The Senate panel is also advancing legislation that encourages energy efficiency in industrial buildings. It is hard to argue against such a notion and business owners of all political stripes stand to gain from making investments in efficiency. Doing so pays big in retained resources, and saves energy in the offing. What’s not to like?

These are far from the sweeping changes that are probably needed to adequately and immediately address the growing climate problem — marked last week when carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for the first time reached 400 parts per million, a figure thought to signal a dramatic increase in warming — but they are nonetheless meaningful and, perhaps, are the only way to build momentum toward larger changes.