatever the claim precisely was, the Internet or start of it. He should be growing potatoes and then you'd want to make sure that he's not adding the bs synthetic chemicals, etc.; else have him eat ALL of his then potatoes (not a bad idea, ya know, should anyway!).

Energy storage turns solar thermal power plants into base load power plants. 34kWh of thermal energy may be stored in a one ton cast iron ingot with a temperature differential of 600 deg F. This supplies ten residential households between daylight. If all of the US electricity consumption was supplied by solar thermal plants, the amount of cast iron for energy storage would be 20 million tons, or six days of worldwide iron production. So who needs fossil/nukes?

Wolf: Look at the Billy_y4 link posted above. That takes you to another link by James Hansen with a graph predicting how long it will take for CO2 levels to normalize if we stopped burning coal today. It will take centuries. Maybe increased CO2 improves plant growth rates, but it also increases the greenhouse effect, causes climate change and acidifies the oceans - all of which can be very bad for plant life. Plants migrate very slowly. As temperatures increase or long term drought moves in or sea level rises... plant populations may not move quickly enough to avoid extinction.

Here's the link: http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ejeh1/2008/HawaiiPACON_20080603.pdf

The global warming "crowd" isn't proposing some sort of dangerous experiment. We are proposing ending the reckless emission of combustion and land use CO2 that is heating up and ruining our world.

Kem: The Sunday "Parade Magazine" in a lot of Sunday newspapers this week had an article about the coming "rush" to exploit the arctic as it melts and opens up. Competition for resources, shorter transportation routes, small arctic villages could become the crossroad boom towns of the future... WTF! We(humanity)really don't get it.

Billy: I totally respect Hanson's climate science, and it scares the bejeebers out of me, but I'm a little skeptical of his carbon tax economics. Just as with the present gasoline and food price inflation (and coming utility increases), it will get passed on to the "little guy" getting by on $500/week take home finding his expenses are suddenly $600/week. Cap and Trade is too open to abuse by the sharpies.

I think we need a more centralized plan for capping and replacing coal fired generation.

culicomorpha June 7th, 2008 2:15 am

"I'm not quite sure why you keep quoting Ward. Where is your evidence that we are trending towards less than 200ppm,"

Apparently you read what you want not what was written, I have never said we are trending towards less than 200 ppm, as you stated we are actually climbing, unless China and India dramatically cut their CO2 pollution which it does not appear they will any time soon you are right it will get quite warm.

"I think it is incredibly disingenuous for you to talk about checks and balances when that is exactly what has not happened in the last 200 years.'

200 years ago no one cared about CO2 levels rising, I doubt they even had the ability to measure CO2 in the atmosphere that was 1808, no one cared even 100 years ago. So much for your ludicrous statement.

"I think you are a ExxonMobil shill"

I only wish, then my bank account would be alot healthier.

"to post on a progressive site to discount global warming,"

Just where have I discounted global warming? I just see the UN and other global warming organizations in their euphoria to cut CO2 going to far and by the time someone finally says "we went to far" it will be to late. I don't loose any sleep over it because I know I will not be around to see it but future generations will.

"For you to suggest that a bill, one that wasn't even passed by Congress, represented "overdoing it"

I have never said anything about this bill.

wolf123,

I think you are flat-out wrong. The issue is simply: what do you do under conditions of uncertainty. The current scenario is that CO2 and other global warming gases are increasing. This is an indisputable fact. If we continue along this path - continuing to burn fossil fuels with abandon, there is no reason to believe this will change, and so basic science says that the CO2 and methane levels will increase, not decrease over the coming decades.

I can find no reason whatsoever to believe that there will be a rapid turnaround in the levels, despite your fears, which seem to be related to your livelihood and income, not to any physical process per se.

Let me make a simple analogy: let's say you are driving on a road somewhere. You enter a foggy region, and the road ahead is not as clear as before. Your visibility decreases. Do you: a) continue as if nothing changed, b) put your foot to the floor and accelerate, or c) slow down to provide additional margin for error?

In my view, you are advocating b, because in fact, fossil fuel usage is increasing exponentially. Common sense would dictate c, and I would be willing to bet money that this is what you would do if you were really driving on a foggy road. It is really the only rational choice.

I'm not quite sure why you keep quoting Ward. Where is your evidence that we are trending towards less than 200ppm, when historic levels of CO2 were 280ppm, and we are now at 377ppm, and increasing every day? Where is this reduction that you think we need to be concerned about?

I think it is incredibly disingenuous for you to talk about checks and balances when that is exactly what has not happened in the last 200 years. When have we reduced the burning of anything during that period? I don't think that you care anything for the future. Frankly, I think you are a ExxonMobil shill getting paid to post on a progressive site to discount global warming, and I just want to be here to say I think you're full of it and your ideas are irrational and without any logical basis.

For you to suggest that a bill, one that wasn't even passed by Congress, represented "overdoing it" is just so ludicrous that I can hardly believe that you can even sleep at night.

culicomorpha June 7th, 2008 12:55 am

"Your analogy, of suffocating the plants of CO2 is not only not applicable, it is downright stupid."

When you loose over $4,000.00 in vegetables at the current market price that's far from stupid, except how I did it.

"You are claiming that we are going to drive the world into global cooling because we are dramatically lowering the CO2 content? Are you joking?"

No

When have you EVER seen this government or the UN or any other world organization that has attempted to something that has come out the way it was supposed to? I'm not saying we should not cut CO2 emissions just WHERE are the checks and balances to keep from over doing it. In my line of work before we start a project we look at what could be the worst possible scenario and how do we keep from making it a reality, apparently none of the global warming fanatics thinks that far ahead.

"When we level off the dramatic increase - as a start, then I will maybe entertain your fantasies,"

"According to Ward, ancient air bubbles trapped inside ice cores show that there was about half as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere during the last ice age compared with present times." Most definitely NOT a fantasy.

By all means cut CO2, I just want to see the checks and balances which I have not which apparently no one has even formulated so future generations are not under a several hundred feet of Ice and snow.

And I don't smoke crack. That's why I think about the future and not just today.

~WOLF~ If you don't think the current global warming is a serious problem, you are not alone, President Bush don't think so either. I'm sure you don't want anyone here to say, "Pick a pair."

Perhaps Bush does not realize, that glaciers and mountain snow packs all over the entire planet are rapidly thawing, many have totally disappeared within four years. The Arctic and Anarctic are thawing and so is Greenland. You don't need to be a scientist to see it with your own eyes. At the present orbital phase location of our planet with the sun, we should be in a cooling phase and we are not cooling.

As the Arctic thaws, millions of tons of methane gas is released into the atmosphere and methane is 25% more potent as a Greenhouse gas than Co2 is. The result is a feedback situation and global warming will continue and "accelerate", until it is entirely out of control, unless we attempt to prevent it by cutting way back on burning coal for starters. We don't have much time to do that. ___ If any.

http://www.energybulletin.net/3647.html

wolf123,

Apparently you have not been paying attention to current events. Let me use little words. We are burning everything we can find that burns. This creates Carbon Dioxide. For a while, the oceans absorbs this gas, and the levels increase slowly. Eventually, the shells of the crustaceans are dissolved, because we have acidified the oceans, it can not longer absorb the gas, and then the CO2 levels increase quickly in the atmosphere. This spurs on the melting of the methane clathrates, 20 times more potent than CO2 with regard to greenhouse gas effects. 400 Gigatons worth.

Your analogy, of suffocating the plants of CO2 is not only not applicable, it is downright stupid. You are claiming that we are going to drive the world into global cooling because we are dramatically lowering the CO2 content? Are you joking?

When we level off the dramatic increase - as a start, then I will maybe entertain your fantasies, but until then, I will think you are smoking crack, and you need to lay off the pipe dude.

culicomorpha June 6th, 2008 11:43 pm

Who cares what the CO2 concentrations were in the late 1950's 1775, 1000 AD or 40,000 years ago, my facts showed about 350 ppm as of 2005 your facts say AN AVERAGE of 377.3 ppm it undoubtedly went up some since then SO WHAT.
YOU still have not told me where the valve is to set to reach a prescribed number so we don't go lower and put ourselves in an ICE AGE, Unless your facts can show CO2 at 175 ppm will not bring on an unstoppable ice age your full of it.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v357/n6378/abs/357488a0.html

BUBBLES of ancient air in polar ice cores have revealed that the atmospheric concentration of CO2 during the Last Glacial Maximum was 180–200 p.p.m.

http://www.features.ku.edu/plants/

According to Ward, ancient air bubbles trapped inside ice cores show that there was about half as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere during the last ice age compared with present times.

ike kay: Where did you come up with your figure that the US is responsible for 73% of all the world's toxins?

I think you need to rethink carbon sequestration. The only reason this (untested) technology has been promoted is that it allows for business as usual for coal industries. OIl companies are also enamored of the process because CO-2 is injected into failing oil wells to increase pressure and productivity.

First of all, gasification of coal is a highly toxic endeavor. In Iowa, for example, two coal gasification plants became Superfund sites.

Also, coal gasification plants require more energy to run than a standard coal plant. The carbon has to be liquefied prior to sequestration (also energy intensive) and most likely transported to a suitable site for sequestration which has yet to be proven possible on a large scale. And, of course, you still get the most deplorable of practices--mountain top removal for easy coal access.

~WOLF~ Co2 in our atmosphere rose .06% in 2007, which is alarming. What is frightening is, methane gas in the atmosphere rose .05% in 2007. (.05%) don't sound like much? Well it is much,___ much-much.

Why? Here is just one reason, and there are hundreds more lakes like it in the Arctic now. First time in over five million years.

http://www.farnorthscience.com/2007/09/26

Our "leaders" are completely corrupted and totally worthless. The US government is complete garbage.

Wolf123, get your facts straight:

Recent CO2 concentration (377.3 ppm) is the average of the 2004 annual values at Barrow, Alaska; Mauna Loa, Hawaii, American Samoa, and the South Pole (one high-latitude and one low-latitude station from each hemisphere). Refer to C. D. Keeling and T. P. Whorf for records back to the late 1950s. Ice-core records provide records of earlier concentrations. For concentrations back to about 1775, see A. Neftel et al.; for concentrations back to about 1000 A.D., see D. M. Etheridge et al.; and for over 400,000 years of ice-core record from Vostok, see J. M. Barnola et al. All these data are available from CDIAC.

See: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/current_ghg.html

Billy_y4, A level playing field? Did the legislation eliminate the Price-Anderson Act, that releases investors of nuclear reactors from legal liability in the event of an accident? I doubt it.

I read the carbon tax you support, and there is no way that a dividend for burning of fossil fuels that is "equally distributed" is viable ecologically. This is essentially rewarding the destruction of the environment. More burning = more dividends. This proposal simply pays people to entice them to keep quiet about the destruction, it doesn't stop it.

As for this legislation, despite the fact that is was flawed, the very fact that the Republicans for the most part opposed it should sound the death knell for their party. I still remember all their warnings about Filibustering the radical right-wing Supreme Court nominations, and then they pull this crap? Do these people have kids, or grandkids? Are they so self-centered that they care nothing of this world? They are teetering on crimes against life, not to mention humanity.

Ok, I've read more blogs and articles on global warming than I can count. The global warming crowd says it is CO2 emissions caused by human activity that is basically the only reason for global warming. The skeptics say that's not so and point to the earths natural cycles of warming and cooling, or sunspots or whatever. Now as a gardener I grow a wide variety of food stuffs and flowers outside in the summer and in my hothouse in the winter. Now when I first started my hothouse I thought I knew everything, and soon everything in the hothouse was wilting. I later found out the plants used up virtually all the CO2 and were dying, so I learned the hard way you need to pump CO2 into the hothouse for the plants to grow, and depending on how much is pumped in you can have basically normal plants or robust plants.
I recently read a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Norby et al., 2007), an international team of 19 researchers states that "experiments have unequivocally shown that plants can grow faster and larger in a CO2-enriched atmosphere. That means at 200 ppm plants will show signs of atrophy and world wide famine will be right around the corner. (That's apparently what happened to my plants)
Now the global warming alarmists want to cut CO2 emissions but no one has yet told me where (like in my hothouse) the control lever is to lower CO2 to a specific number. CO2 now is about 350 ppm, lower CO2 150 ppm and it's famine time. Go lower to 175 ppm worldwide about half what it is now and not only will we have worldwide famine but with extremely lower greenhouse gas in the atmosphere also an unstoppable ice age. If it is anything like the last great ice age then everything living thing on the planet will be on the endangered species list, humans included.
With all this carbon trading, carbon credits, KYOTO treaty, and most everyone going green or forced to go green we will hit the 200 ppm and with all the CO2 emitting industries dismantled there will be no way to stop from going lower.
THEN WHAT?

homeward-angel,

Did you bother to read the legislation yourself or did you permit someone to tell you that there was a subsidy for nuclear?

I read the legislation. It included a proposal to permit bidding for production credits by ALL new low and non-carbon emitting generators. Nuclear would have been bidding against true renewables on a level playing field.

There is now a far superior carbon tax proposal which does not offer subsidies to any technology. See the link in my previous post.

Bill

why does this article not mention the 550 BILLION dollar handout it would have given the nuclear industry? And i saw that puke Lieberman going on and on about how nuke energy is zero carbon, what a fraud!! think about all that oil burnt to even get the ore out of the ground and shipped to refineries, the manpower that takes, WHAT ABOUT THE PROBLEM OF WASTE RODS THAT ARE RADIOACTIVE FOR TENS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS? (YOU CALL THAT ZERO CARBON!!!)And the whole notion of corporations being able to trade carbon limits is the most erronious thing of all...andersdl is right on, if this bill had given 550 BILLION dollars for SOLAR, WIND, GEO, AND COLD FUSION, THEN i would have been all for it. When a bill is sponsered by Lieberman and Warner you know it is bad news bears.

by the way, there is no such thing as zero carbon, not even solar or wind, because the manner in which metal is processed, very carbon intensive. But then again once produced is "Zero Carbon"

We need to do something about global warming, a bill that would have given 550 BILLION DOLLARS to the nuke industry is NOT THE WAY TO DO IT PEOPLE!!!! hello!

I was a strong supporter of Lieberman-Warner. I am glad it was shotdown however.

Jim Henson, the NASA scientist who stays in hot water with the Bush administration for publicly saying that global warming is a serious problem, has made a far superior carbon tax proposal. It is short and sweet. The lobbies will hate it. http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ejeh1/mailings/20080604_TaxAndDividend.pdf

Bill

Economic costs, eh? I think the GOPers will be talking out the other side of their faces when those environmental chickens come home to roost. Whining about the high cost of oil will seem pathetically trivial when crop failures, drought, famine, and other major disasters which we are only beginning to realize are a potential result begin to happen. Those who argue against action because it might be expensive today, will be to blame when their grandchildren are paying the price of their inaction. I can choose to not treat my house for termites because it will wreck my vacation funds this year, and next year it would wreck it again. Year after year until I have to re-build the entire house, but can't afford to because I went on vacation every year and never saved the money or paid to fix the house before it fell down around me. Brilliant!

cactuspie was dead on. The reason the GOP is blocking this bill is NOT because they disagree, NOT because they want an Amendment it is because they WANT poli-points.

"GOP Blocks Senate's Global Warming Bill"

The survivors of the Bubonic Plagues became wealthy because the fleas bit everyman.
The only survivors of this catastrophy will be the already filthy rich but who will dig Peabody's coal or drill EXXON's oil or grow ADM's food? I can't visualize the Wall Street Barons doing that. Perhaps the (Bubonic) fleas will survive to rule the earth.

MiMiCcS-

I can't tell if your trying to argue against humanity's role in global warming or point out lame attempts by politicians to do something about it. But I would start expecting to be terrorized by a lot more than global warming bunnies, since the global warming gorilla is going to make its presence felt. Or maybe all those melting ice caps and record high days are just Mother Earth's intelligent design?

You got one thing right though, cap and trade is a definitely a joke. But I would say that the Federal Reserve Act is by far a much more heinous plot. I think it deserves more consideration on your part for most evil law since 1913.

And if you are trying to argue with the science supporting global warming, at least make it clear so I can ignore your posts in the future.

I come down on the side of strong US action directed at conserver ethic solution for society. Since the USA is one of the major contributors of the problem. The USA should cut green house gasses within the next 10 years and lead the way with technological invention to do just that it means electric cars first, it means the sequestration of all CO2 from coal for the production of power, it means the end of oil and it mean s a big no to multinationals who want to continue this madness to 2050.

It means low cost technology to transfer to developing nations like CHINA who have surpassed the US in Carbon production and India who have developed an Auto centered economy on the model that the western world has provided with its "Mall" method of consumer credit and society based in a disposable model with its values in greed; It means the cessation of the production of meaningless goods that rob the planet and the future of its resources; It means the reduction of toxic wastes, the USA produces 73% of the worlds toxins. Is there any wonder why the population is poisoned and the cancer rates so high? Is it any wonder why the European Union has said no to the import of US genome technology?

The list of things wrong with the American Dream, the American way of life and this model that the western world has adopted with globalization, requires more than this blog to deal with and the problems we have created. They are all interconnected, as are most of the articles on CommonDreams. But these problems are not going away soon. We have about 10 years to deal with them and like it or not, rapidly. Not to do so, means that your children and grandchildren will have a planet very much different than ours.

They will live a survival-based existence with a shortened life span and a climate that makes the current Tornado season look tame, that is, those lucky enough to survive, if you call that luck! James Lovelock thinks the humanity that remains will live near the poles, about 500 million of us, and you can be assured they will not have the technology to play video games while they are waiting for things to right themselves in about 2000 years if the human race survives at all. There 401Ks will be of little use. James Lovelock is a scientist one of the American Gods.

The entire condition of life on the planet is skewed. The need forever larger and more of everything is based on a conception of economics that is out of touch with survival strategies for the human population.
We are going down the road to extinction along with the systems we have created that have put us out of touch with all life.

The end for Wall Street, its ideas and values are out of touch with survival and reason for being: endless growth, consumption based in the use of fossil fuels and so many Jurassic ideas that can not continue. BU, they do continue with the present congress presently sitting and the people like the Senator from Kentucky, " Thares is more than moonshine in them thare hills!" We got coal to burn!

There is no such thing as perpetual motion or growth. When we experience growth that is out of control in the human organism it is called cancer and we die. On that note since 1970 the incidence cancer has increased 100% in people over 60.

The idea of human valuation is based on money and thingness; that too is out of touch with human needs for survival. All systems are reaching critical mass. The giant human extinction process has begun. It may lead to the end of all life on this planet.

Does anyone really believe that the corporate nightmare will end? Does anyone think that that the profit motive as it is constituted in the "Free Market System" will somehow be modified by the need to save the planet? We are entering a phase of the final meltdown of the technological world on this planet. The poles are beginning to break up but that has not deterred the oil market, or has it lead to the kind of conservation in the face of this catastrophe that must be adopted at the speed necessary, we can see this with the congress tied to special interests.

There are still people out there like George Will and the Republican menace that will continue the objection to scientific reality, some of the scientists saying that we are already in feedback mode. The members of the senate have shown themselves to be dyeing minds on a dyeing planet.

The time for a two-tiered world economy that incorporates the best features of democratic capitalism for all players and allows for penalties for those largest players in the game for polluting the global environment to end – that's a joke keep laughing - but it may be too late. The people of this globe are conditioned to the self-interest it is clear when we look at the numbers of super rich and how they have grown. The disregard of the powerful for humanity as a whole is clear. The latest BP energy ad, or the Chevron propaganda, the Exxon board meeting are a case in point of the cynicism in play at it's lowest level in its highest position.

Let's forget about, the people owning the corporations, as it has been practiced over the last 50 years. We know this is deception. Humanity of this globe has played out their small striving lives for the benefits derived from the technology to serve war, and for little reason, as if there is one any time. But his has been throughout history but now the single super-power cannot learn from history, we cannot learn from our mistakes, or if we have it is too late.

Truly there was once a small window of opportunity in the development of humanity that could have led to a flowering of the human species. The great thinkers we revere have stated these concepts, but as always they fell to the desires of the masses led by the petty evil ones that foisted the lowest of human ideals and passions as the way to enlightenment. "The crowd is the untruth!" as shouted in Ibsen's "enemy of the people": for they elect these fools!!

We now reap the rewards of the Bush,Cheny, Clinton legacy of this world based on greed, corruption, self-absorption and stupidity. We debate the petty and inconsequential issues facing the world to the last, while the real issues go wanting. This place, CommonDreams, is the place for this rant!

If the planet does not right itself, if the Americans do not right themselves, all life is finished. This small period of time in Earth's evolution and geology that supports humanity is on the way out thanks to the news media moguls in collusion with congress and the multinationals. They have helped us to another life extinction episode. This time we are the catalyst for our own extinction.

We have all done it! Who has turned off life? Who has turned love to stone? Will we spin to oblivion on a dead planet? Where is the profit to be found here can some one from Wall Street explain this to me I am stupid I need a financial adviser? Can some one in Hollywood spin a happy story for me in stead of this one? Remember, "Farther Knows Best"

Obama and McCain were absent beacuse they know about the fine print in this bill that would have given a $544 billion subsidy to the nuclear power industry and the potential liability that a yes vote might have on their campaigns. I have invested tens of thousands in renewable energy production and consider it a blessing in disguise that this bill didn't pass, because a nuclear power subsidy of that magnitude would seriously impact future renewable energy investment.

I don't, however, agree with MiMiCcS that this is most evil bill of the past 95 years, only because there have been so many evil bills passed during the past seven years.

In the whole article no mention of the GOP memo to stall the bill to make political points?

http://thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/06/05/gop-climate-memo/

Do you homework AP!

Dog bites man is not news. Man bites dog is news.

This is not news.

Not that emissions trading will ever do anything for the environment, except of course in the proximity of Wall Street.

If you look at the Earth as a living organism, then man is likely the equivalent of the bacteria living in our gut that digest the food mother nature provides for our consumption. As man populates the planet in greater numbers, Earth adjusts accordingly and provides more food for man by increasing the temperature to provide more water; and increasing food for the plants and crops to increase yields, by providing more carbon in the atmosphere.

Its an intelligent design. She must have been an Einstein.

That bill would have been the greatest evil perpetuated on the American people since the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. Anyone who expressed an intent to vote for it should be tried for treason and hopefully will be out of a job after the elections.

"Both presidential candidates, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, were absent, although supporters of the bill said they had sent letters advising they would have voted for the bill."

Crap.

Eight frigging years of Bush wars and trashing of the economy over a phony War on Terror, and now we have at least 4 years of being terrorized by the Global Warming Bunnies in the phony War on Climate Change.

I want to move to another planet, this one is too insane for me. ET, come and get me and take me home with you.

again another terrorist act by the Bush Admin. Hurting more people world wide than terrorists ever did

~CLASS ACT~. Your comment ay 5.25 may be the most appropriate here at Common Dreams on any subject ever ___ for several very important reasons.

I think the better metaphor for humanity than a virus is cancer. Cancer cells are those that grow uncontrollably and invade other adjacent tissue. This version of humanity definitely has the uncontrollable growth and invasion of healthy ecosystems perfected.

The argument that never makes sense to me is that cutting emissions will cripple the economy. This ignores the essential fact that the health of the entire economy is predicated on the health of the environment. Nothing will be worse for business that global warming. And the short term thinking that allows politicians to argue for continuing business as usual just signals that they truly believe its every man and woman for themselves, damn the torpedo's full speed ahead. Short term thinking is the bane of good policy making, since no real fundamental changes can be made in 4 or 6 years...this is one of the major problems with a representative democracy that attracts power mongers, thieves and liars to run for office.

I wonder what Senator Mitch McConnell thinks would be bad about restructuring the economy. It seems pretty well broken right now, maybe something the scale of the New Deal is what the world and this country desperately needs....among a very very long list.

"The bill would have capped carbon dioxide coming from power plants, refineries and factories, with a target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 71 percent by mid-century."
This is too little too late. We need to cut emissions by 71% tomorrow! Carbon trading will fail to produce even the modest goals prescribed by the bill.

MIC McConnel is the kind of guy who will glue the dinnerware to the table for the Titantic's trip to the bottom of the ocean.

If you look at the Earth as a living organism, then humans are a virus tirelessly trying to destroy it, usually through politics and religion.

maybe all the senators are aliens who are secretly planning to do away with humanity....

Carbon Taxes Are A Scam!

Only a dumbass fights the guy plugging a leak in the boat that he is in along with everybody else.

I heard a good lecture on FSTV which said in part that just because our leaders confuse us does not mean that they themselves are confused...maybe they really are confused.

Ahh, if only the Democrats had filibustered funding for the occupation of Iraq. Shouldn't the Democrats call the Republicans weak on planetary security? Aren't the Republicans Earth-haters? Aren't they appeasing Earth's enemies?

"the largest restructuring of the American economy since the New Deal."

so... WHY did they block it, then?

Bush said the other day that he's got the solution all worked out, and that congress was just wasting time on it.

I watched a bit of debate on CSPAN in one of the houses yesterday, and the repugs were all going on and on about the dems blocking nuclear power and all the drilling in Alaska and coastal areas.