Photo: Osman Orsal - Miners take a break in a coal mine in Turkey's Black Sea city of Zonguldak May 10, 2010.

Last Thursday, Democracy Now sponsored an interesting debate on the new energy “and climate” bill. The debate was between Phil Radford of Greenpeace USA and Joseph Romm of the Center for American Progress’s blog ClimateProgress.org. The bill itself is not a climate bill just because it might have a slightly good effect on climate change if all goes well. It’s also not strictly a cap and trade bill either, because it puts a price on carbon and will return money to consumers (that’s good).   The bill makes so many allowances for many polluters (what they call “small” polluters) that make up “only” about 30% of the USA’s greenhouse gas emissions. It also doesn’t mandate that we actually do anything that will get us to 80% reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, but it seems to think that’s a nice  goal to shoot for anyway. You can read the transcript of the debate below after the break.

Setting an impossible goal is nothing new, but it’s unrealistic. It’s like a person saying their goal is to write a great novel, then doing nothing but scribbling sentences on Post-It Notes, then reaffirming constantly and everywhere that their goal is to write a great novel and this will lead to it. No it won’t. You can’t write a great novel by writing thoughts on Post-It Notes, and you can’t get to 80% emissions reductions by including an increase in coal and oil and natural gas use in your so-called “climate” bill while emphasizing creating jobs and increasing manufacturing. It’s nonsensical. It could only work if we could immediately reforest every parking lot and overpass in America, somehow stop rainforest cutting tomorrow, and take every energy conservation measure possible immediately, and that won’t happen. There is no political will in the United States to do what is seriously necessary to stop climate change. A real and realistic climate bill would focus on renewable, non polluting non-fossil fuels exclusively, or, set the goal date for a 100 years in the future maybe, not 40 years.

Anyway, most people in Washington know this and just play along and call it a “climate bill” to shut up the big environmentalists and the scientists, because it’s all a big game anyway. The announcement of the American Power Act was politics, and it was completely corporate. (The entire thing will be on Climate Files soon).

There are a few notes of optimism on this bill and subject from Bill McKibben. McKibben recently wrote a strange one-page advertisement/open letter to readers of The Nation. He defended himself from an attack by someone he would not name, who ‘accused’ him of supporting the American Power Act and saying we should reject the bill and push for something else that would actually work. McKibben says [...]