Reply #17: I fear we don't have time to convince the "skeptics."

[OKIsItJustMe]

I'm also becoming convinced that the "ghost filibuster" is going to kill us.

http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=10-P13-00008&segmentID=2

Ghost Filibuster Haunts Climate Action

Air Date: Week of February 19, 2010

...

YOUNG: What is this filibuster, as it is now, this supermajority requirement for everything – what does that mean for legislation on climate change?

GEOGHEGAN: It means we aren't going to have any. As long as there's a supermajority rule, and you know, the 40 Senators from the 20 smallest states in this country represent a population base of 11 percent. Potentially, you could have a measure designed to save the planet that is really stopped by 11 percent of the population of the country.

And there is a real serious question whether states like Montana, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota ought to have a veto on things that are going to affect people in the sub-Sahara, in South America, in Europe. It would be an odd fate for planet Earth to go down the drain because developers in Montana don't particularly like CO2 emission legislation.

...

GEOGHEGAN: Well, as Hamilton in Federalist No. 75 said, the history of every political establishment in which the supermajority has prevailed has a history of impotence, perplexity, and disorder. We can't have government govern unless we have a government capable of acting based on majority rule. And it's not just climate change. I can't think of an environmental issue where the filibuster rule isn't toxic to what environmental groups want to achieve.

...