Just after right-wing conservatives worked to successfully block a Senate measure last week that would bring carbon trading to the U.S., their foes in the radical environmental movement launched a cyber protest to try to do the same thing in Europe.

It was a strange if accidental joining of hands across the climate divide, with left and right making common cause over discontent with market-driven carbon trading schemes.

On Friday — one day after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-N.V.) said he lacked the votes to pass a bill with climate policies — activists from Climate Justice Action (CJA) and hacker groups "cyberjacked" the website of the European Climate Exchange (ECX), replacing it with an anti-carbon trading missive and calls for "wider, systemic changes."

The site, which gets around 10,000 hits per month, according to Alexa, provides real-time carbon pricing and volume data. It was offline for much of Saturday.

"Climate for Sale, Guaranteed Profit," a banner splashed across the site said instead.

"The cap and trade system ... generates outrageous profits for big industry polluters, investors in fraudulent offset projects, opportunist traders and new 'marketplaces' such as the European Climate Exchange," it continued.

The EPA has slowed down the approval process of a permit for a new Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline that a few months ago looked like a shoo-in for a State Department rubber stamp by the fall.

The EPA gave the State department's draft environmental impact statement for the 2000 mile pipeline that will cut across the nation's heartland the worst rating possible, noting that if differences between the agencies can't be resolved, the matter could get referred to the White House for resolution.

In response, the State department announced yesterday it intended to add 90 days to the process of making a decision on the pipeline permit to allow the final environmental impact statement to be reviewed by other federal agencies. Observers think that means there will be no decision until sometime next year. 

Last year, a similar pipeline received approval with far less scrutiny. Is environmental security rising to become a matter of primary national interest in the wake of the Gulf oil disaster?

WASHINGTON—One of the keys to sealing a global climate deal is a financial lifeline to help vulnerable countries adapt to climate change. The price tag is reckoned in tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars. Just where will that astronomical amount of money come from?

One California Democrat thinks he has the answer. It comes in the shape of a minuscule tax -- five one-thousandths of one percent -- imposed on financial market transactions made by big time traders.

U.S. Rep Pete Stark, has introduced a bill that would levy the tiny tax on trades of stocks, bonds, foreign exchange, futures and options involving large-scale traders who make more than $10,000 in transactions per year.

“Every day, there are $4 trillion worth of currency transactions,” Stark, a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said via a news release. “The vast majority of these are speculative – banks trying to make a buck by out-guessing the system. This speculation contributed to the last Wall Street crisis and makes our financial system less stable.” 

Revenues from the tax would cover expenses for worldwide climate change mitigation. This includes daunting tasks such as moving homes away from coastlines, transforming agricultural practices and reconfiguring infrastructure.

Pursuing a global climate deal and making Wall Street pay for it might not be perceived as smart election-year politics. But Stark, the longest serving Congressman from California, is running for his 20th term this fall. He represents the East Bay region of the San Francisco area and faces token Republican opposition from Forest Baker on the Nov. 2 ballot.