11/5: Senate Panel Approves Democratic Climate Bill
Posted by Editor on November 5, 2009 · 4 Comments
A controversial climate change bill cleared its first hurdle in the U.S. Senate on Thursday, allowing President Barack Obama to tout progress in the run-up to next month’s global warming talks in Copenhagen.
Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ignored a Republican boycott and used their majority to approve the legislation that would require U.S. industry to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases 20 percent by 2020, from 2005 levels.
‘Geothermal or geopolitical consequences of global dependance on fossil fuels’ The first evidenced by the burning of the oil wells by a ‘relatively mild’ dictator named Hussein at the end of the Desert Storm; the second evidenced by the ‘dictators’ in Washington D.C. by their refusal to allow our oil companies to drill in our vast and untapped areas offshore, while they not only allow, but subsidize foreign countries to do just that ! We now have a president who is willing to ‘talk’ with the HIGHLY radical regime of Iran, a concept that this small town Kansas boy cannot even grasp !
Bush didn’t “talk” to Iran for eight years, imposed sanctions and fought them on every front. And with what result? Iran is eight years further along in their nuclear program. I agree that Iran is one of the bad guys, maybe the worst next to North Korea. But Bush’s approach didn’t work, not in the least. I supported Bush on that too. Maybe we ought to try something different. Couldn’t be any less effective than what Bush tried.
Because our children’s future depends on our doing both. Be it the geothermal or geopolitical consequences of global dependance on fossil fuels, or the public and personal economic consequences of not curtailing an unregulated and greed-driven health-care delivery system, our children and their children will not have the opportunity to stop these consequences, for they may well be consumed by them. We have the opportunity to combat both of these dangers. Our ancestor’s legacy is that they had the foresight and resolve to confront tough issues so that we would never be consumed by them. Democracy, personal liberties, emancipation, suffrage, trust-busting, social security, clean water, clean air, civil rights, voting rights…all concepts that were addressed before they became irrevocably ingrained in our institutions and our culture. There were those that wanted to delay or avoid all of those tough decisions, and in every case those obstructionists were not only wrong, but proven by hindsight to have jeopardized the liberties and riches we enjoy today.
Question: Why do we need to push through a climate bill for our children’s future yet, not worry about spending our children’s money on the Health Care Reform bill?