Global climate legislation has many nicknames. Proponents prefer "cap-and-trade," shorthand for a method of converting greenhouse gases into a scarce commodity. Opponents opt for "cap-and-tax," an emphasis on the penalties big polluters would face if they didn't clean up their act.

The American Clean Energy and Security Act, or HR2454, is as bright of a dividing line as Americans have witnessed in this season of bright dividing lines over stimulus spending, financial bailouts, foreign policy and others.

In a recent interview, the scientist credited as one of the first researchers to document how human activity was warming the planet derided HR2454 as a weak and tepid half-measure. James Hansen, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, applied his rational mind to what is before Congress. His suggestion: Toss it out and pass something that will address climate change before it vastly reshapes how we live.

On the other side are any number of members of Congress and their campaign contributors from the fossil-fuel industry. Over two decades, the standard procedure was to muddy the waters, making a lot of commotion intended to cast doubt where there was little in the scientific community.

When that grows tired, they talk about how the economy will suffer under legislation aimed at slowing climate change. (They leave out the economic ills that might result from hundreds of miles of U.S. coastline being submerged by rising ocean levels or from bruising droughts that destroy crops.)

This faction has plenty of representatives. The most extreme on the day last week when HR2454 was debated may have been Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga. His take on the American Clean Energy and Security Act: Climate change is a "hoax."

Regardless of Broun's uncovering of what at least in his mind is a widespread cabal that has ensnared the vast majority of the scientific world, a collection of the world's leaders and even a majority of the American public, HR2454, as flawed and imperfect as it is, passed in the U.S. House of Representatives last Friday. The vote was 219-212. No thanks to Alabama's congressional delegation; all seven voted against the bill.

The most consistent talking point from the Alabama delegation was not Broun's hoax theory — thank goodness. Instead, the Alabama reps raised concerns that the bill would increase the cost of energy.

The rationale on the other side is that if the use of fossil fuels in energy production will lead to devastating climate change, then those costs must be accounted for. A consensus of scientists with expertise in this field agrees that the cost of doing nothing will be much higher.

Now it's the Senate's turn. It could soon consider a version of the climate change bill, which is supported by President Obama. Its passage there is not guaranteed. Senators could water it down from its already weakened state. They could horse-trade until a bill about climate change includes all manner of bridges to nowhere. They could muster enough votes to vote the bill down. Or they could simply drag their feet until it died of neglect.

Before doing any of the above, senators would be wise to consider something put forth by an award-winning journalist who has put years into serious study of climate change.

In her book, Field Notes from a Catastrophe, Elizabeth Kolbert writes, "It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing."

By voting for cap-and-trade legislation, senators have the power to take a small step in the opposite direction.