That is what Dave Robert's claims in his blog at Gristmill. It would seem from the tone of this post that chapter1 would agree. Roberts does what chapter1 does not, put the focus squarely on Reid's leadership in the Senate.
Truthfully, it should be placed on you and me.
However, I would ask that you read Roberts's latest post at Gristmill, The Syllogism of Doom. This goes directly at the question of why all of the calls for change, from the House Democrats to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, do not resonate with the general public and why such crazy ideas as "clean coal" continue to hold out false hope for future generations. Secretary General Ban makes it clear.
We have read the science. Global warming is real, and we are a prime cause.
We have heard the warnings. Unless we act, now, we face serious consequences. Polar ice will melt. Sea levels will rise. A third of our plant and animal species could vanish. There will be famine in Africa and Central Asia.
Largely lost in the debate is the good news: We can do something -- more easily, and at far less cost, than most of us imagine
In reality, there is no easy technology solution. That means we can not offload this problem onto the scientists, engineers or even onto our politicians but most deal with it ourselves, every day.
DK is fairly efficient at demanding action from national politicians. But this is rather like the old saying that "When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." What we need is to generate change in every single community in this country. Rather than ranting about McConnell or Tancredo or Huckabee, we should be showing up at our local planning commission or city council meetings demanding that they adopt the Architecture 2030 Challenge, radically changing the way we consider energy use in the permit granting process for all new buildings and major renovations. The problems of global warming will not be solved by focus only on transportation. Without the Architecture 2030 outlined changes, we will never reach the 80% reduction goals that are going to come out of the Bali meetings.
It is so much easier for me to sit here and write this than it is to get off my butt and go lobby not Washington, but my own City Council. In my case, I have found a surrogate. Our local Chamber of Commerce has an Environmental Affairs Council. My local Congress Critter, Jerry "McWind" McNerney has a representative on that council and we are talking.
We need more Congress Critters who, like McNerney, understand that real action is not limited to Washington, that real activism is not limited to the blogosphere. Tomorrow, some 200 people are going to go jump into Chesapeake Bay to illustrate the need to combat global warming. They will get cold. Nothing will change.
We need substantive change, not grand gestures. What did you do to combat climate change today?