The big news on the climate front is the bill released by Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Senator John Kerry (D-MA) last month. It is disappointing to many environmentalists and activists but they are now saying it may be as ambitious as we can hope for given the fossil fuel industry’s stranglehold on Congress. I am really not happy with it because it just won’t make a significant impact on our increasingly unstable climate. I consider that a disaster.

I guess this bill is a bit better, though, than the 1427 pages of garbage that Waxman and Markey pushed through the House in June. This is known as the American Clean Air and Security Act and both Waxman and Markey are Democrats. It was a complex bill that was hard to read and understand but it essentially had the fingerprints of agribusiness and oil industry lobbyists all over it. This bill by Kerry and Box is a leaner, cleaner bill with a few less fingerprints but it still doesn’t get past environmentalists and climate scientists who actually care.

There are some good milestones that I must mention, though. They moved up the measely 17% cut in emissions proposed by the Waxman bill and ask for larger cut of 20% by the year 2020. Although I am sure they are thrilled with their own moxy and obvious concern for the problem, but when they start with a year 2005 baseline, which is utterly ridiculous. 2005 was just as nasty an emissions year as any other before or since and isn’t an accurate measurement of where we could be. Why not use 1990 or 1985 or some other, less polluted, year? I would like it if they used 1950 but I know they just won’t do that. The rest of the world is using the year 1990 as their conservative baseline, so that at least we are setting a real goal and not just fooling around.

What we really need, according to leading climate scientists, are “reductions in rich countries of approximately 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to avoid climate catastrophe”. This supposedly heroic bill by Boxer and Kerry just gets us to 7% below 1990 by 2020… not even 30% overall. This is measly and pathetic. 1990 is a fair concession on the part of climate activists and scientists, although there was enough crap in the air in 1990 to melt us down over the long haul anyways! Why can’t we aim to clean it up good for good?

Do you realize that the Waxman Markey bill stripped the EPA of it’s authority to regulate large polluters and basically denigrated the Clean Air Act? These men actually felt comfortable putting up a bill that basically served up our climate to Wall Street for short term profit. And at what cost? Long term damage to the future of this planet, the planet we expect our children to populate! It amazes me time and again the coldness and selfishness of some people; it’s as if the mere belief that they “will not be here for the end result” is an excuse for not giving a shit. As a person of faith, of heart and of compassion, I find this beyond understanding.

Fortunately, the Boxer Kerry bill restores that authority to the EPA and allows them enforce the Clean Air Act. The one weak knee in this deal is Kerry (always a weak sister) has since proposed that they could remove this authority if big Coal and other monstrous polluters were to come to a bargaining table. So how much money will it take for the weak chins in congress to buckle under and turn the other cheek? They disgust me.

There are other shameful dark corners in the bill, as well. Like Waxman and Markey, Kerry and Boxer are allowing polluters to buy their way out of reducing an outlandish 2 billion tons per year of their carbon dioxide emissions with the stupid, money grabbing and wheeler dealer concept of carbon offsets. This, in my opinion, turns out climate into a poker game. Whoever bluffs the best or has the Ace gets the chips, the planet be damned! Again, I’m disgusted.

Do you realize that the GAO has found that carbon offsets are “impossible” to verify? I mean, if you have half a brain this should be outright obvious. I’m no genius and I figured that out right away. “Carbon Offsets” are the ghosts in the machine; no one sees them, no one knows what or where they really are! Incidentally, the GAO challenges whether offsets would be able to achieve the critical goal of cost-containment. This whole idea could blow our economy into outer space. You think you’re going hungry now? Just wait.

The number of carbon offsets proposed is effectively equivalent to 30% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. 30%. I am sure that this will make a big difference, huh? We will all be choking on only one third of the cancer causing garbage they are spewing now and I’m sure we’ll all enjoy the big difference. In addition, if all of these offsets were used, U.S. polluters would not achieve verifiable emissions reductions until 2030. This is a far cry from 2020 and, in my personal opinion, is just way too late. I hope they enjoy the gold rush while it lasts. There isn’t going to be a lot of good stuff left to spend it on.

As good as the Democrats pretend to be in these matters, giving lip service to climate matters and pretending to give credence to the cause, they sure get into ladling on the gravy and suet for the oil and coal industries. To their credit, the original Waxman-Markey bill would require emissions from landfills, coal mines, and natural gas pipelines to be phased out under a regulatory regime, assuming we could empower some agency to regulate and actually fund it. But, to their shame, the Democratics in the Kerry-Boxer draft lets these industries voluntarily capture methane in exchange for offset payments. Again, more money and no cuts in the crap.

The thing that really gets my goat is the signals we send to the rest of the world. Developing countries everywhere hold America up as a model; they all want to be like us! Are they going to expect such considerations to be extended to them? I mean, will they be hanging around with their hands out and the flaring going on in the background? This image is highly realistic when you consider that we already have plans in this regard in the works. Oil companies operating in third world countries are already salivating over the amount of money they can now extort from a global carbon offset regime in exchange for finally “obeying the law”. And here’s the real kicker: if Nigeria, for instance, stops flaring gas and gets paid to do so, even just temporarily, then the big oil company in Houston, Texas can just carry on. Does this sound workable to you? Does it sound effective? Or is just another opportunity for the corporate theives and crooked congress to steal more money?

In reality, we the taxpayers, do not have enough money to pay off every oil company, pig farmer, corn grower, coalminer, waste dump or landfill cash to “do the right thing”! If this bill passes, then money will start flying right out of your wallet and you will never see it happen. They better get cracking and find all of us some decent work or there aren’t going to be taxes to pay these crooks for their pollution… an oxymoron that just has me in fits. So we are not only going to go broke, we are not even going to have decent resources to explore. Basic survival seems to be in question at this point in our history and it scares me.

This whole climate bill bonanza is another farce. This is nothing but a feeding frenzy of polluters and derivatives traders at the trough of a “solution” that even the staid U.S. government says may mean money down the drain and no guarantee of emissions reductions. So who is running this ship? Who is at the helm? I believe it’s the money eating corporations and big business who actually run our country.. these bills seem to affirm that. And there is really nothing left for us to do except revolt. It may be time for a new revolution in this country; I know progressives are primed for it. How about you? Do you want to do something or just let the monsters eat your meal? Leave ideas in the comments. Activists are invited to leave links.