Now do something

Lisa Murkowski's Dirty Air Amendment was defeated today. Fortunately Senators Dorgan and Conrad voted against it and in doing so did not follow the lead of Representative Pomeroy who introduced in the House something very similar to what Murkowski had.

Some Senators from whom you would expect such absurdity, like James Inhofe and Mitch McConnell, talked about supposed "job-killing" and "power grab" like recent op-ed contributions to the Herald have. But some, including Murkowski herself and Lindsay Graham (who bizarrely and stomach-turningly apparently has turned against the bill he put in much work crafting) voiced the need to do something.

Great. Now do something. Just make that something meaningful. That obviously means not just sitting on our collective hands and squealing that the economy will be destroyed if we try to protect the environment, and it also means not the "spoonful of sugar and dump the medicine" approach of the Lugar bill. Do something real to address both our need for energy and our need for a livable planet, not just for 2010, but also 2100, as well as between and beyond. There are a lot of paths toward doing a lot of what is necessary, but one thing we cannot stick our heads in the sand to ignore or deny is the requirement to dramatically decrease carbon emissions. You cannot defeat physics by closing your eyes or with an economics argument.