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Starting in Wash.

It looks like the Washington legislature is going to take up eminent domain soon. According to editorial coverge in the P-I:

A bill this legislative session should require general public notification (beyond Web-based meeting dockets) of condemnation decisions and direct notification of landowners by any government considering using eminent domain to acquire property. Openness is vital.

That sounds like an unalloyed good to me.

NAS smacks Bush admin.

Remember when it seemed like there was some kind of force field around Bush? Like Rove had completely mastered the political game, Cheney ran the geopolitical scene like a puppetmaster, Rumsfeld bestrode the Pentagon, and Congress was packed with courtiers? It was hard to bring to mind, watching Bush give his speech the other night. […]

Plans for the long weekend?

Many folks have a long weekend this week as the nation pauses to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday. And to honor King’s legacy, organizations around the country will be taking part in a day of service. Social, political, and environmental justice are the main focuses of the service events, emphasizing the need […]

A new organization does it for you

As globalization takes off, it's not only governments that have the power to affect millions of lives. We expect to hold democratically elected officials accountable -- but what about unelected bigwigs, CEOs, foundation heads, philanthropists, and NGO leaders?

Turns out it’s high

Reducing our contribution to global warming may be expensive. Global warming itself, however, is likely to be much more expensive.

A quick update

Posting from me will continue to be light for a few days, but I have some announcements of interest.

New climate change bill circulating the Hill

Via The Hill: Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) is floating climate-change legislation on Capitol Hill that he plans to introduce soon. A draft version of the bill has been circulated to several Senate offices and the Energy Information Administration (EIA) will release an analysis of the proposal Thursday, according to Bill Wicker, press secretary for the […]

Green issues will be in the spotlight

The 2008 Democratic Convention will be held in Denver, Colorado. The New York Times wonders if this is a diss to the Big Apple, but I'm celebrating. Holding the Olympics of politics in the West means a spotlight on green issues that have recently helped turned Colorado blue.

Al Gore’s movie booted by wacky school board

Congrats to Seattle P-I enviro reporters Robert McClure and Lisa Stiffler for unearthing the funniest story I’ve read in a good long while. Here’s the nut: The school board in Federal Way, a southern exurb of Seattle, just put a "moratorium" on showings of An Inconvenient Truth, based largely on the complaints of one parent, […]

Year of the Draggin’

China had a cruddy eco-year, still sees big picture more clearly than the U.S. In China, officials are assessing their 2006 eco-successes. The short version: there were none. The somewhat longer version: the country saw a pollution-related accident roughly every two days. Officials got 600,000 environmental complaints, 30 percent more than in 2005. Goals to […]