Take Me To Post Comment Form Talk about bad timing. This week, legislation that would have addressed the issue of climate change finally came up in the U.S. Senate, and it promptly died.

This was about as predictable as the sun rising in the morning. Had the bill been introduced a year ago, it might have had some momentum. The Al Gore movie had stirred up interest in the problem of global warming, and there was a sense of urgency that something needed to be done.

Everyone acknowledges that if we switch over to more sustainable forms of energy, there will be some initial up-front cost. But that seemed acceptable last year, when the economy was still relatively healthy.

Now, of course, the world is freaked out about the high cost of fuel, which in turn is pushing up the prices of just about every other commodity. So anything that might increase the cost of energy, even a tiny bit, is political suicide right now.

We know that in the long run, renewable energy will save us billions of dollars. But with the current gas crunch and the financial strain consumers are feeling, even environmentalists are not eager to see prices go up any further.

So, R.I.P., climate change legislation. Maybe we can revisit the issue next year, when things don't seem so out of control. (Although, if global warming really is the result of human activity, every moment that we delay taking action will only make the problem harder to solve.)