A clunky rewording of Joan Robinson’s quip that the “United States crusade against Communism is a campaign against devel­op­ment,” no doubt, but the latest non-sense to emerge from the Senate planning-chamber for class war is a fucking doozy. The bill calls for 20 percent emissions reduc­tions from 2005 levels by 2020, in blazingly sharp contrast to the 17 percent emissions from 2005 levels called for by the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. “Called for” is a key phrase. It’s unlikely that net emissions reduc­tions will actually reach 17 percent due to the eidolons known as “offsets.” No one passed Kerry and Boxer the latest com­pendium summary from the UN, have they? Doubt it. From the Envi­ron­men­tal Program [bear me with while I reword this in English and then explain the colos­sally irre­spon­si­ble stupidity and short-sightedness of the Boxer-Kerry proposal, which I haven’t read]:

With esti­ma­tions of 1–5 degrees Celsius as the range of GMT increase over 1750 levels as the threshold for tipping elements and 0–5 degrees Celsius over 1990 levels as reasons for concern, some researchers are realizing that we have already committed ourselves to sig­nif­i­cant envi­ron­men­tal changes (Lenton et al. 2008, Smith et al. 2009, Ramanathan and Feng 2008). The observed increase in GHG con­cen­tra­tion since 1750 has most likely committed the world to a warming of 1.4–4.3 degrees Celsius, above pre-industrial surface tem­per­a­tures. The equi­lib­rium warming above pre-industrial tem­per­a­tures that the world will observe is 2.4 degrees Celsius—even if GHG con­cen­tra­tions had been %uFB01xed at their 2005 con­cen­tra­tion levels and without any other anthro­pogenic forcing such as the cooling effect of aerosols.

English: we are already committed to severe warming, well  beyond the levels cal­cu­lated to produce calamity in much of the world.

The range of 1.4 to 4.3 degrees Celsius in the committed warming overlaps and surpasses the currently perceived threshold range of 1–3 degrees Celsius for dangerous anthro­pogenic inter­fer­ence with many of the climate-tipping elements such as the summer Arctic sea ice, Himalayan glaciers, and the Greenland Ice Sheet (Ramanathan and Feng 2008). Researchers suggest that 0.6 degrees Celsius of the warming we committed to before 2005 has been realized so far. Most of the rest of the 1.6 degrees Celsius total we have committed to will develop in the next 50 years and on through the 21^st century. The accom­pa­ny­ing sea-level rise can continue for more than several centuries. Lastly, even the most aggres­sive CO2 mit­i­ga­tion steps as envi­sioned now can only limit further additions to the committed warming, but not reduce the already committed GHGs warming of 2.4 degrees Celsius (Ramanathan and Feng 2008).

English again: no mit­i­ga­tion strate­gies can stop warming of 2.4 degrees Celsius....