Ending some nine months of closed-door deliberations, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) will release global warming legislation Wednesday that they hope will be the vehicle for broader Senate negotiations and an eventual conference with the House.

The bill’s authors said last week that they expect to start hearings early next month on the bill, with a markup in Boxer’s Environment and Public Works Committee to follow soon thereafter. They also acknowledged that their legislation is just a “starting point” in a bid to win over moderate and conservative Democrats, as well as Republicans.

“I hope what we’ve done is constructive and well-received,” Kerry, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said Thursday. “I have no pretensions, and neither does Barbara, that this will be the final product. It is a starting point, a commitment, full-fledged, across party lines to do what we need to do to protect the planet for the next century.”

The Boxer-Kerry bill will build in large part off H.R. 2454 (pdf), legislation approved in June by the House following several marathon months of negotiations that involved lawmakers representing coastal and industry-heavy districts. Exactly what is the same in the two bills remains to be seen. As for differences, Senate Democratic aides say they expect the legislation to divert from the House bill’s 17 percent emissions target for 2020 and go with an even more aggressive 20 percent limit. The bill also will stay silent on exactly how the Senate should divide up emission allowances.

At least five other Senate committees are also expected to contribute to the climate debate. The Foreign Relations and Agriculture committees are preparing language without convening a markup.

Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said he will hold votes on his pieces of the global warming bill. And the same goes for Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who last week told reporters that provisions on international trade and the allocation of emission allowances would be marked up provided Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says the bill is “clearly moving.”

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) has already approved legislation (S. 1462 (pdf)) out of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee that includes a nationwide renewable electricity standard and a raft of other energy incentives, including a provision that could bring oil and gas rigs closer to Florida’s Gulf Coast. Bingaman is also planning a hearing Thursday on several competing cost estimates associated with the House-passed climate bill. The session, which was postponed once earlier this month, now gives senators an early public forum to sound off on the Boxer-Kerry bill.

Already last week, several Democratic senators working outside of the Boxer-Kerry camp said their ideas would be melded into the legislation at a later date. “It’s going to need a lot of work,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).

Kerry last week sought to change the vernacular surrounding the climate bill and sell its concepts more broadly, insisting it is not a “cap and trade” proposal but a “pollution reduction” bill. “I don’t know what ‘cap and trade’ means. I don’t think the average American does,” Kerry said. “This is not a cap-and-trade bill, it’s a pollution reduction bill”

For the rest of the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/09/28/28climatewire-boxer-kerry-set-to-introduce-climate-bill-in-43844.html

By DARREN SAMUELSOHN of ClimateWire

Published: September 28, 2009

Face Fwd Comments:

No one has ever explained to me how this legislation is going to stop emissions. However, it is pretty easy to see how this little scheme is going to earn the government as well as cap and trade companies millions.

John Kerry, if you are reading I will explain Cap and Trade. One company is considered greener than another and they get carbon credits that they can either apply to a tax bill or sell to another company that has high carbon emissions. The low emissions company uses a third party broker like, Generation Investment Management, which is Al Gore’s company, to sell emission credits to the higher carbon emitting company.  They use those to offset their emissions and avoid EPA fines. The low emitting company makes a few bucks, the broker makes a commission, the big carbon company legalizes their pollution while avoiding fines and cleaning up their act, and the government gets to tax everyone. Same amount of pollution (although carbon is not really a pollution), however now the government gets a slice of the action and Al Gore opens a Panama Bank account.

I know what everyone is thinking…..that doesn’t impact me, I don’t have carbon emissions only businesses have that. Sorry, you are wrong. Actually, carbon is what we exhale when we breath so technically, you are a polluter according to this new legislation. And while that illustration may be a bit ridiculous, consider that every time you heat or cool your home, drive to work, or take the elevator to your floor you could be charged for carbon emissions. Certainly the companies that are providing you the energy and fuel to complete your daily task will be charged. To whom do you think they will pass that? You guessed it, you.

So you see, Cap and Trade is not about saving the world, stopping polluters, breeding baby pandas, or even cleaning up waste sites. Nope! It’s about making money for the IRS and the people that are to be given (political insiders) the Carbon Trading Franchises to be awarded by the government.

Analysis: Miles to go on long road to climate deal, (especailly since there is no need)
     
AP – President Barack Obama addresses the Summit on Climate Change at the United Nations Tuesday, Sept. 22, … .By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent  – It happened in Rio, in 1992: The world officially woke up to the fact it was getting warmer outside. Seventeen years later in New York, the U.N. gathered presidents and premiers to talk about serious steps to turn down the heat. But the political climate may still be too cool for conclusive action.

In inviting President Barack Obama and other world leaders to Tuesday’s summit on climate change, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged them to “act as global leaders rather than national leaders,” to push climate negotiations forward.

With a mere 76 days to go before a pivotal diplomatic conference, it appeared an interim agreement might be the most that can be expected this December, leaving difficult details for later talks.

Ban’s bid to build momentum for a new climate accord was the latest effort in a long, cumbersome process dating back to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Leaders converging on the Brazilian city signed on to something unprecedented, a treaty committing them to work “to protect the climate system for present and future generations.”

Scientists had produced persuasive evidence the carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases that industry, transport and farming were pouring into the atmosphere were trapping heat and raising global temperatures, with potentially damaging effects — droughts, floods, rising sea levels — from a changing climate.

Then-President George H.W. Bush called on fellow summiteers to “join in a prompt start on the convention’s implementation.”

Not promptly, but five years later the world’s nations agreed to add the Kyoto Protocol to the treaty, with its first, modest reductions in emissions by industrialized countries.

The U.S. Senate repudiated the pact, however, and the process entered an eight-year slowdown as a second Bush administration, of President George W., resisted global pressure for deeper concerted action.

The U.S. opponents complained emissions reductions would crimp the American economy, and objected to Kyoto’s excusing of China, India and other poorer countries from having to reduce their energy use.

For the rest of the story please go here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090922/ap_on_sc/un_un_climate_analysis

face fwd comments:
What BS..,.every knows that the planet has been cooling since ’97.  Due to the lack of sun spots they now say we can expect another 15 years of dramatically cooler temps.  As of today September 22, a huge snow storn has broken out in the front range of the Rockies.  Early, even for there.

I hate to break the tax bubble but, Hey Al Gore, I guess the planet fever, broke

GENEVA — British rock group Duran Duran and heavy metal band Scorpions are among 55 world celebrities who have joined in recording a song to draw attention to the global warming crisis, organisers said on Monday.

The song is part of a mass media campaign on the threats of climate change organised by the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum, headed by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan.

The song entitled “Beds’r Burning”, which was originally recorded by the Australian group Midnight Oil in the 1980s, can be downloaded from the Internet for free and will be presented to the public at a launch in Paris on October 1.

“If we do not stop the (greenhouse gas) emissions today, global warming will be still be with us in 40 to 50 years,” warned Walter Fust, director of the Forum, at a press conference in Geneva.

The media campaign featuring the song is aimed at putting pressure on world leaders to reach an agreement on tackling climate change at a UN-sponsored conference in Copenhagen in December.

Some of the other popular artists who add their voices to the anti-global warming song include French ‘Piaf’ actress Marion Cotillard, Senegalese star Youssou N’dour, Irish singer/composer Bob Geldorf, Chinese singer Khalil Fong, and even a Nobel peace laureate, South African archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Face Fwd Comments: (sarcasm alert)

I think I have a tear welling up in my eye.  If I had only known that musicians cared about the environment so much…….well, I would have…..hmmm I would have…., hold on I’m thinking about it.  Let me get back to you on what I would have done after we go through some of the things musicians are famous for saying:

This is the most fun I’ve had with my pants on. Now if I’d said this is the most fun I’ve had while wearing women’s underwear, we’d be having an entirely different conversation…

Simon Le Bon Duran Duran

Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can’t help but cry. I mean I’d love to be skinny like that but not with all those flies and death and stuff.

Mariah Carey

I’m sitting there with my parents, my mom’s sobbing after she finds out that I don’t have the gene (for Cancer) , and I’m like, “Guess what, Mom and Dad, I got my nipples pierced!”

Cassandra Ventura Singer and someone’s girlfriend

“I want to be like Gandhi and Martin Luther King and John Lennon?but I want to stay alive.”

Madonna

“The only reason in the world that I bought a computer was to look up UFO sites.”

Tom DeLonge from Blink 182

 “Punk is no longer a four-letter word. It’s a three-letter word now.”

“All my religious beliefs are based on Star Wars.”

Mike Dirnt from Green Day

“Bands don’t do what we used to do. Bands don’t have the theatrics. We were lighting ourselves on fire. I had a chainsaw and cut a nun’s head off. You don’t see that shit at all anymore, which is kind of sad.”

 Vince Neil  Mötley Crüe frontman

 “From the beginning of time, the bad guys always had the best uniforms,” he explained to the Guardian. “Napoleon, the Confederates, the Nazis. They all had killer uniforms. I mean, the SS uniform is f***ing brilliant! They were the rock stars of that time. What’re you gonna do? They just look good.”

Lemmy Kilmeister Motörhead’s

After reading that, never mind.

Frigid 2010 Forecast: How Cold will the Winter Weather Be? Old Man Winter doesn’t want to give up his frigid hold just yet, but his hold will mostly be in the middle of the country.

According to the 2010 Farmers’ Almanac, this winter will see more days of shivery conditions: a winter during which temperatures will average below normal for about three-quarters of the nation.

A large area of numbingly cold temperatures will predominate from roughly east of the Continental Divide to west of the Appalachians (see map). The coldest temperatures will be over the northern Great Lakes and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. But acting almost like the bread of a sandwich, to this swath of unseasonable cold will be two regions with temperatures that will average closer to normal—theWest Coast and the East Coast.

What about snow/rain/ice? Near-normal amounts of precipitation are expected over the eastern third of the country, as well as over the Pacific Northwest and Northern Plains, while drier-than-normal conditions are forecast to occur over the Southwest and the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes.  Only the Central and Southern Plains are expected to receive above-average amounts of precipitation.

Blizzards?  While three-quarters of the country is predicted to see near- or below average precipitation this winter, that doesn’t mean there won’t be any winter storms! On the contrary, significant snowfalls are forecast for parts of every zone. For the Middle Atlantic and Northeast States, for instance, we are predicting a major snowfall in mid-February; possibly even blizzard conditions for New England (indeed, even shovelry is not dead).

Thanks to the Farmers Almanac for their information.  If you would like more information on weather or for information on the Farmer’s Almanac click on the following link:

http://www.farmersalmanac.com/weather/a/could-this-winters-weather-add-to-economic-woes

Face Fwd Comments:

If you have been following the Sunspots in the news you know that there is a huge correlation between our sun’s activity and the weather.  Sunspot activity over the last 18 months has largely abated which has brought on last years cold weather and this years predicted cold winter.  Does it surprise anyone that Sunspot Activity over the last 400 years and that the weather patterns (yes Al, there is no human induced global warming) including the warmer weather during period between the industrial revolution and now almost perfectly are in sync.  Check out this graph:

If you are interested in learning more about how sunspots impact our weather you will want to look up information on the Maunder Minimum.  You might be surprised to see what all of the hub bub is about. 

 In my opinion the science has now become undeniable that the sun is the villain (or hero depending on your stance) in climate change.  I firmly believe that the only thing stopping Al Gore/the Obama administration and the United Nations from embracing this science, is that they have not figured out how to tax the sun.   Don’t worry America…….Al is working on it.