This morning, while 50 of their friends faced another day in jail, 45 more Americans were arrested as part of an ongoing sit-in at the White House. The DC Park Police have been telling organizers of the sit-in that they were keeping the first wave of demonstrators in jail to deter people from taking part in the civil disobedience. In fact, the arrests have just the opposite effect.

Welcome Eli Kintisch, and Host Eric Pooley , author of The Climate War. [As a courtesy to our guests, please keep comments to the book.  Please take other conversations to a previous thread. - bev] Hack the Planet: Science’s Best Hope – or Worst Nightmare – for Averting Climate Catastrophe While the politicians in Washington [...]

For three years, former Time chief political correspondent Eric Pooley has followed the political fight over limiting the amount of carbon pollution emitted by the United States — and the Climate War is his blow-by-blow report from the front. Urgent and timely, the book is a behind-the-scenes page-turner for the green set, a detailed explanation of this country’s national inaction on carbon limits. It’s a rich story of scientists, schemers, politicos and hacks, but the main characters are three men who have tried — and up till now, failed — to forever change the way America uses energy and hopefully help stem global warming.

A brief look at what’s happening in the news on the morning of May 13th, 2010.

Boxer refused to give in to Republican obstruction. Fed up with waiting for the Republicans to stop their boycott, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed their climate and energy bill without a markup, sending the chairman’s mark directly out of committee.