Articles by Ana Unruh Cohen

Global warming and the courts

We all know about climate skeptics getting funding from corporate entities with an interest in preventing the U.S. from taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But did you know they are influencing the courts as well? Check out Eric Schaeffer's piece from Sunday's Washington Post to learn the sad truth.

And to learn more about the case in question and why the Supreme Court should take it up, read this piece (PDF) by two smart lawyers, Jennifer Bradley and Timothy J. Dowling, at the Community Rights Counsel.

As the windmill turns: A native perspective

Who would have thought my sleepy little home town of Corpus Christi and nearby Padre Island would be in the news so much this year. First dead-eye Dick Cheney shoots his friend in the face at a ranch nearby, and the victim is whisked to our local hospital. Now the largest wind farm in the U.S. is slated for waters a little ways down the coast. (This picture showing the location of the wind farm even includes the town of Armstrong, near the Armstrong Ranch where the hunting of quail and shooting of friends took place!)

So as you might guess, the news of the new wind farm caught my attention.

Insuring pork

Two articles in the Washington Post jumped out at me this morning. Neither is explicitly "green," but both have important environmental implications.

The first, "Insurers Retreat from Coasts, Katrina Losses May Force More Costs on Taxpayers," was front-page, above the fold -- even in my waffle-deprived state I couldn't miss it. What the story missed was any mention of the idea that perhaps the role of governments -- local, state, and national -- was not as an insurance backstop for development exposed to high risk of natural catastrophes, but as preventer of such development in the first place. Insurance policy is not my forte, and after reading the article I can't say which competing proposal would be better, but I'm sure a better policy than either would be preventing development in some these areas. Better policy, for sure, but more difficult politics ...

And as Michael Grunwald makes clear in his "Pork by Any Other Name," in this day and age politics beats policy every time. To quote him, "Congress often seems to have devolved into a policy-free zone, where pork not only greases the wheels of legislation, but is the very purpose of legislation."

Really shameless plugging

Turns out CSPAN2 will be carrying our Climate & Culture panel live on Thursday at 12:30 pm EDT. Tune in or watch it here. It's not Vanity Fair, but it's a start ...