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Al Gore: Not retarded

Chris Rock, in this week’s issue of Life, on the ’08 elections: LIFE: In the first movie you directed, Head of State, you were president of the United States. Is this country ready for an African American president? ROCK: It’s ready for a retarded president, why wouldn’t it be ready for an African American president? […]

Did you know ‘biodiversity’ means gay marriage?

Over at The New Republic, Brad Plumer has a nice rundown on the whole green evangelical “creation care” thing. Most of it is probably familiar to readers of this site, but some bits are worth pulling out. First of all, there’s … this: “I’ve learned the hard way that, for instance, you can’t use the […]

Colorado’s inmates-as-farmworkers plan says plenty about our food culture

Last summer, the Colorado General Assembly passed some of the nation’s most rigorous anti-immigrant policy laws. Debate was fierce — but only because some GOP lawmakers fumed that the Democratic-engineered crackdown wasn’t draconian enough. How times have changed. Essentially, the state’s political elite — backed editorially by The Denver Post — took aim at its […]

The damming question

It's been 50 years since Celilo Falls in Oregon was buried by the Dalles Dam to create 800 megawatts of power, but the memory of the great salmon runs lost live on through the tribes who migrated again this year to the spot to mourn the day. Orion Grassroots Network member group Save Our Wild Salmon opined eloquently in the Oregonian this week about the choices our society made for green power.

What should be the cost of skepticism?

Every few months, it seems, someone comes out with the great idea about how people who are wrong in the climate-change debate should have something really bad done to them. Who can forget our very own David's, ahem, indiscretion? Or Heidi Cullen and her suggestion to strip skeptical meteorologists of their AMS credentials?

Over on Roger Pielke Sr.'s Climate Science blog, guest blogger Hendrik Tennekes suggests some tit-for-tat:

More than once I have dreamed of regulations that would cut the retirement pay of climate modelers in half if their forecasts proved off the mark at their retirement. Such an arrangement would also help them keep their feet on the ground concerning the prediction horizon of climate scenarios.

What's interesting is Tennekes doesn't mention what should happen to scientists who claim that climate change is not happening, yet turn out to be wrong. Perhaps they should have their retirement taken away, too?

Why it hasn’t gotten anywhere

For two generations now, various governments and corporations have been trying to build a pipeline to bring natural gas from the Mackenzie River delta north of the Arctic Circle, south to consumers in the Canadian provinces, and potentially to the American Midwest as well.

It hasn't gotten anywhere for a variety of reasons.

Across the country, legal students rally to beat global warming

The Gore Tour Stops in D.C.

This coming Sunday, former Vice President, Oscar winner, and rock 'n' roll organizer Al Gore will address a group of more than 400 leading CEOs, COOs, nonprofit leaders, politicians, court justices, attorneys general, law school professors and Deans, entrepreneurs, and environmental professionals.

Only most of them are still in law school.

This Sunday, Gore will give the closing address at the 17th Annual Conference of the National Association of Environmental Law Societies, The Future of Environmental Protection, hosted this year by the George Washington University Law School. His inspirational words will no doubt have a profound effect on a group whose actions over the next 50 years will play a central role in the future of the planet.

I can’t believe I just wrote that line

A (projected) group of thousands of people representing 45 environmental and other organizations will be convening in Washington, D.C., next Tuesday to tell our reps on Capital Hill that we want action on climate change now — before it’s too late for polar bears the Arctic. According to their website: Action day will begin at […]

Kids these days

Seriously. These guys recharge their electric mowers with solar panels on top of their vans.

Crazy kids. What will they come up with next?

Even with the proposal as low as 4 percent per year

This sad but predictable. The UAW has consistently been one of the most anti-environmental unions in the country. What excuse they can come up with now that climate change is an established fact and U.S. automakers are getting creamed by Toyota is beyond me. It is simply myopic thinking in the extreme. And Bush's proposal is only for a 4 percent increase in fuel efficiency per year! This is one of those issues that don't break down neatly across the political spectrum.