Hell and High Water hits hard as Time asks: Will Russia’s deadly heat wave change its stance on climate change?

“What’s happening with the planet’s climate right now needs to be a wake-up call to all of us, meaning all heads of state, all heads of social organizations, in order to take a more energetic approach to countering the global changes to the climate.”

That’s Dmitri Medvedev, President of a country that has been mired in even more disinformation about global warming than ours, as Time notes.  On Friday, Medvedev said that in 14 regions of Russia, ”practically everything is burning”:

And so we have Hell and High Water, with Pakistan’s record flooding displacing millions:  “The disaster has killed 1,200 people and there are fears that the death toll will rise steeply. There are reports of cholera outbreaks among some victims as doctors treat a number of waterborne diseases”:

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In response to one of the greatest oil disasters in history, the U.S. Senate will do nothing. Republican opposition to the limited oil industry reform package assembled by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (S. 3663) has led him to pull the bill — and the BP-friendly Republican alternative (S. 3643) — from the floor. Pressed for time, Reid chose not to force his opponents to cast a vote on behalf of their oil sponsors. Reid’s package is almost exclusively made of bipartisan pieces of legislation:

— Interior Department drilling reform, co-sponsored by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)

– Natural gas trucks retrofitting, co-sponsored by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)

– The “cash for caulkers” Homestar energy efficiency program, co-sponsored by Bingaman and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

These initiatives would have held BP accountable, created jobs, protected the environment, cleaned the air, and strengthened energy security.

However, Murkowski, Hatch, and Graham joined their Republican colleagues — as well as the oil-fueled Democrats Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Mark Begich (D-AK) — in opposing Reid’s bill because it lifted the $75 million liability cap for oil companies like BP responsible for a major oil spill.

“It should be an affront to those who are serious about enacting good policy,” bloviated Murkowski, who had singlehandedly blocked a vote on lifting the liability cap in May. “Unlimited liability pretty much puts the big nail in the coffin,” said Murkowski spokesman Robert Dillon.

The Republican counter-proposal would have replaced the liability cap with a complicated formula that essentially kept the cap unchanged, keeping the American taxpayer on the hook for any future big oil bailouts.

President Obama has averted the Bush-Cheney depression, and given the US auto industry a fighting chance.  Needless to say, that isn’t the narrative either conservatives or the status quo media want to push right now.

But it’s hard to attack the auto industry directly, especially since it is doing much better than anyone could have expected given overall economic conditions.  And so we have that bastion of the status quo media, the Politico, giving Rush Limbaugh a whole story on his “Obama Motors” spiel and nonsense like this, “Limbaugh said the Volt, as well as other hybrid automobiles “” such as the Toyota Prius, which sells for roughly $30,000 “” are nothing more than an expensive way to promote the environmentalist agenda.”

In fact, plug-in hybrids are not merely a core climate solution, but electricity is the only alternative fuel that can lead to energy independence.  The world’s top energy economist from the traditionally staid and conservative International Energy Agency warned last year of impending peak oil: “We have to leave oil before oil leaves us.” It is PHEV and EV — or bust!

And so the only hope for the US auto industry in the medium term and beyond is more fuel-efficient cars, which, thankfully, the administration understands (see “White House rolls out details of fuel economy, emissions standard “” The biggest step the U.S. government has ever taken to cut CO2“).

But you’d never know that from the Politico or Limbaugh.  Indeed, Limbaugh wants this Administration to fail so badly that, the Politico notes, he’s willing to do his part to help GM fail:

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Some have said [California's climate and clean energy] law will have a negative impact on minorities and low-income families, who have already been hit hard by the recession. As two female business leaders of color, we know better. And so do two out of three Californians who support the law, according to a just-released Public Policy Institute of California poll.

That’s from a terrific opinion piece in the San Jose Mercury News, by Teresa Alvarado and Shellye Archambeau.  Alvarado, a civil & environmental engineer, is former executive director of the Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley.  Archambeau is CEO of software company MetricStream and a Silicon Valley Leadership Group board member.

The whole thing is worth reading:

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Fossil Fuel Subsidies Are 12 Times Support for Renewables, Study Shows

Global subsidies for fossil fuels dwarf support given to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power and biofuels, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said.

Governments last year gave $43 billion to $46 billion of support to renewable energy through tax credits, guaranteed electricity prices known as feed-in tariffs and alternative energy credits, the London-based research group said today in a statement. That compares with the $557 billion that the International Energy Agency last month said was spent to subsidize fossil fuels in 2008.

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UPDATE:  United Mine Workers members respond below.

Kentucky’s extremist GOP Senate candidate, Rand Paul, has said, “I believe business should be left alone from government.” That even extends to his state’s own accident prone mines, as TP reports:

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BP’s expected oil disaster fine: $17.6 billion.

Scientists confirm the Deepwater Horizon explosion, which released 5m barrels of oil, was the worst accidental spill ever….

At its peak, the BP well was spewing 62,000 barrels a day, according to the federal team, which is higher than the original worst-case scenario of 60,000….

In June [Anadarko] chairman and chief executive, Jim Hackett, said BP’s actions probably amounted to “gross negligence or wilful misconduct”.

Homo ‘sapiens’ sapiens prefer to repeat history than learn from it.  But if we were inclined to learn something about the greatest fossil fuel disaster we face from this current, second greatest of disasters, it might be that one should plan for the plausible worst-case scenario — and plan even harder to prevent it.

Unlike climate change, however, the primary fossil fuel company responsible for this disaster is actually paying massively for its failure to invest in prevention — and it is going to be paying a lot more, as Think Progress reports:

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Our favorite climate de-crocker, Peter Sinclair has two — count ‘em! — new videos for this endless summer, taking on Inhofe, Christy, and the global cooling myth:

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