Here at Cool Green Science we love us some Twitter. It gives us access to a huge source of news and views on environmental topics, helps us interact directly with our readers and spread the word about Conservancy projects. (Go to www.twitter.com/nature_org to follow our tweet goodness.)

One of the topics I follow daily on Twitter is the American Clean Energy and Security Act (otherwise known as ACES, otherwise known as Waxman-Markey, otherwise known as the climate bill) — its progress through Congress and how people are reacting to it. Twitter makes it easy to search for all the tweets on terms like this, and I use Tweetie (a program for Macs, there are others for PCs) to keep track of these twitter streams.

I often email what I find on twitter about ACES tweets to my colleagues. Then I thought: Why not throw it up on the blog? So here are five things I learned about ACES last week in just five minutes on Twitter. (Look for this to be a semi-regular feature on the blog, like a hipster’s Cool Green Morning.)

1. The director of the Economics for Equity and the Environment Network thinks ACES is worth passing because it creates a price signal for carbon for the first time, includes provisions to protect low-income consumers from price hikes and will give the Obama administration some clout  in Copenhagen. (@1sky)
2. James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies really, really doesn’t like ACES and thinks the G8 was not impressed by a better-than-nothing approach. Grist’s David Roberts thinks they’d be even less impressed by nothing. (@david_h_roberts)
3. People like the Natural Resource Defense Council’s economic analysis of what ACES would cost the American public. They break it down to  the cost of one pizza-a-month. (@suzistarshine)
4. Twitter superstar and U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) doesn’t like ACES and thinks it should be implemented more gradually. Green Twitterati aren’t impressed. (@vote_green)
5. My personal favorite: There are lots of ways to thank the congressmen who voted for ACES, like getting off the interstate and buying food and gas in their districts. (@JenRennicks)

Want to learn more about The Nature Conservancy on Twitter? Follow @nature_org.

Want to learn about ACES on Twitter? Search #ACES

(image: Twitter fail whale, by libraryman. Used under a Creative Commons license.)

Posted: July 13th, 2009 under Climate Change, Climate Science & Research, Green Living, Media, Policy, United States.
Tags: American Clean Energy and Security Act, claire mccaskill, congress, dave connell, house of representatives, senate, Twitter, Waxman-Markey