Climate Train Wreck

At some point along the way, the solutions to climate change got away from us. The fossil fuel industry, like an evil mastermind in a James Bond film (but without James Bond to stop him), successfully co-opted the earnest attempts by activists, government officials and scientists around the world to stop global warming. The exceptions, loophole and giveaways of the Waxman-Markey climate bill (The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009) that passed in the House and the proposed measures of the international climate treaty now overwhelm the goal of real greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

Today we hit a tipping point as scores of activists began to reach this conclusion, lighting up their social networks and blogs to say what has previously been unthinkable: to solve global warming, we need to start over. Some even took to protesting the environmental groups that worked most closely with the polluters. Throw the fossil fuel industry out of the halls of Congress. Get the polluters out of the climate treaty negotiations. They have enriched themselves with subsidies and thwarted solutions. Here are the two thinkers who finally brought us this clarity:

Daphne Wysham writing in today's Huffington Post explaining why we have to get rid of "cap and trade," and

Annie Leonard, the genius behind The Story of Stuff with her latest, The Story of Cap and Trade, a ten minute narrated animation that simply explains why we need to scrap this approach.

Read Wysham, then listen to Leonard for ten minutes. Then don't get all spleeny. Get mad and then lets get back to work.