First off, those of us involved in this subject have lamented a recent poll showing increased doubt about global warming (although despite this, there is still strong support for clean energy)

The debate among climate scientists has been over for years. So if you’re among the skeptics or know someone who is, there are good resources out there that explain the science pretty clearly. The Union of Concerned Scientists has excellent material here and here.

Now, getting back to Kerry/Boxer, as I wrote here yesterday, the Senate’s version of the bill to address climate change has passed out of Barbara Boxer’s committee and is now in Baucus’s Finance committee. Many people have pushed back on this bill and ACES as not going far enough and actually worse than doing nothing. In my opinion, and in the opinion of many experts, this is simply not true.

These bills are really our best and only shot to stem the tide of global warming. We lost 8 years under Bush, and most scientists are in agreement that we really have to act soon if we want to avoid the catastrophic affects of global climate change.

These bills will work. Joe Romm writes the blog Climateprogress.org. According to Time Magazine, he is "The Web’s most influential climate change blogger." In a recent article about the House version of the bill, Joe writes:

In a regulated market with a cap, many of the domestic offsets will represent real reductions of US greenhouse gas emissions, and the total supply of cheap domestic offsets will be limited.

Al Gore, who has interviewed nearly every climate scientist in the world, wrote this about the House bill:

The American Clean Energy Security (ACES) Act is one of the most important pieces of legislation Congress will ever pass. This comprehensive legislation will make meaningful reductions in global warming pollution, spur investment in clean energy technology, create jobs and reduce our reliance on foreign oil.

These bills wont wreck the economy. Don’t believe me? How about Nobel Prize Winning Economist Paul Krugman:

It’s important, then, to understand that claims of immense economic damage from climate legislation are as bogus, in their own way, as climate-change denial. Saving the planet won’t come free (although the early stages of conservation actually might). But it won’t cost all that much either.

…the Congressional Budget Office released an analysis of the effects of Waxman-Markey, concluding that in 2020 the bill would cost the average family only $160 a year, or 0.2 percent of income. That’s roughly the cost of a postage stamp a day.

By 2050, when the emissions limit would be much tighter, the burden would rise to 1.2 percent of income. But the budget office also predicts that real G.D.P. will be about two-and-a-half times larger in 2050 than it is today, so that G.D.P. per person will rise by about 80 percent. The cost of climate protection would barely make a dent in that growth. And all of this, of course, ignores the benefits of limiting global warming.

Can’t the EPA just regulate CO2? This is a good thing to hold over the heads of Congress to get them to pass Climate Change legislation, but it’s risky to rely on it because a future congress could block the EPA, as they did in the 1990s when the EPA tried to impose stricter CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) requirements on SUVs. Plus, a future administration could get the EPA to change its stance on this. Grist has a good run down of this option here.

Lastly, I’m sure I’ll get some push back, because I often do, about the fact that James Hansen came out against Cap&Trade in general and the House bill specifically. If you don’t know Hansen, he’s probably the most well know climate scientist in the world. He’s been sounding the alarm bells about climate change for years as a NASA scientist. He is calling for a tax on carbon. His credentials on climate change are impeccable, but I think he’s wrong here. While this may be a good solution in theory, I can’t imagine there’s even a chance of getting a new tax through this Congress.

Joe Romm has a lengthy take down of Hansen’s arguments here. In summary:

Still, his arguments need debunking because he is mostly recycling myths that others are pushing — and with the country’s top climate scientist putting his name on this collection of false and misleading statements, they will no doubt be parroted by yet more people.

Just like we have worked to make the Healthcare Reform bill include a public option (which isn’t our best case scenario), we need to work to strengthen Kerry/Boxer, not kill it. In the case of climate change, this isn’t a case of the perfect being the enemy of the good, it’s a case of the perfect being an enemy of the planet.