Waxman-Markey: What’s new, what’s old? | GlobalWarming.org

The bill instructs gas and electric utilities to use the free allocations to “protect consumers” from ”price increases.” This is odd. The whole point of cap-and-trade is to raise energy prices. As candidate Obama said in a moment of candor, electricity prices will “necessarily skyrocket.” That’s how cap-and-trade discourages consumption, which reduces emissions. It’s also how cap-and-trade rigs the market in favor of non-carbon energy, which also supposedly reduces emissions.

The Washington Independent » Coal, Electric Industries Big Winners in Climate Bill Deal

The message is clear: If climate change reforms are ever to clear Congress, they can’t confront industry too severely — even if those industries are responsible for same carbon emissions creating the problem.

Canada: Cool weather slows seeding

Cold spring creates 'a huge issue' on farms: commodities expert
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Tom Abrametz woke up to nearly a foot of snow covering his fields Friday morning, a sight that told him seeding would not be on the agenda this weekend.
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Weber has been angered during the last 10 days over media reports that Saskatchewan is only a few days behind the normal seeding pace, or equal to the five-year average.

"The real story is that we've got seeds sitting in the ground for 10 days. They aren't out of the ground yet."

Seeds can freeze, rot or just grow too slowly when they don't germinate in time.

"It was minus seven Wednesday night, Thursday night it was minus three and Tuesday it's forecast for minus seven again. The ground's not warming up and it's the 15th of May," Weber said on Friday.

He received a BlackBerry message from a farmer near North Battleford Friday morning, saying the ground was frozen one and a half to two inches down.
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Abrametz said someone in his area testing the soil on Tuesday broke his thermometer, as it hit frozen earth a foot into the ground.