Yeah, he's been on this bandwagon for a while, but I have to give a nod to this editorial from T.Friedman.

“O.K., you Republicans don’t believe in global warming? Fine. Forget about global warming. That’s between you and your beach house. How about this? Do you believe in population growth? Do you believe in the American dream? Because, according to the U.N., the world’s population is going to grow from roughly 6.7 billion people today to about 9.2 billion by 2050. And in today’s integrated world, more and more of those 9.2 billion will aspire to, and be able to, live like Americans — with American-size cars, homes and Big Macs. In that world, demand for fossil fuels is going to go through the roof — and all the bad things that go with it.

“If we take that threat seriously now and pass an energy bill that begins to end our oil addiction, we can shrink the piles of money we send to the worst regimes in the world, strengthen our dollar by keeping more at home, clean up our air, take away money from the people who finance the mosques and madrassas that keep many Muslim youths backward, angry and anti-American and stimulate a whole new industry — one China is already leapfrogging us on — clean-tech. Nothing would improve our economic and national security more, yet Republicans won’t lift one finger to make it happen.

“They would rather we send more Americans to fight terrorism in the Middle East, let petro-states hostile to our interests get richer and let China take the lead in the next great global industry than ask Americans to pay a little more for the gas they use or the carbon pollution they put into the air. If OPEC, China and Russia could vote, they would be 100 percent supportive of the Republicans.

“How about we stop honoring our soldiers and our military families and start helping them? Nope. The Republican view of fighting the war on terrorism is that rather than ask all of us to make a small sacrifice to weaken our foes and buttress our troops, we should ask only a few of us to make the ultimate sacrifice. And that’s called being tough?”

And yes, I do realize that I just copied and pasted roughly the entire article. Oh well. I like what he says, although I'm not sure that I would limit the blame to Republicans--and he's only doing so because he is directing his thoughts toward the Senate and those casting votes per their party. I do like his appeal to logic and to what is best for the country rather than to dumbly sticking with typical party loyalties.

Not that I really know what I'm talking about, and all this might be a bit idealistic--I can see a few problems and possible hang-ups--but it seems like a step in a better direction.