Emissions talk set to be lively | New Zealand

The scheme has also drawn a wide variety of response from several Timaru Herald letter writers, who have labelled the scheme, a "scam" and a "con".

[Left-winger]: Don’t Worry About The Utility-Only Cap: It Can’t Pass Anyway | FDL News Desk

If you have no faith in the environmental community to protect clean air, and believe they will sell out to get something they can call a carbon cap, I have good news for you: there’s no way it can pass. Republicans are heavily invested in opposing what they call a “cap and tax” program, and now we learn that Ben Nelson will join them. He’s probably not alone on the Democratic side – the coal-state Senators aren’t going to like anything that singles out their industry, even if a few utility companies support it. I think the utility-only cap represents a last gasp to get some kind of price on carbon, but there’s just no appetite for it.

American Pulse(tm) Survey

While President Obama continues to talk about climate change, the issue isn't as high on the radar of Americans as the economy, jobs and border security (22.2% say it's an important issue) so consequently, 55.2% say resources should not be allocated towards Cap and Trade, rather they should be focused on getting the economy back on track. (29.7% say resources should be concentrated on the issue and 15% don't know.)

Dishonest attack ads a growth industry in battle for hearts,minds

Those who deny the evidence don't present counter-evidence of their own -- they launch attack ad campaigns filled with discredited arguments and disinformation.

The "C02 is Green" campaign trots out the old chestnut that the climate is cooling, not warming. According to real, empirical evidence, it's warming. On Thursday, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, stated that "last month's combined global land and ocean surface temperatures made it the warmest June on record and the warmest on record averaged for any April-June and January-June periods."

The campaign's web page also repeats the misleading argument that more C02 in the atmosphere is good for plants. It's true that plants need carbon dioxide for growth and that increased levels of C02 will help some plants grow faster. But it's a simplistic argument that ignores the droughts, floods and extreme weather events that come with climate change.