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This New version of WordPress has many new features, including Comment Preview, which many of you asked for.

It will take a while to work out all the kinks and for me to figure out all of the features.  Indeed, they’re not even upgrading the to the latest version of WordPress until I master these.

But I can add color.

And headers.

And headers with color.

Without going into the HTML.  So woo-hoo — more things for me to spend time on.

On the bright side, there is a constantly updated word count, which will be great feedback that should motivate me to writer shorter posts!  As if.

Hopefully most kinks will be out this weekend.  Thank you for your patience!

Why are so many Republicans in Congress lying about green economy legislation? Republicans for Environmental Protection have no idea. In a sharply worded press release, this organization of conservation-minded conservatives criticize the Hill Republicans’ $3100 light-switch-tax lie, which is based on a deliberate misinterpretation of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysis of carbon pricing. They describe the GOP pattern of lying about energy as “a disservice to American citizens” and “a dangerous unwillingness to learn the right lessons from the election debacles of 2006 and 2008″:

Conservatives, of all people, should not ignore basic principles of economics. Such tactics, which are designed to score political points and gain headlines, are a disservice to American citizens, who urgently need Congress to debate the climate issue constructively. Voters are counting on their elected representatives to work together across party lines to develop balanced legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lower America’s dangerous dependence on oil, and help us move more quickly to a more diversified, robust energy economy.

REP’s statement explains that spreading lies about green economic policy is dangerous for our nation and even the political future of their own party. They offer one possible explanation why so many leading Republicans, from House whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) to Budget Committee ranking minority member Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), keep on lying:

Few except special interests and politicians who do their bidding would argue that limiting emissions that put human health and the environment at risk puts a burdensome “tax” on American families and businesses.

Text of the full release: Read more

I’m updating my previous answer to this important and complicated question, but sticking with “no” for four reasons:

1. Against all evidence, conservative Republicans have simply refused to budge on the global warming issue (see “House GOP pledge to fight all action on climate. “Why do conservatives hate your children?”). They would rather destroy the climate than support any government-led strategies to promote clean energy (see “Hill conservatives reject all 3 climate strategies and embrace Rush Limbaugh — what does that radicalism mean for Obama, progressives, and humanity?“). Indeed, they actually think they have a winning issue in attacking any effort to raise the price of carbon pollution (i.e. fossil-fuel-based energy): “Several prominent party officials said they believe the GOP’s message is fundamentally sound when it comes to energy policy, pointing to that issue as one of the few political bright spots in recent years.” I previously I don’t see that changing for at least several years.

2. Moderate Republicans are a vanishing breed — and the 2008 election booted many of the remaining ones out of Congress.

3 The most important thing is to get as strong a climate bill as possible over the next year. The Dems are going to have to compromise just to satisfy their own moderates (see “Moderate Senate Dems build ‘Gang of 16″² to influence cap-and-trade bill“). Weakening the bill further to get more than a few token Republicans would gut the whole effort.

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Clean tech venture capital funding in the first quarter of 2009 hit $1 billion, according to “findings released today by the Cleantech Group in cooperation with Deloitte.”

For the authors of the findings, the headline news was global cleantech VC funding “dropped 41 percent during 1Q09, compared to the previous quarter.” But that $1 billion in Q1 is still huge. Compare it to Q1 2007, when the economy was still booming — and cleantech VC funding was “only” $900 million.

Or consider this — of that $1 billion spent in Q1 2009, nearly $700 million was spent in North America, which is more money than was spent all last year on relevant cleantech R&D by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which does virtually all federal R&D spending in this area.

The news continues to be “stimulus and venture capital sow seeds for cleantech industry’s ‘revival’.” Indeed, the global stimulus investment in cleantech has been unprecedented:

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Hill conservatives have rejected all 3 climate-saving strategies, an approach that would doom your children and grandchildren and the next 50 generations to untold (and purely preventable) misery. Absent a positive message, all conservatives can do is try to scare the public with lies about how climate action is somehow unaffordable (see “MIT Professor tells GOP to stop ‘misrepresenting’ his work and inflating the cost to families of cap-and-trade by a factor of 10“).

Progressives know the reverse is true — or should (see “Why even strong climate action has such a low total cost — one tenth of a penny on the dollar“). Raising the cost of carbon pollution is an essential strategy for averting the incalculable economic and human harm from global warming impacts. So it is especially disheartening to see so many Senate Democrats endorse the GOP’s polluter-appeasing message, as guest blogger Brad Johnson explains in this post first published at Wonk Room.

Ever since President Obama introduced a budget that included his cap-and-trade plan to invest in a green economy and make work pay instead of pollution, conservatives have falsely attacked it as a $3100 light-switch tax, despite their lack of an alternative plan. On Tuesday, the Senate bowed to the barrage of propaganda and passed two amendments to the budget that imply any move to clean energy is a risky tax on consumers. On Wednesday, the Senate explicitly preserved the filibuster for green economy legislation (67-31 vote), even if “the Senate finds that public health, the economy and national security of the United States are jeopardized by inaction on global warming” (42-56):

SUPPORTING THE FALSE CHOICE OF ECONOMY V. ENVIRONMENT

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