The Republican side remains empty during the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee markup on climate change legislation in Washington on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2009. All Republicans except one boycotted the start of committee debate, protesting that the bill's economic costs have not been fully examined. (AP)

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The global climate conference next month in Copenhagen has had a long drum roll of sky-high expectations.

This is it, the world has been told as recently as last month by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The make-or-break moment on reining in climate change.

Apparently the U.S. Senate did not get that memo. A comprehensive climate change bill has faced tough going there. Republicans boycotting the whole process. Democrats divided and afraid of economic fallout. The clock ticking.

This hour, On Point: One month before Copenhagen, where the U.S. stands.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Margaret Kriz Hobson, energy and environment correspondent for National Journal. She wrote recently about “the Senate’s climate-change dealmakers.”  She also writes a federal column for the Environmental Law Institute’s Environmental Forum magazine.

Dave Hamilton, director of the Sierra Club’s global warming and energy program.

Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat from Ohio. He wants Congress to provide free allowances under the cap and trade program to companies that need to transition to using cleaner burning fuels and manufacturing green energy products. He is also pushing Senate Democrats to require that importers pay a carbon dioxide fee for products made in countries that don’t control their greenhouse gases.

I think the most important question with this initial foray is not so much what it leads to next for the United States but whether or not this has an effect of helping the United States to play a leadership role in international negotiations to put in place a post-Kyoto Protocol climate regime…

Two countries in particular will hold huge sway in those negotiations: India and China. In India, the Environment Minister’s office issued a statement in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. bill’s passage that seemed less than promising for future negotiations: “India cannot and will not take emission reduction targets because poverty eradication and social and economic development are first and over-riding priorities.”

In China, which now leads the world in greenhouse gas emissions, news of the U.S. climate effort got a mixed review. The government-backed China Daily ran with the headline, “China Unhappy With U.S. Climate Bill.” A government minister, though, gave a more equivocal response:

We think that we should give a positive evaluation to this bill…. But in the area of tackling climate change, especially on the issue of cutting emissions, if they could take some more positive, effective measures it would give a bigger impetus to the year-end talks.

As Prof. Stavins said today during our hour, little matters if China and India don’t get involved. The math is simple: if China and India fail to take action, it will be impossible to avert reaching the amount of carbon in the atmosphere that many scientists now believe would create dangerous warming.

And just to complicate matters, another of our guests today, John Broder of The New York Times, has written that some tariff provisions in the House bill — which would penalize countries that don’t accept a carbon cap — are generating controversy. Indeed, those provisions could alienate the very allies the U.S. needs in Copenhagen.

Sunflower Electric Cooperative's coal-fired power plant in Holcomb, Kansas, seen in 2007. (AP)

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President Obama came to Washington promising to break the gridlock on climate change. He claimed an historic victory last week, when the first bill ever to cap carbon emissions passed the House on Friday.

But the celebrations were short lived. Critics, left and right, say the bill is a mess: that it will weigh down a struggling economy. That it’s so riddled with giveaways that it does little to address global warming.

So what exactly is in the bill? Will it stand up in the Senate? And what does it mean for a warming planet?

This hour, On Point: unpacking the climate bill.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is John Broder, a reporter for The New York Times. He’s been covering the climate bill in Congress, and his piece in today’s paper takes a close look at the horse trading behind the House bill’s passage.

From New York we’re joined by Elizabeth Kolbert. She’s a staff writer for The New Yorker, where she reports extensively on climate change.  Her most recent piece, “The Catastrophist,” profiles climate scientist and activist James Hansen.

And with us in our studio is Robert Stavins. A top environmental economist, he’s a professor of business and government at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and director of its Environmental Economics Program. He also co-chairs the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements. His forthcoming book is “Post-Kyoto International Climate Policy.”

More links:

Climate blogger Joseph Romm says passing the House bill involved some real twisting of arms. The Wall Street Journal’s “Environmental Capital” blog explains how the bill helps green building efforts. And the environmental news site Grist reports that efficiency efforts were weakened as the bill was hashed out.

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Nature can be deceiving. To understand it, you’ve got to stop the mad rush of life, smell the proverbial roses, sit calmly and watch.

But nature itself, on a summer’s day, is anything but calm and relaxed. So says biologist Bernd Heinrich in his new book, “Summer World.”

Birds, bees, plants and sharp-toothed mammals stick by a tight schedule. They have hidden agendas and trade secrets. They perform tasks and duties as diligently as any hard-working farmer.

This hour, On Point: The world of summer, with naturalist Bernd Heinrich.

You can join the conversation. Are you paying attention? What’s going on outside your window? Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Guest:

Joining us in our studio is Bernd Heinrich, professor emeritus of biology at the University of Vermont and a contributor to Scientific American, American Scientist, Audubon and Outside. He’s the author of many books, including “Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival.” His new book is “Summer World: A Season of Bounty.”

Read Heinrich’s introduction to “Summer World” (pdf).

The SkyTrough using ReflecTech Mirror Film is unveiled in Arvada, Colo., Monday Oct. 6, 2008. (AP Photo/SkyFuel)

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Everybody’s talking about a Green New Deal — a giant push into green energy, green technology, green retrofitting — that would put America back to work, and save the planet, too!

Sounds like a great deal, and Barack Obama is beating the green drum every time he talks about the economy.

But with oil prices plunging and the economy in full swoon, does the green dream still add up? Environmentalists say it has to. Economists say watch your step. T. Boone Pickens has shelved his wind farm.

This hour, On Point: The green dream, the Green New Deal — and what the age of Obama can deliver.

You can join the conversation. Is this the moment to go full throttle green? Or not?
Are you ready for the green New Deal?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

From New York, we’re joined by John Carey, senior correspondent for BusinessWeek magazine. He covers science, technology, and the environment, and writes for the magazine’s “Green Business” blog.

Joining us from Menlo Park, California, is Josh Green. He’s a general partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm with $2 billion under management. He helps lead the firm’s “Powering the Planet” portfolio, which focuses on clean-tech companies. The firm has been making clean-tech investments since 2003, in everything from solar technology to electric cars and fuel cells.

And from Los Angeles, we’re joined by Matthew Kahn, professor of economics at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and a research associate for the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Environmental and Energy Economics Group. He’s author of “Green Cities: Urban Growth and the Environment.”

More links:

Elizabeth Rosenthal at The New York Times examines how the global economic slowdown may make investments in clean energy more difficult.

The New Republic’s Bradford Plumer argues that the economic crisis is a perfect time to institute a cap-and-trade system.

Rebecca Smith at The Wall Street Journal explores the challenges of clean energy amid the economic downturn.

(AP File Photo)

The G-8 leaders of seven industrialized nations plus Russia — minus India and China — have barely sat down this week in Japan, and already their work on the global environment is being written off as too little, too slow, too politicized.

But by most scientists’ estimations, we — as a planet — don’t have time to fool around. The climate change hammer, they say, is coming down.

Some communities are moving ahead on their own. Could that work? From the ground up? We check it out.

This hour, On Point: From an island in Denmark to your town, direct action on the climate.

- Tom Ashbrook

* * *

Guests:

Elizabeth Kolbert, staff writer at The New Yorker and author of “Field Notes from a Catastrophe.” Her latest article is “The Island in the Wind: A Danish Community’s Victory Over Carbon Emissions.”

Lester Brown, founder and president of Earth Policy Institute and author of “Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.”

The Senate debates a global warming bill this week — and its backers say it’s made to save the planet.

It is huge legislation that would cap CO2 emissions and — to fight climate change — would radically reshape the US economy and energy use.

No one thinks it’s going to pass this year. But Barack Obama and John McCain both favor something like it. Action is coming.

Critics say it will cripple the American economy — put us on a par with Haiti and Somalia. Backers say we must do it, and it won’t break the bank.

This hour, On Point: Climate crunch time, and the urgent economics of saving the planet.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Andrew Revkin, environment reporter for The New York Times, he writes the paper’s Dot Earth blog and is author of “The North Pole Was Here: Puzzles and Perils at the Top of the World.”

William Nordhaus, professor of economics, Yale University, member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers in the Carter Administration and author of the new book “A Question of Balance: Weighing the Options on Global Warming Policies.”

Joseph Romm, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and editor of climateprogress.org, he was a top official at the Department of Energy in the Clinton Administration. He is author of “Hell and High Water: Global Warming–The Solution and The Politics.”

The Irrawaddy delta in Myanmar is underwater, thousands dead, and environmentalists say it’s global warming. Monster tornadoes are plaguing the U.S. — last weekend in Missouri, Oklahoma and Georgia.

Meanwhile, far away, on the west coast of Alaska, the tiny fishing village of Kivalina is falling into the sea. And its attorneys are suing 24 oil, coal and electric companies, saying their emissions are responsible.

Sound crazy? These same attorneys fought over Big Tobacco, and Big Tobacco lost.

This hour, On Point: the courts and climate change.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Juliet Eilperin, environment and national politics reporter for The Washington Post.

Steve Susman, co-lead counsel in the case of “Native Village of Kivalina and City of Kivalina v. Exxon Mobil,” founding partner at the law firm Susman Godfrey, and former lawyer for Philip Morris.

Steve Berman, co-lead counsel in “Native Village of Kivalina and City of Kivalina v. Exxon Mobil”, managing partner at Hagens, Berman, Sobol & Shapiro, and former anti-tobacco lawyer.

Enoch Adams Jr., chairman of the Kivalina Relocation Planning Committee.

Jeffrey R. Holmstead, former assistant administrator for air and radiation at the United States Environmental Protection Agency and head of the environmental strategies group at the law firm of Bracewell and Giuliani.

Warming in last decades has pushed spring forward — cherry blossom and lilac festivals across the country now celebrated days earlier than ever before. It also means birds are laying eggs earlier than before, or — sometimes — not at all.

It’s this kind of subtle mistiming that could spell disaster for our environment, jeopardizing the bees, birds, frogs and trees, and pushing them into extinction.

Now, more scientists than ever are involved at tracking the changes, and involving citizens — or amateur scientists — to gather data across the country.

This hour, On Point: on Earth Day, we’re talking about global warning’s effect on spring’s timing.

-Jane Clayson

Guests:

Heidi Cullen, climate expert at the Weather Channel and host of “The Climate Code with Dr. Heidi Cullen.”

Andre Dhondt, ornithologist at Cornell University.

Jake F. Weltzin, Executive Director, USA National Phenology Network.

A thousand years ago, from the pueblos of the American southwest to what’s now Cambodia to the wheat fields of northern Europe, the world was in the midst of a great warming.

The years from around 800 to 1300 were a balmy time for some. The Vikings roamed the seas. Europe had lovely long summers.

But for the Mayans of the Yucatan, the Khmer of Cambodia, the pueblo people of Arizona, and more, the great Medieval warm-up was a disaster.

This hour, On Point: the great global warming of a thousand years ago, and what it tells us today.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Brian Fagan, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of the new book “The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations.”

Jonathan T. Overpeck, director of the Institute for the Planet Earth at the University of Arizona.

Last week, in the frozen north of Norway, the seeds began to pour into the Global Seed Vault — the “doomsday vault,” some have called it. Five hundred feet of a super-secure cave in an Arctic mountainside is filling now with millions of seeds from all over the world.

As climate change and genetic engineering put new pressures on the traditional spectrum of natural seed, scientists want to preserve an archive, a bank, that could pull us out of a pinch.

This hour, On Point: our food, our options, our genetics, and the global debate over the future of the seed of life.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Claire Hope Cummings, environmental journalist, lawyer, and author of “Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds.”

Michael Fromm, professor and director for the Center of Biotechnology at the University of Nebraska.

Ola Westengen, operations manager of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault and a scientist with the Nordic Genetic Resource Center.

Half of all electricity in America is generated from coal. As oil wanes and world energy demand grows, coal’s role is destined to only grow bigger.

The problem is, coal is dirty. Carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants are a major contributor to global warming.

Five years ago, the Bush administration announced what it called one of the boldest steps the nation has ever taken toward a pollution-free energy future. A big project to bury CO2 in the earth — forever. Last week, it pulled the plug.

This hour, On Point: clean coal dreams in trouble, and what that means for the environment and the economy.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Keith Johnson, reporter for The Wall Street Journal and lead writer on the paper’s “Environmental Capital” blog.

Howard Herzog, principle research engineer at MIT’s Laboratory for Energy and the Environment.

Jeff Goodell, author of “Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future.”

As stock markets around Asia and the world headed south today, India’s finance minister tried to calm the selling: “Look,” he said, “India’s economy is headed for a booming 9 percent growth this year.” So he hopes.

And what will Indians spend that plenty on? India’s industrial giant Tata hopes they will soon be spending it on a new car: the Nano. The cheapest car in the world. $2500 to get your family off the scooter and into a four-door five-seater.

The world’s near-poor may say “hooray.” Environmentalists are shouting “calamity.”

This hour, On Point: a car for the global masses, and what it means for the world.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

John Paul MacDuffie, co-director of the International Motor Vehicle Program at MIT and associate professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

Lee Schipper, director of research for the World Resources Institute Center for Transport and the Environment and visiting scholar at the University of California Transportation Center.

Climate change is on the table this week at the world conference in Bali, Indonesia, and on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

But as the politicians haggle over much-needed climate policy, scientists and venture capitalists, students and inventors, are looking to give us an extreme energy makeover: pursuing breakthroughs in everything from biofuels to green buildings, solar energy to smart grids.

It’s said that technology alone can’t get us out of our climate mess. But neither, they say, can politicians. It’s going to take both.

This hour, On Point: climate change politics and the race to innovate.

-Jacki Lyden

Guests:

Juliet Eilperin, environment and national politics reporter for The Washington Post.

Ron Pernick, co-founder of Clean Edge, a research and consulting firm, and co-author of “The Clean Tech Revolution.”

Daniel Enderton, a Ph.D. candidate in climate physics and chemistry at M.I.T. and co-president of the M.I.T. Energy Club.

John O’Donnell, executive vice president for Ausra, a clean technology company based in Palo Alto, Calif., that focuses on solar power.

Bill Green, managing director at Vantage Point Venture Partners, a venture capital firm with a portfolio of 16 clean tech companies.

Since before history, man and bear have shared hunting grounds and homes: in the caves of Europe, the bamboo forests of China, the mountains and woods of North America. Bears are woven deep in human mythology. Bears as friends, enemies, gods, entertainers, even lovers.

Now, with human populations and appetites so vast and climate change rolling on, the bears are in trouble. Polar bears, grizzlies, the sun bear. By the end of this century, says Robert Bieder, author of “Bear,” only black bears may remain.

This hour, On Point: the bear in myth and history, and bear rescue right now.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Victor Watkins, WSPA (World Society for the Protection of Animals) Wildlife Advisor.

Robert Bieder, author of “Bear” and retired visiting Professor in the Department of History and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, Bloomington.

Last week’s Nobel Prize for Al Gore on climate change has lit up the issue again globally, including on the American campaign trail in the ‘08 race for the White House.

As in no other election cycle in American history, candidates are being aggressively buttonholed on what they would do about global warming. The range of responses is large between Republicans and Democrats, and significant even among the latter.

The most aggressive would mean gigantic emission cuts by the middle of this century. Would they be enough?

This hour, On Point: climate change and the ‘08 presidential campaign.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Juliet Eilperin, national environmental reporter for the Washington Post.

Cathy Duvall, national political director for the Sierra Club.

Ted Nordhaus, co-author of “Break Through: The Death of Environmentalism and the Politics of Possibility.”

James L. McCarthy, shared the Nobel Peace Prize win with other IPCC scientists, Professor of Biological Oceanography at Harvard University.