Not only is it important and may actually help this important legislation get passed, the thing to remember is that, like it or not, it can be used as a wedge issue on their side.

And if we work on that wedge for the greater good and benefit politically from the rift on the right, hey where's the problem?

I think in all of the (well deserved) policy and far reaching survival aspects of the issue, the politics is rarely concentrated on.

Seems like an excellent time to seize upon that and throttle it for all it's worth.

-C.

Global warming fits a couple of paradigms.

First, it seems that every day brings new evidence that this is a very serious problem--Greenland ice melting faster than expected, consensus of scientists etc.  A willingness to face the issue and make decisions based on scientific evidence and not faith or wishful thinking (to say nothing of short-term economic gain) fits into a couple of big differences between the parties.  So global warming allows us to highlight those differences, especially their lack of realism, hard-headedness and willingness to make science-based decisions.  (This means the Dems are going to have to bite the bullet on fuel efficiency or see the US auto industry and all its unionized workers go under.)  It is also a chance for the Dems to portray themselves as embodying the old American "can do" spirit while the GOP is now starting to say that doom is inevitable.

Second, this is a perfect issue for "common good" as opposed to "YOYO" (you're on your own) politics.  We need to look beyond our narrow, material interests and support the common good--a liveable planet for everyone.  Again, it is the R's who have been pushing YOYO policies while the Dems try to provide a safety net and policies that benefit the majority even if they crimp the lifestyles of the very, very rich through fair taxation.

Third, as the evidence piles up and becomes more immediate (more severe storms, for example), it will get harder and harder for the Bushbots to keep their heads in the sand.  Already Frank Luntz, who developed much of the Right's rhetoric against global warming, has seen the light.  Someday those neanderthals at The Corner are going to have to face the truth too, and acknowledge how they were taken in.  Tempting though it will be to poke fun at them, we need to be welcoming to such folks because we really, really need more people to awaken to this problem.

Sign me up. Seriously. It's time for me to put my MIT degree to work for something.

We need to give in those places that seem to be forgotten, Check out the PA-09th

Tony Barr is a great candidate, he can win , he deserves your support!!!!

http://www.tonybarr2006.com

Matt,

Global Warming is a huge issue.  One of the troubles with combatting it is that many ordinary people see it as too big for them to have any impact on.  It is something that we need our national leaders to start fighting, and soon.  Part of getting our leaders to do the right thing is getting informed ourselves, so we can get our elected officials interested and involved.

I'm a Brit, and I think my government is doing quite well on this issue.  We're on course to cut emmissions quite a lot, in accordance with Kyoto.  I think Britain actually has one of the most ambitious CO2 targets as well.  It is one of the few things I can be proud of Blair for.

Speaking of candidates, Randy Koehn is running for Wisconsin Assembly, hoping to put a Progressive into the seat long held by a cog in the Bush machine.

http://www.actblue.com/page/votekoehn

Absolutely.

The problem of global warming is, obviously, huge... because it is a major component of the defining crisis of the twentieth century: our over-consumption of energy, specifically fossil fuels.

Because it is huge, and because the problems tied into it make it even larger, it seems to have been avoided politically for so long due to that equation that the harder something is to solve, the more likely bureaucrats are to avoid it.

There are precious few leaders in DC right now, and a lot of the bureaucrats in their stead have become corrupt. Since this issue is pretty much the biggest out there, and if we intend our movement to truly reform government and provide mature leaders who face reality, then it is high time to take this one on.

Politically, others have said it is both an issue that will divide the Right, and one that clearly fits our basic principle of the common good, and I agree. I would only add that now is also the time to forge the momentum necessary to make this a major campaign issue for the presidential race of 2008, which will be a huge crossroads for both parties.

John McCain is not pro-choice!

I am the campaign manager for Patrick Schmitt, a 22-year old proud, progressive, Democratic candidate  for state Senate in Rhode Island's 38th District running against Senate Republican Leader Dennis Algiere.  We're running a strong race already, but we'd be quite humbled by and appreciative of any support that anyone could give.

Contribute

Matt,

While I enjoyed reading your last global warming post and the response it generated, speaking politically, I would avoid direct attacks on RFK Jr.  

As far as I'm concerned re: global warming it's all hands on deck.

We need to reach the tipping point on this issue SOON.

It's not the only issue, but if I hear of a candidate on our side who doesn't take the climate crisis seriously I'm not taking them seriously.

As you may have heard we have seen a lot of water coming down in NH recently, and also we have had more wind and stronger wind for the last couple of years.  Strange insects (to us) moving up from the south, different birds and plants, all signs of changes in weather patterns and general warming.  Is this a political issue?  You bet it is!  The economic consequences of climate change are terrifying, the costs of weather disasters are already piling up and the hurricane season has just begun.  Never mind sea level rise, disruption of transportation of food, destruction of crops by drought, flood, etc.  Nothing is going to get cheaper, guys.  And when prices go up, and things get scarce, that's a political issue.

yes, please

what we care about, and that's why you're thinking of going GlobalWarming, then I would suggest something even less sexy.

If they want to know what we/theNetroots want, I think we want process reforms.  I think the main thing we feel is that the political system is not responsive to us, that some corrupt corporate Rs have gone absolutely nuts with our country, and the Dems aren't succeeding at fighting back, and they seem more scared of their own base (us) than anything else anyway, and all that combined means  the system has completely shut us out.  THAT'S what Dean's "take our country back" theme was all about: that feeling that the political system 1) doesn't include us, 2) doesn't work, and, incidentally, 3) is in the hands of crazy people.   Global Warming is the kind of hard problem that you solve once you have a sensible, realistic, responsible, modern liberal government.  It's one of the reasons you need a real government.  But the main thing we need right now is not a solution to Global Warming; it's a functioning political system that can handle and work out a large number of individual problems like this.  I believe this very strongly.

Now it's one thing to feel shut out of a failing government, and another to conclude that process reform is the solution.  Maybe just winning somehow is the solution.  Still, given the strong centrist component of the Democratic caucus, and the strong extremist component of the R caucus, simply getting to 53% of the legislature will not put us in a position to really solve problems.  There's a huge structural problem with American government that two election cycles and 53 D Senators will not solve.  Specifically, the problem with our government is that some conservative nuts have managed to game the system so that really crazy guys like Cheney and Limbaugh and Santorum and Alito are in positions of real power, and can frequently win majorities in elections.  They've done that by playing the earmark game and the military-industrial-congressional complex like a flute, and by securing the absolute fealty of business on one hand and religious and toughguy voters on the other.  If we're gonna try to really break their hold on the government, and get a sensible, responsible, modern, liberal government back that can handle problems like global warming, we need to rewrite the rules by which politics and elections get played.  That is how we empower our people and break their machine all at once.  Structural, political-process-rules stuff.

====

Before I go on, some inspirational notes on process reform:

Campaign finance is THE ONLY reason McCain had any credibility, with voters or the press, back in 2000.  Campaign finance reform was extremely popular, across normal ideological lines.

"Culture of corruption."  Pelosi ended by telling Americans that Rs were corrupt, and that Americans should elect Ds because Ds... wouldnt be.  Bullshit.  We shouldnt have implied "we'll just somehow be better," we should have put forward concrete, credible reforms, a la Obama or better.  Then the argument has merit.  Without that it's just asking voters to trust that Ds will be more ethically pure.  Better to prove it with a list of real, to-be-legislated reforms.

Remember the FCC media-marketshare eruption?  When Safire and Krugman were both screaming the exact same objections?  That's really a process issue too; it was about the health of the political/media system.  People can become strongly motivated by these things.  And being on the right side of them makes you look really good.  You stand to gain a lot of credibility.

Dean's promise to tighten and revise media ownership laws may have got him in a great deal of trouble.  Also worth remembering.

====

I don't really know which specific reforms to propose; there are folks in DC and elsewhere who would.  (CREW?  PIRGs?)  But some general notions:

-- public financing of campaigns (in some sensible, incremental way)
-- lobbying and income and consulting rules for officials (how many congressional spouses are getting money from companies the congressperson oversees???)
-- overhauling earmarks and procurement and (no-bid) contracting out of the executive branch
-- a holiday on election day
-- a ban on individual stock holdings by officials (large mutual funds only, no playing with companies you regulate or earmark)

... eh, I'm not informed enough to go into specifics.  The problem though is that the political system does not work.  The money-earmark-fundraise-redistrict-voter suppress-cowthemedia-ownthemedia angle has been played so well by radical Rs that they have gotten some really inappropriate people installed as national leaders.  The solution is to break all the links that allow men like Duncan Hunter and Porter Goss and Peter Hoekstra and Representative Dick Cheney to entrench and become powerful.  Put more boradly, the solution is to make sure that elected leaders are really deriving their power from responsiveness to all their constituents and their legitimate needs, rather than by playing this financing game and then pulling a fast one on their carefully districted and suppressed voters.  If that's the purpose, then public financing and earmark reform are the same thing.  A national voter holiday and motor voter registration and non-corrupt districting and stopping media (and newspaper!) consolidation are the same thing.  It's about making sure our government really answers to us, instead of allowing a strategically brilliant cabal to exploit the openings in our political system as currently constructed.  

What I'm saying is that our problem is a system that had some inherent weaknesses that were eventually exploited, in this case by William Buckley's heirs.  Now Cheney is in control and Dems are so scared of Russert and his mean Belafonte questions that they dont even want to think about us out here on the ground.  "Global Warming loses elections.  Remember when they called Gore Ozone man???"  The solution to the big problem is to break the machine they have and fix the system that allowed it, by making every effort to make politics actually respond to real people.  If a campaign finance measure in which a $25 donation earns $125 of public financing while a $1000 donation earns zero matching funds will do that, then whatever.  But this system in which Duncan Hunter's real constituent is Bechtel, and his voters are just a well-manipulated afterthought, has got to be changed.

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