Opposing Views: How the American Oil Industry Can Save Your Retirement

One section of the federal climate change bill now being debated in the House calls fossil fuels a "clear and present danger" and a “threat” to our nation. That’s nonsense. It’s posturing. Oil and gas are vital to economy and national security. Enacting policies that penalize on the industry that supplies those critical resources is counterproductive. And the name-calling is just petty.

The Associated Press: US delegation mixed on China climate change pact

BEIJING (AP) — U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday she remains hopeful of reaching an agreement with China on a common approach to climate change ahead of a conference in December in Copenhagen, despite considerable pessimism among other members of her congressional delegation.

BBC - Ethical Man blog: Has Obama lost his bottle on climate?

So, this is what I want to know: why didn't President Obama use some of his extraordinary political capital to force through truly transformative cap-and-trade legislation?

BBC - Climate Change: The Blog of Bloom: Thermonuclear armageddon and climate change: a fair likeness?

The qualitative difference between the two threats is perhaps nowhere better expressed, however inadvertently, than by the convener of the symposium himself, Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber. Where once we had 'the Cold War notion of mutually-assured destruction,' he told the Times, 'Today we have mutually-assured increases in greenhouse gases.'

OK. But while debates around climate change are still qualified by the words 'might', 'could' and 'predicted', it's probably fair to say that the average person in the street may view the comparison of carbon emissions with things that can vapourise a major city in seconds as unhelpfully alarmist and perhaps just a little bit silly.