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Four principles that should guide federal climate change policy

The following was written before and during NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg’s address to the U.S. Mayors Conference on Friday, Nov. 2. Technical problems and, um, life intervened, so I’m only now getting it up. Sorry. Michael Bloomberg: Pro carbon tax, anti ethanol subsidies Photo: U.S. Mayors Conference Well, here I am, in a restaurant on […]

Public hits the streets to rally for global-warming action

Speaking of people who make it difficult for us to maintain our well-earned cynicism, Saturday’s Step It Up 2 climate rallies were, by all accounts, a grand success. Following up on the first Step It Up in April, the movement — spearheaded by author Bill McKibben — spurred some 1,000 rallies across the U.S. From […]

The full text of Clinton’s plan

Here is Hillary Clinton’s comprehensive new climate and energy plan, just introduced: —– Powering America’s Future: Hillary Clinton’s Plan to Address the Energy and Climate Crisis Hillary understands that we face two immense energy and environmental challenges: a growing climate crisis, and an increasing reliance on foreign oil that is driving up energy costs for […]

Clinton lays out her new energy policy

UPDATE: The full transcript of the speech is here. Hillary is getting ready to unveil her new energy strategy in a speech in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Afterwards, her campaign advisors will be taking questions from the media. I’ll be live-blogging the speech, below: Climate change is bad; high energy prices are bad; importing all our […]

U.S. mayors hit Seattle to plot climate strategy and get a dose of hope

More than 100 mayors from across the U.S. gathered in Seattle late last week to share lessons from their efforts to address climate change, producing the world’s first climate conference that didn’t lead to a spike in Prozac sales. Perhaps it was the uncharacteristic sunshine in the Emerald City, but mayors could barely contain their […]

7 easy steps to reduce your carbon emissions

Grist’s valiant leader was on the Today show this morning. Check it out: Seven steps to save energy

Videos from PowerShift

The PowerShift youth climate conference, which has been going on in D.C. all weekend, is, from all reports, kicking ass. Our own Brian Beutler is there and will be writing a report shortly. For now, the best place to read about the ongoing events is the blog Its Getting Hot In Here. Here are some […]

Hillary’s energy plan expected today

Over the course of Monday and Tuesday, Hillary Clinton is going to introduce her new energy plan — "Powering America’s Future: New Energy, New Jobs” — with a few speeches and briefings. I will, naturally, be covering it like a static-clingy blanket. If anyone out there in blog land runs across interesting links or documents […]

Working with cities to create markets for green products

My first impression of Clinton was that he’d just woken up, or that he was under the weather. He had a little bedhead, his voice was a bit croaky, and he was speaking slowly. This definitely wasn’t the virtuoso Clinton of the 1998 SOTU. The fireworks were mostly muted, though there were a few flashes […]

Pollution prevention and preparing for the future

The final part of "MidEast Oil Forever?" (subs. req'd) discusses pollution prevention.

I think the discussion still holds up, and as you can see, I am no Johnny-come-lately to the global warming issue. What is particularly sad about the Bush administration, is that while they eschew the anti-clean-technology rhetoric of Reagan and Gingrich -- indeed claim to be pro-clean-technology, they have gutted some of the best clean tech and energy efficiency programs. In particular, they have slashed the budget for the Energy Department's major pollution prevention effort, the Industries of the Future program (described briefly in the article), and the president has proposed zeroing it out entirely.

This administration's energy and climate policy make the final sentence of this article, sadly, as true as ever: "Only a misbegotten ideology could conceive a blunder of such potentially historic proportions."

Here is what we wrote: