The New York Times gets it — the climate crisis is, in fact, a crisis and requires more than the rather timid approaches we’ve taken so far. While it calls the House energy bill a good start — I think it is unfortunately weak — it castigates a Senate that is likely to gut what little good is in the bill. It says “there are small but disturbing signs that what this country might have to settle for is another energy bill.”
The atmosphere in the Senate is just short of mutinous. The mandatory cap on emissions has virtually no Republican support. There is talk of a turf war between two key Democrats, Barbara Boxer and Max Baucus, whose committees share jurisdiction over the bill. On Thursday, 10 Democrats from states that produce coal or depend on energy-intensive industries said they could not support any bill that did not protect American industries from exports from countries that did not impose similar restraints on emissions.
That means that the current bill, with its relatively weak 17 percent cut by 2020, is likely to look far different come the fall — especially with the White House remaining “disengaged” on an issue that was one of Barack Obama’s chief focuses during the campaign.
What is needed “is a climate bill,” the paper says, “one committed to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in a way that engages the whole economy and forces major technological change.”
Without such a bill, America will lose the race against time on climate, lose the race for markets for new and cleaner energy systems, and forfeit any claim to world leadership in advance of the next round of global climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December.
U.S. inaction might then lead to international inaction as the developing economies — in particular, India and China — point to us as hypocrites and refuse to play ball on the issue.
Hank Kalet 
We already lost, the whole GOP is against anything that makes sense. We have the right wing screaming that climate change is a hoax, it's of minor importance and CO2 is good for you any way. We are fighting massive stupidity, fossil fuel lobbyists, liars and cynical demagogues who know better but are in debt to rich special interests.
Sure, and the GE is going green whole hog because it just loves the environment. Pay no mind to the fact that GM just avoid all its toxic clean up debts by selling out to the UAW. Don't think that there is any difference between the D's and the R's. They both suck equally. You just choose not to see how much the D's match up. Some of us see that NEITHER has our interests at heart.