Chris Hayes Compares Climate Change To The Struggle To End Slavery | NewsBusters.org

HAYES: I mean there’s one other thing here which is the fossil fuel industry. Opposition to it didn't just [inaudible] spring up. There was hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent because frankly, I mean, the amount of money that’s on the line, the only historical analog for the amount of money that’s on the line in terms of the fossil fuel industry is the sum total value that the slaves represented in the Civil War. That is the analogy you have to go back to. When you think about the current present value of the fossil fuel reserves that are on the books, the current fossil fuel companies, the last time that that much wealth was at stake was when the south fought the Civil War.

SMITH: Nobody suggested they dump the oil in the Gulf. It’s not like…

HAYES: I mean, no, people are suggesting, I mean Bill McGibbons says if you do the math, one-fifth, which means four [?] out of every five BTU’s that are in the ground have to stay there. That's trillions of dollars of wealth.

The sad history of climate policy, according to David Brooks

[Ezra Klein] So, to summarize: Addressing climate change by pricing carbon — an idea Brooks supported then and supports now — was a bipartisan project in 2003. It became a partisan project because Al Gore thought it was important enough to make a documentary about. Republicans began opposing efforts to price carbon, in part because they hate Al Gore. That left funding renewables research as the only avenue for those worried about climate change. Funding renewables research means funding some projects that won’t work out, and some that might make Al Gore rich. This led to bad publicity that tarnished the whole program.

The passivity of Brooks’s conclusion is astonishing. This isn’t a story of overreach, misjudgements, and disappointment. It’s a story of Republicans putting raw partisanship and a dislike for Al Gore in front of the planet’s best interests. It’s a story, though Brooks doesn’t mention this, of conservatives building an alternative reality in which the science is unsettled, and no one really knows whether the planet is warming and, even if it is, whether humans have anything to do with it. It’s a story of Democrats being forced into a second and third-best policies that Republicans then use to press their political advantage.

GHCN’s Arctic Adjustments « NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

As you will see, every station has had the same sort of adjustments as the Icelandic ones – either the past is cooled or the present is warmed, or both. Most stations have had adjustments of a degree or more.

Video: Obama stimulus flop paid workers for playing cards « Hot Air