Cover of the Latest RS

Rolling Stone has two articles on climate change and politics in its latest issue.  “As the World Burns” by Jeff Goodell is about “How Big Oil and Big Coal mounted one of the most aggressive lobbying campaigns in history to block progress on global warming.”   While some news outlets were busy blaming President Obama for somehow ruining the Copenhagen climate conference, they were ignoring the real devils in the details — the lobbyists for Big Oil and Big Coal who have prevented any serious climate legislation from passing, or even being considered,  so far.   The other article is called “The Climate Killers”  and is about 17 main climate change enemies  (differing  in names from the previous article here on that) including: Warren Buffett, Don Blankenship, Rupert Murdoch, Jack Gerard, Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu, the brain-dead Senator Inhofe, the inaccurate George Will, and others.

Sen. Mary Landrieu is a real puzzler because she represents Louisiana, which will lose out big-time when sea levels rise.  (If you thought Katrina was bad for New Orleans, just wait until sea levels rise in the next decades).

The first article is the most interesting because it addresses the money in Washington and the bad influences that control our politics.  It also gives a history of the last year in attempts that have been made by Republican obstructionists, Tea Partiers , the fake-science pushers on the right, the doubt-planters, and the money behind the lobbyists.  We are not influencing our Washington representatives nearly as much as Exxon and Big Coal are.

It seems like climate change will never be seriously addressed in this country until we either go to “war” with it or until all the money influences are removed from Washington D.C.  Lobbyist money is just far too influential in the U.S. Congress,  to the detriment of what needs to be done. Even the weak “climate” legislation they managed to put together is market driven and run by big Wall Street money interests!  Yet that’s not good enough for the lobbyists.  Cap and trade is a capitalist’s dream come true, but our political system is so twisted right now that the Republicans, who love market solutions for everything, can’t even see that.  Since that’s the case, we might as well push for what we really need instead,  a big price put on carbon emissions along with a strong cap, with the revenue returned to the people.

The last paragraph of the article sums up a big part of the problem:

“Despite the near-certainty of a climate catastrophe, there are no crowds marching in the streets to demand action, no prime-time speech from President Obama. Even the most aggressive climate legislation the Senate might pass — something on par with the House bill — will still fall tragically short of what climate scientists tell us needs to be done to avoid the looming chaos and destruction. In that sense — the only one that ultimately matters — the battle over global warming may [...]