Sadly, overt Republicans in the Senate are joining covert Republicans like ultra corrupt Montana Senator Max Baucus to try to block meaningful action to fight Global Warming. While the big money flows in from Big Oil and Big Coal, the planet deteriorates. From a recent Care2 Action Alert email on behalf of the Environmental Defense Fund:

Global warming is melting glaciers in every region of the world, putting millions of people at risk from floods, droughts and lack of drinking water.

Act now to tell the Senate that we need a strong climate change bill.

Glaciers are ancient rivers of compressed snow that creep through the landscape, shaping the planet's surface. They are the Earth's largest freshwater reservoir, collectively covering an area the size of South America.

The site World View of Global Warming has some excellent Before and After photos of glaciers showing that they are getting smaller. The corporate interests and their shills try to make Global Warming seem like this distant, or even imaginary problem. We already are in the period of human made climate change, and the consequences we've already seen are frightening. Here's are two that the petitioners want you to be aware of that corporate interests do not.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and India's Energy and Resources Institute predict that much of the Himalayas could be glacier free by 2035.

Two billion people rely on meltwater from Himalayan glaciers for their fresh water.

The petition page's text does an excellent job of summarizing the politics.

The U.S. House passed a landmark bill that would for the first time set a legal limit on America's global warming pollution. Now all eyes are on the Senate where the climate legislation is expected this Fall.

But the right wing is obsessed with fighting this legislation and have pulled out all the stops. Since announcing her resignation, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has joined forces with ExxonMobil, Rush Limbaugh and other climate obstructionists and will undoubtedly resurrect the right-wing "Drill-Baby-Drill" mantra!

America has a clear choice. We can follow Palin and the extreme right or unleash a clean energy future. Now is the time to end the threat of run-away global warming. Sign the petition and urge your Senators to support the strongest possible global warming bill!

It's interesting that Palin, Limbaugh, and Excon Mobile all are notoriously homophobic. Hateful and irresponsible behavior often knows no bounds.

Please Sign the Petition!

Photo: A Siegel