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One of the most darkly farcical moments in the proceedings of the Senate environmental public works committee - the key environmental body in the upper house of the United States Congress - occurred in September 2005, when Republican Senator James Inhofe, the chairman, invited Michael Crichton to speak as a star witness during hearings on global warming.
Crichton had questioned if human activity caused climate change in his novel, State of Fear. As such, he was welcomed by global warming sceptics like Inhofe, who memorably described climate change as "the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on the American people".
With the Democrat congressional victory last month, environmentalists hope that such episodes as seeking evidence on a scientific issue from a thriller writer will be consigned to history's dustbin. Inhofe's successor is Senator Barbara Boxer, the liberal Democrat from California, who will take control in January when the 110th Congress convenes. Boxer is expected to reshape the US response to global warming. "Time is running out and we need to move forward on this," she said shortly after the Democrat win.
Boxer is likely to focus on hard science, perhaps starting with the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is due to make its next report - not expected to be reassuring - early next year.
While Inhofe received the lowest score from the League of Conservation Voters, Boxer got a 93 per cent rating. "She feels climate change is one of gravest crises we face," says Manik Roy, the director of congressional affairs with the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change. "Whereas Inhofe held hearings trying to prove climate change is a hoax, Boxer will create a more rational debate that looks at the science of climate change, business realities, policy measures and how much they will cost."
Boxer plans to use California as a template for federal legislation on global warming. The US's most populous and wealthiest state has led the revolt against the Bush Administration on the issue. This year California became the first state to pass a law, with support from Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, to cut carbon emissions from vehicles. The state also championed a landmark Supreme Court case, arguing the US Government should curb man-made CO2 emissions that disrupt climate.
Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker-elect and a fellow Californian, echoes this stance. Last July, she co-sponsored the Safe Climate Act with veteran Democrat Henry Waxman, another Californian. The bill died but its cap-and-trade policy to curb C02 emissions and promotion of alternative energy over subsidies to Big Oil are Democrat priorities.
"There's a lot of momentum building for global warming legislation," says David Doniger, climate policy director with the National Resources Defence Council. "Whether it will be in the next Congress or has to wait until we have a new president isn't clear. But, either way, a lot of spadework will have to be done. And it will be done now the Democrats control Congress and control the agenda."
At the same time, there has been a perceptible public shift on the issue since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. This awareness has yet to mutate into urgency but there is a growing sense that something must be done. "We have 300 city mayors committed to meeting the goals of the Kyoto Protocol," says Eric Antebi, national spokesman for the Sierra Club, the largest US environmental group.
Environmentalists keen for action after years in the political wilderness, while the GOP held Congress, believe global warming is reaching a tipping point in the US heartland. At the same time, business is exploiting a growing market for alternative energies even as corporate leaders express frustration at the lack of federal leadership on setting a national CO2 emissions standard.
But while Democrats control Congress they don't have the White House, where President George W. Bush has evinced views more in keeping with Inhofe than Boxer. Political reality suggests change at the top will still be a hard road. Take the House of Representatives, where Boxer's equivalent will be Congressman John Dingle, the incoming chairman of the energy and commerce committee. While Boxer represents conservation-minded California - even Republicans care about green issues - Dingle comes from Michigan and has ties to the almost moribund US car industry.
"The question for him is, 'Is there a way to battle global warming that will help the car industry rather than burden it'," says Doniger. This is a key issue. Transportation accounts for two-thirds of US oil consumption and 27 per cent of its CO2 emissions. How can Dingle fight global warming without harming his constituency?
In a recent Science paper, An Ambitious Centralist Approach, Doniger advocates a cap-and-trade solution whereby Detroit's Motor City sells emissions allowances to the oil and power industries, using the profits to reforge itself as a clean-tech carmaker.
"We can retool a key industry that causes the problem [of CO2 emissions] and turn them into part of the solution," says Doniger. This pragmatic approach could revolutionise the US's industrial infrastructure; a major priority as the US produces 25 per cent of the world's CO2 emissions. Indeed, says Antebi, global warming is helping drive California's burgeoning clean tech industry, which is reshaping Silicon Valley with new technologies from solar to electric cars.
"If you look at global warming as a problem only, it will be hard to bring everyone to the table," he says. "But if you look at it as an opportunity to create a new generation of manufacturing jobs, and to revitalise some industries in this country that desperately need modernising, then the negative can be a positive." He cites a Sierra Club alliance with US steel workers. "Instead of importing wind turbines from Denmark, we can make them here with US steel."
But confronting global warming means facing political realities. One involves bringing Congress, and the public, up to speed with a national discussion on climate change - something that has yet to happen. This will be one of the crucial tasks facing Boxer and Dingle in their hearings.
And while the Democrats enjoy a handy majority in the House, they depend on two Independents for control of the Senate, a precarious margin in which bipartisanship is essential.
Schwarzenegger's support for curbing carbon emissions in California, an issue promoted by state Democrats, shows this is possible. While the Governor helped resurrect his political career by embracing environmental issues, Republican Richard Pombo, the "invincible" Californian congressman and Big Oil pal who worked to eviscerate the Endangered Species Act, was vanquished by Jerry McNerney, a freshman Democrat who has worked as an engineer promoting alternative energies.
Of course, there's still the President. Despite past promises to curb CO2 emissions and an admission that the US is "addicted to oil", Bush has been consistently hostile to confronting climate change and may veto Democrat efforts. Still, given the President's dismal poll ratings and his search for a "legacy" other than the Iraq quagmire, some have dared hope he might come part way towards Democrats.
"It's the Nixon-goes-to-China theory," says Roy, with reference to President Richard Nixon's surprise visit to China as domestic opposition to the Vietnam War intensified. "It can't be ruled out as ridiculous." Certainly, confronting global warming would help restore the US's prestige and give it the moral stature to persuade China, India and other developing nations to cut their rising CO2 emissions.
"Looking to the future, the Little Ice Age in American policy on global warming seems to be coming to an end," says Doniger.
