Sixinonehand asks: Is there a candidate on the horizon, in ANY party, that will have the balls to stand up to the oil/coal industry and actually subsidize some taxpayer money for the conversion to renewables (sun, wind, water)?

Dear SixIn: Of the top tier candidates, the only one who strikes me as truly understanding that global warming poses far more than a political problem — to their candidacies from eco-conscioius voters who need to be appeased — and, in fact, constitutes a planetary crisis of nearly biblical proportions is John Edwards.

Hillary seems to want technology to bail us out as we “begin to try” to reduce greenhouse emissions. Obama’s flirtation with liquid coal shows he’s got a lot to learn.

Edwards promises to stick it to polluters — those oil/coal producers you mentioned — with a carbon tax cleverly disguised as an auction. From his recent interview with Rolling Stone:

I have the most aggressive plan: It calls for an 80 percent reduction by 2050 in greenhouse gasses. You get there by capping carbon in America, and ratcheting down the cap every year. Beneath the cap, you auction off the right to emit any greenhouse gasses, using that money — $30-$40 billion — to transform the way we use energy, which means wind, solar, and cellulose based bio-fuels. You put at least a billion dollars into developing carbon sequestration technology, a billion into making sure we’re building more fuel efficient vehicles — in addition to raising fuel efficiency standards, which the president has the authority to do. It also means decentralizing the way we provide electricity in this country….

Edwards sounds every bit as strong on this stuff as Al Gore. Nobody else is talking about power grid decentralization. It’s wonky, but very important stuff. If you’re looking for an integral, transformative energy- and climate- policy, Edwards looks to be your guy.

Why did President Bush get a blank check to go to war? The answer is Dick Gephardt.

Senators Joe Biden and Dick Lugar had, at the time in 2002, a more modest, bi-partisan war authorization bill that would have checked the president’s power, at least a little, requiring him to report back to Congress before firing any Tomahawks at Baghdad.

The Biden/Lugar bill had the votes to pass, on a bipartisan basis. But then Dick Gephardt, in an attempt to appear presidential in a runup to his own White House bid, cut a secret deal with Bush … and suddenly appears in a Rose Garden ceremony giving the president a war bill so expansive in its scope that it allows The Decider to unilaterally wage preemptive war against not only Iraq but any perceived threat.

We may yet end up in Iran because of Dick Gepardt’s misguided presidential ambitions. But Dick’s not done.

Today we discover that the former Democratic House leader is going to lead Big Coal into battle with the Democratic congress in an effort to block mandatory CO2 caps.

Check out this press release (spotted by Brad Plumer):

“Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private sector coal company, has hired Dick Gephardt’s firm to spearhead its drive to defeat efforts by Democrats to put caps on carbon emissions in a bid to combat global warming.”

May history treat you harshly, Dick.

Without a doubt, the highlight of Gore’s Senate performance this afternoon was his righteous smackdown of bible-thumper and leader of all things global warming denying, Sen. James Inhofe:

I say to Senator Inhofe, I don’t prostelytize my own beliefs, but all religious traditions hold to the same teachings: That the Earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof. That the purpose of life is to glorify God, and you cannot do it while heaping contempt on God’s creation

(Min 1:55:50 of the broadcast for you CSPAN junkies out there.)

Who is taking the science of our climate crisis more seriously?

The Bush administration, or China?

“Greenhouse gases released due to human activity are leading to ever more serious problems in terms of climate change.”

–The Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology this week

“We do not know how much effect natural fluctuations in climate may have had on warming. We do not know how much our climate could, or will change in the future. We do not know how fast change will occur, or even how some of our actions could impact it.”

Independent Online:

Professor Bill McGuire, director of the Benfield Hazard Research Centre in London, said: “This is more very bad news. We need a 60 to 70 per cent cut in emissions, but instead, emission levels are spiralling out of control. The sum total of our meagre efforts to cut emissions amounts to less than zero.”