Foreign powers to not deal with our President?

Especially as the SC DID rule that the EPA could regulate carbon dioxide. As they usually have no role in setting policy, I assume that McConnell is giving a third to each House of Congress!

He ignores that the future really may going in that direction. As more solar/wind is developed, it is natural to expect researchers to work on making it more efficient -- as has always been the case. It is an economic opportunity and a scientific challenge - what more motivation is needed.

Meanwhile - coal is still dirty, dangerous to mine, and will likely become increasingly more expensive as they are forced to pay for their own clean ups - something that will happen while Obama is President.

Yes, I saw the well placed article in USA today this morning about the layoffs in the oil industry hurting the oil states. However, that is NOT coming from anything Obama, the EPA, climate change advocates did --- it is because the oil glut is making some marginal extractions non economic. I predict that as a higher proportion of our energy needs can be met with clean energy at the same price or lower than fossil fuels (once all their costs including clean up is added), there will be a natural push to clean energy.

When this happens, there will be an economic loss for states who profited from fossil fuels. They can blame their own shortsighted legislators, who fought the attempts for a cap and trade system. The main point of all that complexity was to assign a cost to dirty fuels, but to insure that the entire burden of the shift to cleaner fuels was not placed on those few areas. (Senators like Sherrod Brown worked with Kerry to protect the interests of the coal states AS COAL USE WAS REDUCED because it was dirty)

One strong thing Obama and others could do is to encourage new research on those sources and on ways to conserve energy.

The rethugs are confident they have rigged the voting machines to ensure they win both houses and the White House. They are so confident it's scary they probably have full control of the voting machines, the next two years we need to fight back hard and scare them by pushing back.