"a far cry from the tumult and ranks of television cameras 20 years earlier"

Are Big Oil and Big Coal Climate Criminals? - Dot Earth - Climate Change and Sustainability - New York Times Blog

Committee staff explained that the main goal was to honor Dr. Hansen by hosting a briefing for him on the 20th anniversary of the 1988 hearing, even though the sleepy, muggy days of late June had many lawmakers on the road. In his methodical, low-key Iowan way, Dr. Hansen ran through his climate slides as he has done innumerable times. The scene was a far cry from the tumult and ranks of television cameras 20 years earlier, when Dr. Hansen’s testimony generated evening news reports and front-page stories.

The young people in the room seemed energized by his call to them to mobilize, vote, and enlist others to help them fight for the climate they would inherit. The political aides and officials appeared uncomfortable, seemingly feeling the size of the disconnect between Dr. Hansen’s prescription for climate safety and the realities of politics and economics.

Is the climate challenge — which would require moving away from conventional use of fossil fuels even as the world’s energy appetite grows threefold or more in the next few decades — fundamentally a bad fit for Washington?

That seemed to be the case today.