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Senate Climate Deadline Slips
"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has bumped back the deadline until Sept. 28 for the six committees working on a comprehensive climate change and energy bill...Originally, Reid wanted the Environment and Public Works Committee and other panels that deal with tax, agriculture, energy and foreign relation issues to have their work done by Sept. 18. But the sheer size of the legislation, not to mention the difficult task of winning 60 votes on an issue that breaks along both regional and party lines, convinced the Nevada Democrat to give the committees a little bit more time. Reid is still sticking with his plan to get the legislation through the Senate in time for U.N. climate negotiations this December in Copenhagen, Denmark." [ClimateWire - New York Times]
Related:
- Boxer and Reid delay Senate action on climate bill until September [Grist]
RECOMMENDED READING
The Two-Degree Solution
"After years of resisting efforts to define a dangerous level of warming in international climate discussions, the United States joined with the rest of the world’s major industrial powers on Wednesday in a (non-binding) pledge to avoid warming the planet beyond a threshold long favored by European governments and many climate campaigners as a no-go zone. The chosen danger zone, derived from a host of scientific studies over the last two decades, lies 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) beyond the planet’s average temperature in 1850 or so...But, given the persistent lack of clarity on how much the world will warm from a certain buildup of greenhouse gases and the divergent views around the world on what an ideal climate is in any case, is this threshold meaningful or useful?" [Dot Earth- New York Times]
Related:
- Climate Talks End With Meager Promises [Morning Edition- NPR]
Survey Shows Gap Between Scientists and the Public
""When it comes to climate change, the teaching of evolution and the state of the nation’s research enterprise, there is a large gap between what scientists think and the views of ordinary Americans, a new survey has found. ... While almost all of the scientists surveyed accept that human beings evolved by natural processes and that human activity, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels, is causing global warming, general public is far less sure." [New York Times]
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