Here are some devastating criticisms of Senator Kerry's and Senator Lieberman's polluter-friendly American Power Act, along with a ringing endorsement from Darth Vader:

 The bill would decimate the Clean Air Act as it applies to global warming, and it would undercut states’ ability to seek innovative solutions. The bill would also hand billions in giveaways to corporate polluters, including the oil, coal, nuclear and agribusiness industries, while creating a risky new subprime carbon market for Wall Street traders. All this is in exchange for pollution reduction goals far weaker than what scientists say are needed and myriad loopholes. No wonder so many corporate polluters are reportedly poised to welcome this bill’s introduction. 

As Earth Day draws to a close, I am posting new details about the polluter-friendly bill that Massachusetts Senator John Kerry is preparing to unveil along with Senators Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham. This bill is a sheer betrayal of everything Earth Day should be about.

Thankfully, we have other examples. Check out this post at It's Getting Hot In Here. This video of the culmination of The Leadership Campaign's Earth Day action sets the example for how we need to demand policy that is commensurate with the challenge at hand, and accept nothing less. If they won't do it, we need to replace them with people who will. Our future depends on it.

Here in Massachusetts, it is clear that we need to stand up to Senator Kerry along these same lines. This is simply not tolerable.

From Mother Jones:

After 40 years of organized rallies and events raising awareness and promoting environmental advocacy, I think it is fair to ask the question "to what end?" Where are we now compared to the first passionate rallies shook the nation? As Senator John Kerry prepares to unveil a new bi-partisan direction for US energy legislation, and the United States jockeys to control international climate negotiations, where exactly are we headed?

In this great interview of ecologist David Orr, he speaks about some of the lost thunder from those inspired days:

Join the Peoples Conference on Climate Change live on the Internet
http://envivo.cmpcc.org.bo/?lang=en

Launch: 20 April 2010

World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth

[Note: We are having a live event at Encuentro 5 in Boston to communicate directly with conference participants and other live events in New York and elsewhere. Visit encuentro5.org for more details.]

Bolivia Rejects U.S. Blackmail on Copenhagen Accord

April 10, 2010

Obama administration cancels adaptation aid for Bolivia and Ecuador, but Bolivia refuses to give in.

The Washington Post and the Guardian reported on April 9 that the U.S. is withholding promised climate change adaptation funds from Bolivia and Ecuador, because those countries refused to endorse Obama’s fraudulent Copenhagen Accord.

Here’s Bolivia’s response, as reported by the Associated Press  on April 10:

Bolivia protests US suspension of climate aid

BONN, Germany — Bolivia has protested the suspension of U.S. climate aid as “a very bad practice,” but says it won’t change its policies on global warming.

Bolivian delegate Pablo Solon confirms that the U.S. reduced aid after it opposed the adoption of the Copenhagen Accord brokered at the U.N. climate summit last December in the Danish capital.

Speaking to reporters Saturday, Salon questioned the value of negotiation when financial pressure is applied to those who disagree.

The document outlines key messages the Obama administration wants to convey in the run-up to UN climate talks in Mexico in November. Photograph: Anja Niedringhaus/AP

A document accidentally left on a European hotel computer and passed to the Guardian reveals the US government's increasingly controversial strategy in the global UN climate talks.

Titled Strategic communications objectives and dated 11 March 2010, it outlines the key messages that the Obama administration wants to convey to its critics and to the world media in the run-up to the vital UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico in November. (You can read the document text below).

From Mobilization for Climate Justice website

Click here for original article with links, photos, etc.

1/13/2009 – New York, NY – In the wake of a controversial outcome at the Copenhagen climate talks, a diverse crowd of scientists, Faith congregations, activists, students, and concerned citizens converged in confrontation and protest at the 2nd Annual IGlobalForum Carbon Trading Summit today. The summit is the largest annual meeting place of corporations, banks, and lobby groups to further the agenda of a carbon trading scheme to address climate change. Activists rallied to oppose market-based trading of greenhouse gas emissions credits and call for real solutions to the climate crisis. Dr. Maggie Zhou, from Secure Green Future and Climate SOS, was among the demonstrators who engaged in a nonviolent direct action and risked arrest in an attempt to blockade the venue’s revolving doors, and display a banner decrying carbon trading as a false solution.

You might have heard about ClimateGate -- a series of hacked emails from climate scientists that has given climate change deniers fuel to continue undermining a clear scientific consensus in the court of public opinion. Here they are in their entirety. Good luck trying to disprove global warming based on these emails!

Despite adding nothing substantive to the questions surrounding climate change, this illegal act of naked distortion has put the environmental movement on the defensive, which in turn has handed the debate over to the public relations efforts of dirty energy profiteers. One website focused on clearing up the PR games around climate change is the DeSmogBlog. And two of the blog's authors have a new book out called Climate Cover-up which exposes the public relations fraud behind the fake debate around climate change.

What's incredible is how ClimateGate has dominated the climate discourse leading up to Copenhagen. Indeed, our friends at the DeSmogBlog point out that "this PR campaign could not be accomplished without the compliance of media as well as the assent and participation of leaders in government and business."

The Story of Cap & Trade from Story of Stuff Project on Vimeo.