That's not the planet you see heating up - it's the 60-day Washington legislative session getting ready to boil over as the politics of global warming and transportation gets under way.

To bring you up to speed: If you remember last November, when Proposition 1 - the roads-and-transit tax package failed - there were promises by lawmakers that something would be done about the state's traffic mess.

King County Ron Sims, who turned against Prop 1 because, as he argued, it cost too much and would exacerbate global warming, promised to help Gov. Chris Gregoire pass tolling and/or congestion pricing measures during this legislative session. So did Mayor Greg Nickels. And Gregoire is proposing tolls to replace the Highway 520 bridge across Lake Washington.

Gregoire just upped the ante: She's calling for a legislative package that would limit greenhouse gas emissions beginning in 2012 and give the state Department of Ecology the authority to regulate those emissions. It also would require big polluters to track their carbon dioxide releases beginning next year, with annual emissions reports starting in 2010.

And Gregoire's plan would set up a clean jobs training fund that would begin doling out money next year to prepare workers for employment in the renewable energy sector, biofuels production and other areas of green power.

It's difficult to know whether any of these things will get done in a short legislative session that comes during a politically charged year that sees a lot of legislative seats up for grabs, as well as presidential politics working their weird magic. Also, there are a lot of questions about the effect on businesses of the governor's global-warming measures. For example, which businesses will qualify for the clean jobs training fund? 

Meanwhile, a lot of politicians will be focused on getting re-elected, and, because of that, bold leadership and big changes are often easy to announce but hard to follow through on. If you stumble while you walk boldly, your stumble becomes fodder for your opponent.

If anything, the politics of transportation and global warming will provide great campaign fodder for Republicans and Democrats, and, perhaps most important, Gregoire and Rossi as they prepare to battle each other again in the race for governor.

This is fun for the political junkies among us, but not so fun for those among us who'd like to see some problems get solved, including the need for more investment in clean technologies and energy alternatives, as well as more investment in aging infrastructure and public transportation.

In times like these it's good to know we're not the only ones struggling to figure out the traffic and environmental problems we face. For example, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine it criss-crossing his state to stump for a controversial plan to drastically increase highway tolls. Corzine's direct goal isn't to curb global warming or to clean up traffic messes - he wants to save the state from financial ruin. But you can see how his plans would indirectly attack traffic and environmental problems.

Here's the interesting thing: Some pundits, and members of the public as well, like Corzine's plan, partly because they trust his background in finance: On Wall Street, Corzine was co-chairman of Goldman Sachs.

It's not out of the ordinary to imagine Rossi, depending on the outcome of the politics of transportation and global warming during the current 60-day session, will try, as he did in his first run against Gregoire, to cast himself as the guy who understands Wall Street, who understands how to balance a budget and who has the ability to invest prudently in the state's transportation infrastructure.

But he's also going to have to figure out what to say about global warming, a topic much on the minds of young workers, baby boomers and the Democrats who dominate the county he needs to do well in: King.

It's not out of the ordinary to imagine that Gregoire knows this and, whether or not her global-warming or toll-road proposals go anywhere, she'll be able to tell voters something Rossi can't: She's leading the charge to solve these problems despite the ineptitude of some lawmakers.

Then again, if nothing gets done, the story can be told in a different way.

Stay tuned.