The computer has spoken: Copenhagen will be a failure | Grist

Cancel your plans for flying to Denmark this December. Send the polar bear suits back to the costume shop, and quit boning up on all those U.N. acronyms (IPCC ... UNFCCC ... AWG-LCA ...).

The COP-15 climate talks in Copenhagen will fail. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, “one of the world’s most prominent applied game theorists,” has already gamed out the talks, according to the New York Times Magazine

100 days before Copenhagen, here are 100 things you didn’t know about Copenhagen | Grist

5. 12,000 to 15,000 people are expected to attend the conference, and thousands more journalists, NGO reps, activists, and rabble-rousers will also come to town.
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9. The average December in Copenhagen has 17 days of rain and a temperature of 28 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Washington Independent » What Does LeMieux’s Appointment Mean for Climate Legislation?

Yet LeMieux’s primary loyalty seems to be to Crist himself — he’s Crist’s closest adviser, and he describes himself as “a Charlie Crist Republican.” And right now, the last thing Crist wants is to be seen as, well, liberal. Crist is facing a primary challenge in his bid for the U.S. Senate from the conservative Marco Rubio, who will undoubtedly challenge Crist’s conservative credentials. If LeMieux wants to do Crist a favor, he won’t inflame the conservative base by crossing party lines to vote for cap-and-trade legislation.

So, for now, the jury’s still out on LeMieux.

You thought the health care battle was ugly. Just wait for the climate fight. - By Christopher Beam - Slate Magazine

Add in Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin (both of Michigan), Mark Pryor (Arkansas), John Rockefeller (West Virginia), Jim Webb (Virginia), and Claire McCaskill (Missouri), all of whom did not vote for the Climate Security Act of 2008, and you've got a good dozen Democrats likely to be skittish about climate legislation as envisioned by the House.
...even if health care reform does pass, it's unclear that Blue Dogs will be eager to lie down for the administration a second time. In which case, perhaps climate change—not health care—could be Obama's Waterloo.