Will the senate pass the McCain-Lieberman greenhouse bill

Is Congress finally waking up to the reality that our greenhouse emissions are destroying the planet? Four senators just came back from Alaska and it seems like they seen the light so hopefully more senators will take serious look at the McCain-Lieberman proposal which would put a cap on the amount of greenhouse emissions the U. S. generates.

From CNN

Fresh from visits to Canada's Yukon Territory and Alaska's northernmost city, four U.S. senators said that signs of rising temperatures on Earth are obvious and they called on Congress to act.

"If you can go to the Native people and listen to their stories and walk away with any doubt that something's going on, I just think you're not listening," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina.

Sens. John McCain, R-Arizona, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York, told reporters Wednesday in Anchorage that Inupiat Eskimo residents in Barrow have found their ancestral land and traditional lifestyle disrupted by disappearing sea ice, thawing permafrost, increased coastal erosion and changes to wildlife habitat.

Heat-stimulated beetle infestation also has killed vast amounts of the spruce forest in the Yukon Territory, they said.

Such observations provide more ammunition in the fight for a bill, co-sponsored by McCain and Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Connecticut, to cap U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, McCain said. That bill repeatedly has failed to pass the Senate.

"People around the country are going to demand it," McCain said. "It's the special interests versus the people's interest."

The United States is the biggest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, which many scientists have linked to global warming.

There are some other words of encouragement from senators on both side of the political divide yesterday.

From the AP

"We are convinced that the overwhelming scientific evidence indicated that climate change is taking place and human activities play a very large role," McCain said.

McCain, accompanied by Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., spoke to villagers in Canada whose spruce trees are being attacked by the northward spread of spruce beetles. On Alaska's northern coast, they met Native Alaskans dealing with melting permafrost and coastal erosion.

"I don't think there is any doubt left for anyone who actually looks at the science," Clinton said. "There are still some holdouts, but they are fighting a losing battle. The science is overwhelming, but what is deeply concerning is that climate change is accelerating."

Graham, who declared himself "on the fence" about climate change legislation, said an academic debate about global warming is different in the North.

"If you can go to the Native people and listen to their stories and walk away with any doubt that something's going on, I just think you're not listening," he said.

The U.S is the biggest contributor of greenhouse emissions so it's important that this bill pass and becomes law. Time is not on our side any longer and Congress should stop listening to the oil and manufacturing lobbyists and think more about our enviroment and pass this bill before it's too late.