Don't miss this: Chill winds take heat off global warming | Chris Ayres - Times Online

LA Notebook: Climate change scepticism is going mainstream

Climate Progress » Blog Archive » First impression of Waxman-Markey [climate scam bill]

...it has stronger near-term targets: “a 20 percent cut from 2005 levels by 2020.” And the bill embraces the useful USCAP notion of a medium-term target — in this case “a 42 percent reduction in 2030.” That target sends a strong message that business-as-usual is off the table for fossil fuel companies. It also keeps the needed 80% cut in 2050.

It has both a renewable electricity standard for utilities (25 percent in 2025, though “a fifth can be met with efficiency measures”) and an energy efficiency resource standard — two essential provision for jumpstarting a transition to a clean energy, green jobs economy, while keeping total energy bills low. It also establishes a Low Carbon Fuel Standard — eventually, which is to say apparently after 2022.

One reason the bill doesn’t get an “A” is because it still allows too many offsets — 2 billion, whereas total U.S. GHGs in 2005 were about 7.2 billion tons...

EPW POLICY BEAT: THE ACID RAIN MYTH

As the following highlights from the study make abundantly clear, the experience of the Acid Rain program simply cannot be compared to cap and trade for GHG