Climate kudos this week go to the more than 10,000 yoots descending on Washington, D.C., today for Power Shift, the largest national youth conference on climate change to date. These young advocates for climate action will spend the weekend strategizing on how to bring about a green energy future, then they’ll pound the halls of Congress for their lobbying day on Monday. Ah, if only we could harness them as a renewable energy source …
A green thumb also goes to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for kicking coal to the curb at the U.S. Capitol Power Plant. The pair sent a letter to the Acting Architect of the Capitol asking that the plant be converted to 100 percent natural gas by the end of the year. The move comes as several thousand folks gear up for a protest at the plant on Monday, which organizers project will be the largest act of civil disobedience against coal in history. (Bill McKibben says the protest is still on, by the way, only it’ll be more like a party.)
Yet another green thumbs up for Michelle Obama for extolling the virtues of the locally grown carrot. The First Lady got in touch with her inner locavore, telling reporters gathered in the White House kitchen that food grown nearby is just tastier. “My kids are more inclined to try different vegetables if they are fresh and local and delicious.” If we didn’t already have a ginormous crush on you, Michelle, we do now.
Speaking of veggies, we’d like to revoke that green thumb we gave to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack a few weeks ago and give him a double-middle-finger-shakey-fist for not actually intending to grow food in his “People’s Garden,” and not really having many plans at all beyond digging a hole.
We were also going to give a finger to conservative bloviator George F. Will this week for continuing to repeat false information about climate science, stirring up the ongoing tempest over an earlier column he wrote on the topic. To be fair, it’s pretty much Will’s job to promote a conservative ideology, even when the facts are against it. So instead, Grist awards the finger to Washington Post editorial page chief Fred Hiatt, who agreed to publish Will’s misleading screeds, and then, in an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review, defended the decision to run Will’s columns despite their blatant misrepresentations of science. Fred, watch out for lawsuits from the Wall Street Journal and Washington Times opinion editors for infringing on their turf…
