Fiddling

I’ve been hearing for months that the Senate wasn’t going to pass any meaningful legislation regarding energy and the environment. Never mind that the House passed it ages ago and that even our own Heath Shuler was on board for addressing the single most important issue facing our nation and our world, Harry Reid’s Senate is planning to pass a gutted bill that doesn’t acknowledge the urgency of the problem and that leaves out any controls on carbon emissions. May our children forgive us.

NOAA released a report yesterday that underscores the massive failure at work:

The 2009 State of the Climate report released today draws on data for 10 key climate indicators that all point to the same finding: the scientific evidence that our world is warming is unmistakable. More than 300 scientists from 160 research groups in 48 countries contributed to the report, which confirms that the past decade was the warmest on record and that the Earth has been growing warmer over the last 50 years.
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More and more, Americans are witnessing the impacts of climate change in their own backyards, including sea-level rise, longer growing seasons, changes in river flows, increases in heavy downpours, earlier snowmelt and extended ice-free seasons in our waters.