Some Democrats in the U.S. Senate—including Washington's own Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell—staged an all-night "talkathon" on the urgency of climate change legislation last night. But:

The members know that serious climate change legislation stands no chance of passage in this divided Congress, where many lawmakers in the Republican-majority House deny the science of human-caused global warming.

Climate caucus members say their objective is to raise the urgency of global warming and build toward a time when the political landscape may have shifted enough that a bill could pass.

Sigh. Both Murray and Cantwell spoke about how climate change is a threat to jobs and ecosystems the Pacific Northwest, and both pointed to ocean acidification as one already-present danger.