First, one of my favorite tunes, “Waltzing Matilda,” has nothing to do with dancing.
Second, somebody out there thinks Congress might actually put a climate bill on Obama’s desk this year.
First things first. So I’m singing to my daughter, reworking the lyrics to the “the unofficial national anthem of Australia,” to distract her from her quest to watch videos on my PC, and she cleverly asks to see a “Waltzing Matilda video.” And this is what I find on YouTube:
Turns out the song is about an Australian hobo, who gives the name Matilda to his swag — his “bed roll that bundled his belongings.” Turns out “waltzing Matilda” is slang for traveling with all one’s belongings on one’s back.
Given where Australia is headed — “Australia faces collapse as climate change kicks in” — and for how long (if we don’t act soon and strongly to stop it) — Climate change “largely irreversible for 1,000 years,” with permanent Dust Bowls around the globe — I’m now thinking that Waltzing Matilda will eventually be the official national anthem of Australia. But I digress.
So who is this mystery person who thinks we are on the fast track for climate action?
None other than my friend Jeremy Symons, who called to dispute this post: “Sen. Boxer makes clear U.S. won’t pass a climate bill this year.”
Jeremy is senior vice president for conservation and education at the National Wildlife Federation. Interestingly, until I was researching this post, I thought Jeremy was still executive director of NWF’s Global Warming Program. So congratulations for the well-deserved promotion.
[Note to NWF: You should try to make it easier — or even possible — to find staff bios.]
Jeremy is so confident that there will be a big cap-and-trade bill signed by Obama this year, he bet me dinner anywhere in Washington, D.C. on it — and even agreed to let me blog about it.
Now he is very experienced in the ways of Washington — see a bio here [PDF]– and wise, too, as evidenced by the fact that NWF did not join NRDC and EDF in endorsing the weak, coal-friendly, rip-offset-heavy USCAP climate plan.
But I’m afraid this bet is more of a lock than my “90 percent ice free Arctic” by 2020 bet (see here), though not quite as good as my “hydrogen fuel cell vehicles won’t hit 1 percent of new car and light truck sales by 2015” bet (see here).
I guess I have a gambling problem: People keep wanting to make 50-50 wagers with me that are probably more like 90-10 bets. At the risk of feeding my addiction, are there any other takers out there for this climate-bill-in-2009 bet?
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
